Date: Saturday April 25, 4 to 6 PM
Rain date: Sunday April 26, 4 to 6 PM
This walking tour was created as a companion to the book Mortimer and the Witches (available in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook and out in paperback in 2026), takes us through the bustling and elegant historically-rich streets of Union Square, Stuyvesant Square, and Gramercy Park. Mortimer Thomson, the journalist who wrote under the pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B. went undercover in 1857 to investigate and report on the fortune tellers of New York City’s tenements and slums. When his articles were published in book form in 1858, they catalyzed a series of arrests that both scandalized and delighted the public. But Mortimer was guarding some secrets of his own, and in many ways, his own life paralleled the lives of the women he both visited and vilified.
On this tour, we will examine the lives of some of these marginalized fortune tellers while also detailing Thomson's peculiar and complicated biography. You will also learn of the fascinating relatives and friends who surrounded him, including his mother-in-law, Fanny Fern, who was the highest paid columnist of her time.
We’ll end the tour by discussing how fortune telling would change later in the 19th century by visiting the former addresses of Pamela Colman Smith and Madame Blavatsky.
Start point: Union Square by Abraham Lincoln statue, 20 Union Square West
End point: 46 Irving Place
Terrain 1.5 miles, flat, 2 hour tour. Bring comfortable shoes and an umbrella, in case of unexpected sprinkles.
Marie Carter is the author of Mortimer and the Witches: A History of Nineteenth-Century Fortune Tellers: A History of Nineteenth-Century Fortune Tellers, Holly’s Hurricane, and The Trapeze Diaries. She grew up in Scotland but has lived in New York City for over twenty-five years. She is a licensed tour guide for Boroughs of the Dead, a walking tour company that specializes in NYC's macabre and haunted histories, and Cats About Town, which looks at the history of cats in New York.
Date: Saturday April 25, 4 to 6 PM
Rain date: Sunday April 26, 4 to 6 PM
This walking tour was created as a companion to the book Mortimer and the Witches (available in hardcover, ebook, or audiobook and out in paperback in 2026), takes us through the bustling and elegant historically-rich streets of Union Square, Stuyvesant Square, and Gramercy Park. Mortimer Thomson, the journalist who wrote under the pseudonym, Q.K. Philander Doesticks, P.B. went undercover in 1857 to investigate and report on the fortune tellers of New York City’s tenements and slums. When his articles were published in book form in 1858, they catalyzed a series of arrests that both scandalized and delighted the public. But Mortimer was guarding some secrets of his own, and in many ways, his own life paralleled the lives of the women he both visited and vilified.
On this tour, we will examine the lives of some of these marginalized fortune tellers while also detailing Thomson's peculiar and complicated biography. You will also learn of the fascinating relatives and friends who surrounded him, including his mother-in-law, Fanny Fern, who was the highest paid columnist of her time.
We’ll end the tour by discussing how fortune telling would change later in the 19th century by visiting the former addresses of Pamela Colman Smith and Madame Blavatsky.
Start point: Union Square by Abraham Lincoln statue, 20 Union Square West
End point: 46 Irving Place
Terrain 1.5 miles, flat, 2 hour tour. Bring comfortable shoes and an umbrella, in case of unexpected sprinkles.
Marie Carter is the author of Mortimer and the Witches: A History of Nineteenth-Century Fortune Tellers: A History of Nineteenth-Century Fortune Tellers, Holly’s Hurricane, and The Trapeze Diaries. She grew up in Scotland but has lived in New York City for over twenty-five years. She is a licensed tour guide for Boroughs of the Dead, a walking tour company that specializes in NYC's macabre and haunted histories, and Cats About Town, which looks at the history of cats in New York.
