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PHILIPSTOWN MOSAIC
Cold Spring... "Edward and Frances"
by Don H. MacDonald
The scandal, for its day, could have stood right up there with anything we’ve seen in recent years. The tabloids, just as today, were offered steamy grist with which to colorfully adorn their front pages. International papers and radio, too, couldn’t pass up seizing a lucrative, gossipy moment. And what a moment it was!
Edward West Browning, a Columbia Law School student and later, real estate magnate, was first married in 1915, divorced in ‘23. The flamboyant millionaire playboy of alleged lewdly amorous leanings, had, in 1926, placed an ad in the papers asking to adopt a young girl to act as companion to one of his two daughters to whom he was awarded custody in the divorce. Momentarily at least, Browning was forced to surrender his quest under harsh media and public outcry. A search perpetrated by such brash means could not be tolerated!
The legendary Hotel McAlpin in Manhattan was, on a March 26th evening in 1926, host to a social function in its ballroom. Edward, with a never-resting eye, caught in his sights a teenaged Irish colleen, Frances Bell Heenan. Next day, and for many following, she was vigorously inundated with luringly expensive gifts, flowers, jewelry and clothing. In no time at all, he became her "Daddy," and she, his "Peaches." His wish was no longer to adopt a daughter - he would woo a young gal to become his wife.
The impetuous romance did, without surprise, catch the ever-alert eye of press, radio and public, and not leastly, the child welfare agencies. On the advent of "Daddy" having to appear in children’s court, the dapper swinger and his little girl ventured stealthily to upstate Cold Spring, via his blue Rolls Royce.
Once in the village their first priority dealt with procuring a marriage license. Obligingly, a local merchant who owned a plumbing shop on Main Street filled their hurried request. "Daddy," 52, and "Peaches," 15, were legally wed in a farmhouse in, or near, Nelsonville, a village just east of Cold Spring. The date was April 10, 1926; exactly 16 days from the couple’s first meeting. A locally prominent Justice of the Peace (as well as part-time cab driver) performed the informal service for the May-December couple. Reputedly, Edward Browning, shortly before his plan of marriage to Frances, had transferred his more valuable realty holdings into a corporation which by law at that time, would have left his new bride without rights in the corporation.
His recent marriage voided any attempts by the children’s court to prosecute Edward on charges of "improper guardianship." He had won the day! Now was time to get on with the honeymoon. A house on Cold Spring’s Paulding Avenue served as honeymoon quarters. In no time at all the house was bombarded daily by city newspaper reporters, trying adamantly to "get a story." Less kindly tabloids would print blaringly that "Peaches’" mother (staying with the bride and groom) watched over her daughter night and day, whether in or out of the house, and that she’d sleep in the same room with her dear Frances.
Six months down the oddly paved road would see the abrupt departure of "Peaches" and her mom from a seemingly demented "Daddy." Frances now felt that she had been mentally and emotionally abused. During the trial in White Plains, beginning in January 1927, fiery accusations of degrading passion, depravity and lewdness, from both sides, emitted additional heat to the testimonies. On a daily schedule, hundreds of frenzied reporters, radio correspondents and a "rubber-necking" public would try spreading into the courtroom, attempting a prized glance at the stars of the lusty show.
At trial’s end in March, Edward Browning found himself exonerated on grounds he had been "taken" by a crafty mothre and daughter who had envisioned, and sought after, a gold mine at the end of their ruse. The judge’s decision could not have been an easy one with which to wrestle - public opinion having been strongly posed in the belief that "Daddy" Browning was nothing more than a spoiled, wealthy eccentric into whose tentacled clutches was drawn a poor, defenseless and innocent lass. "Peaches" Heenan had been awarded a portion of her hubby’s fortune through several ensuing legal manipulations after Edward’s passing. She would continue to claim, however, up until her death in 1956, that such remuneration couldn’t satisfy her standard of living.
Those few April days in 1926 found our Cold Spring caught up in that nationally scandalous moment. And no longer are any of the principal players who performed on that fevered stage with us. All that remains is a withered view of a tempestuous drama that most likely literally placed our village on the map, if only for a brief basking in the sun.
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