“Yes,” was the reply.
“Do you expect to remain here?”
“Yes, sir,” said Frank, “I hope to spend the remainder of my days in New York. I have been in no place since I left here that I like as well.”
“I suppose,” said Mike, “all of your friends will be glad to see you?”
“Yes, I am sure they will, and I shall be glad to see them.”
Thus they separated. Walsh hastened over to the Pewter Mug on Frankfort Street, Thomas Dunlap proprietor, then known as Tammany Hall. Passing into the bar-room, Walsh exclaimed to those present that he had just seen Frank McLoughlin, and that he had gone to a public-house on the Bowery, and requested his friends to call on him there at once. McLoughlin being a favorite, a great many persons started out to find him, but as it was Sunday they encountered some difficulty in obtaining admittance to the hotel. The bar-keeper there perceived the joke in an instant, and said McLoughlin had been at the hotel, but had gone to John Teal’s, on the corner of Stanton and Forsyth Streets, having left word, if any of his friends should call, they were to go there and see him. Walsh took care to circulate the hoax all over the city, sending people to various points in quest of McLoughlin, who was the bearer, quoth Mike, of many letters and presents to the boys in New York from old acquaintances in California. Proprietors of drinking saloons reaped a large harvest by selling extra quantities of their beverages to the victims of the hoax. In sportive tricks of this sort Mike Walsh was continually engaged.
In 1852 he was nominated for Congress in the Fourth Congressional District, and elected. He served in the House of Representatives for two years, and attracted by his peculiar powers much attention in that body. He was nominated the second time in 1854 by the Hard Shells. The Soft Shells nominated John Kelly. A very bitter and exciting contest followed. Many thought Walsh was invincible in the Fourth District, but his opponent was very popular, and the struggle between them was carried on with great enthusiasm and energy. Mr. Kelly came out the victor, but only with eighteen plurality. The whole number of votes was 7,593, of which John Kelly received 3,068; Mike Walsh, 3,050; Sandford E. Macomber, 824; John W. Brice, 626; James Kelly, 1; and scattering, 24.
After the election Walsh served notice on Kelly that he would contest his seat, on the ground that illegal votes had been cast in the Fourteenth Ward, where the majority against Walsh was quite large. Mr. Kelly at once acted on information that had been given to him by a friend of Walsh’s father, the late John Griffin, that Walsh was not a citizen of the United States, his father not having been naturalized, and he himself having neglected to take out citizen’s papers when he reached the proper age. He was not, therefore, a citizen of the United States. A certificate of his baptism was procured from the parish priest at Bandon, Ireland, where he was born, and Walsh, fearing the result of an exposure, withdrew, and the contest ended.
The subsequent career of Mr. Walsh was a checkered one. He was employed by George Steers, the well-known ship-builder, as his agent to go to Russia to negotiate a contract in his favor to build ships for that Government. Walsh obtained letters of introduction from the Secretary of the Navy of the United States to officials of the Russian Government, and set out on his mission with fair prospects of a successful issue to the business. Instead, however, of conducting the affair well, the unfortunate man fell into riotous living in Europe, and spent the remittances his employer sent to him. He returned to the United States in the steerage of one of the steamships plying between Liverpool and New York.
He was never a candidate for office again, after his memorable contest with Mr. Kelly in 1854. In the winter of 1859 poor Mike, while on his way home one night, slipped and fell down a cellar-way on the 8th Avenue, near 16th Street, and was supposed to have been instantly killed, as he was found dead the next morning by the police. Although at the time it was thought that he had been murdered, the evidence taken at the inquest showed that this was not the case, and the jury returned their verdict that his death was caused by an accidental fall in an open cellar-way. His death called forth expressions of profound sorrow in New York, for, in spite of the infirmities of his nature, Mike Walsh had a powerful hold on the popular mind, and over his new-made grave many an eye was dimmed with unhidden grief, and all that was gentle and noble in his nature was feelingly recalled.