The Greenville Times

ED. STOKES.
From Sing Sing to the Society of Bonanza Kings.
[Brooklyn Eagle.]

The career of Edward Stokes is remarkable. I was at Gabe Case's road-house yesterday when he drove up with his beautiful team of flyers, and sprightly alighting to the ground, stepped into the bar room. On every side he was saluted with "Hullo Ed." and hands were stretched out to grasp his as he moved along. Merchants, bankers, brokers, lawyers, millionaires, men about town, gentlemen of leisure, and men of the highest social standing all greeted him warmly, and he was asked by half a dozen to drink with them. Could anything be more extraordinary?

He, as every one knows, is the man who deliberately killed Col. Jim Fisk at the Grand Central Hotel, was tried for murder, and spent several years in a murderer's cell in Sing Sing. When he came out nothing was heard of him for some time until he suddenly splurged out as the proprietor of a swell up-town hotel, which is now famous because it has the most gorgeous bar-room in the world.

Stokes has filled this superb drinking saloon with a collection of statuary and pictures—all studies in the nude—which is perhaps unrivaled in this country. He next appeared as the bosom friend of John W. Mackey, the Bonanza king, who always stops at Stokes' hotel when in New York. After this he took to theatrical ventures by loaning capital to actors ambitious to build theatres. Lately he has begun to erect a theatre himself, though his name is carefully kept in the background, for fear of the prejudice which still exists in the minds of many good citizens against the man who killed the genial and generous Jim Fisk.

His very last move, however, has been in the direction of trotting horses. He splurged out in that direction very suddenly. He jogged up to Fleetwood Park one day behind a pair of keen looking horses, named Lyman and Bell Flower. He bragged rather loudly of their speed, and a match was arranged between them and another team, which Stokes won easily and scooped in more thousand dollars than he had fingers in half an hour. Since then he has been very solid with turfmen, who always admire a man of that kind.

Stokes is still a handsome man, though his face is very deeply lined and his hair gray. He is as vain as when he held the ladies receptions in the Tombs, and dresses with an extravagance unequaled by many millionaires in New York. He is popular among men here, which is a curious thing. One question constantly presents itself—would he have attained his present position of influence and wealth if he had not killed Jim Fisk?