“Help, I think my sister is going to die!” For the first time in 24 years, Ida Wood entered into the hallway of the Herald Square Hotel. Terrified by the state of her sister’s health, Ida opened the door around 4 pm and cried for help. A physician from a nearby hotel entered suite 552 to tend the very sick woman laying on the couch in the 2-bedroom suite. Over the next 24 hours, more people visited the room including the hotel manager, an undertaker, and two lawyers from the firm O’Brien, Boardman, Conboy, Memhard & Early. On March 5, 1931, Ida Wood’s self-imposed seclusion came to an abrupt end.
Ida Wood moved into New York City’s Herald Square Hotel in 1907. Joining her was her sister, Mary E. Mayfield, along with Emma Wood, a woman reported to be Ida’s daughter. The three women lived in seclusion, never opening the door except a crack. Ida claimed to be an impoverished woman, choosing to cut herself off from the rest of the world. Not until the fateful day when Mary took ill did Ida Wood leave her secluded room. Why? Who was this woman?
From Lover to Mrs. Wood
As a young woman, Ida enjoyed reading gossip columns and news about New York’s high society. She longed to belong to this world. In May 1857, she wrote a letter to a man whose name often appeared in the paper. Ida knew that she would never cross paths with Mr. Benjamin Wood unless she contacted him to request a meeting. “Mr. Wood—Sir,” she began. “I venture to address you from learning a young lady, one of your ‘former lovers,’ speak of you. She says you are fond of ‘new faces.’ I fancy that as I am new in the city…that I might contract an agreeable intimacy with you.” Ida went on to state that she was handsome but not as handsome as Mr. Wood’s former lover. Then she professed that she knew a lot, sharing her mother’s wisdom of “Knowledge is power.”
Mr. Wood agreed to meet Ida. According to his reports he found a slender girl with long black hair that was not “bad looking.” Ida told her new lover that her father was a sugar planter in Louisiana named Henry Mayfield and that her mother, Ann Mary Crawford, was a descendant of the Earls of Crawford. They carried on a 10-year affair, finally marrying in 1867 after the death of Mr. Wood’s second wife.
The couple never hid their affair. Ida was charming and no one seemed to mind that they had a daughter, Emma, years before they married. Mr. Wood took Ida to elite social and cultural events as well as political meetings. Reportedly, Ida danced with the Prince of Wales and met President-Elect Abraham Lincoln.
Ida’s lover, and later husband, was the owner and publisher of the New York Daily News (no relation to the current publication) and politician, elected to the US Congress in 1861. His brother was mayor of New York City from 1855-1858 and in 1861 and 1862. Benjamin Wood professed the importance of peace, advocated for the spread of slavery to the western territories, and was critical of President Lincoln. These views were shared with his self-proclaimed “belle of New Orleans.”
Benjamin Wood was a gambling addict. Ida Wood, 17 years his junior, knew how to save money. Ida informed her husband that she would ignore his gambling as long as she received half of his winnings. Any losses that he accrued were his alone to handle. Over the course of their marriage, Benjamin signed most of his property and newspaper over to his wife.