Undated photo of Ethel Hodgson, most likely in her early teens

The crown and scepter on display at the Ezell House in downtown Mobile

Undated photo of Ethel Hodgson, most likely in her early teens

During the first decades of organized Mardi Gras, there was a fair amount of intermingling between Mobile and New Orleans.

Take, for example, Mobile’s first-ever Empress of Mardi Gras, Ethel Hodgson, coronated in 1892. Decades later, Ethel’s second husband, a New Orleans businessman raised in Mobile, was crowned Rex, the king of New Orleans Mardi Gras. The following year, Ethel herself was queen of an upper-crust, non-parading krewe in New Orleans.

Tracking Ethel’s path, especially her role as Empress, is difficult because so much about Mardi Gras in those early years wasn’t written down. Later, as authors attempted to reconstruct those events, dates and other details became muddled.

The first monarch of Mobile Mardi Gras was known as Emperor Felix, and he ruled over his “capital city” for more than 20 years. After that, Felix II and III were referred to as “King,” and their consorts were “Queens.” Felix was the invention of a group of Mobile businessmen eager to beef up the Mardi Gras celebration.

The name “Felix” or the presence of any monarch did not appear in Mobile newspapers until 1875. That contradicts all of the books, which state Felix first appeared in 1872.

Between 1875 and 1885, his visits were not every year, and his itinerary was ever-changing, as organizers struggled to find the right place for him. Then he disappeared for six straight years.

Returning from that absence in 1892, Felix did not parade on Mardi Gras Day, as he had through the first 10 years. Instead, he arrived on the Monday before Fat Tuesday and led a procession that included an extensive “imperial staff,” as well as police, fire, military, even bicyclists.

What, then, would Felix do on Mardi Gras Day if he did not parade? Coronating an empress was apparently the answer dreamed up by organizers.

The well-known books about Mobile and Mardi Gras, starting with Erwin Craighead in 1930, set Ethel’s coronation in 1893 or 1894. However, on Ash Wednesday, March 2, 1892, The Daily Register said Emperor Felix “chose the Empress of the Carnival” the night before, and she was “Miss Ethel Hodgson … a debutante of the present season.”

Just 17 at the time, Ethel was Empress for only a few hours. She was coronated in Temperance Hall, located at the northeast corner of St. Joseph and St. Michael streets. Her coronation served as an opening act for the 25th annual ball of the Order of Myths. At midnight, her reign was over.

Who was Ethel’s Felix? Unfortunately, the newspapers did not reveal the identity of those portraying Emperor Felix in those days.

Craighead and all subsequent authors wrote that Ethel’s Felix was “S.T. Prince” or Maj. Sydney Trotter Prince, who was a politically active 44-year-old lawyer, recently widowed with five children. There is, however, no independent confirmation of Sydney’s role as Felix. There are no known photographs of him as Emperor, and his descendants said they were unaware of his reported stint as a royal. Other writings about Sydney – including his obituary – made no mention of Felix.

But there are a couple of dots that connect Sydney to this particular masquerade. The first dot can be found in the Civil War.

When the war started, Sydney was a student at the University of Alabama and a member of the cadet corps. He dropped out of school and helped form a military unit of former cadets. Sydney led the group, even though he was only a second lieutenant at the time, and the unit eventually joined the 7th Cavalry, under Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest.

The commander of the 7th was Col. Joseph Hodgson, whose daughter, Ethel Hodgson, was born several years after the war.

Col. Hodgson was a fearless warrior as well as a sober man of letters. According to the book, “They Rode With Forrest,” by Michael Bradley, Col. Hodgson held commissions with a couple of Alabama regiments before resigning and becoming a “privateer,” a term that’s often synonymous with “pirate.” He was captured and held for a year as a prisoner of war. He was released, returned to Alabama and formed the 7th Cavalry in 1863.

According to Bradley, “The cavalry fight at Brentwood was one of the most vicious engagements of the entire war. The 7th Alabama and its supporting regiments knew that the escape of the Army of Tennessee depended on their holding their position. They were attacked by superior numbers carrying repeating rifles. Much of the fighting was in the dark and hand-to-hand. The 7th held its position so stubbornly that the U.S. cavalry commander, Gen. James Wilson, called a halt for the night.”

After the war, Col. Hodgson took up journalism and became editor of the Montgomery Mail. It was there, according to his obituary, that he coined the term “carpetbagger” to describe profiteers from the North flowing into the post-war South. Col. Hodgson also wrote a well-received book, “The Cradle of the Confederacy,” published in 1876.

In 1877, Col. Hodgson left Montgomery with his wife and two children to become editor of The Daily Register in Mobile. He still held that position 15 years later, when his daughter Ethel became Mobile’s first Empress of Mardi Gras.

So who could a father trust more to be the mock consort for his little girl than an officer who served under him in the war? Was Sydney chosen to be Felix because Ethel was to be Empress or the other way around? That question may never be answered. Col. Hodgson, while a well-known and respected man in Mobile, had no overt connections to the Mardi Gras power structure.

However, when he became editor of The Daily Register, Thomas Cooper De Leon, a fellow author of the post-Civil War South, became managing editor. De Leon was practically at the center of Mobile’s Mardi Gras structure in the late 19th century. And the owner of the Register, John L. Rapier, was one of Mobile’s first 10 Felixes, according to Craighead.

Which brings us to the other dot. While the newspapers did not name the men posing as Felix in those days, they did name all of the women of the court. When Ethel was queen, Amy Triplett was her First Maid of Honor. The next year, 1893, Amy’s sister, Hallie Triplett, was the Empress, and her First Maid of Honor was Annie Prince – eldest child of Sydney Trotter Prince.

Sydney, then, had ties to the Hodgson family and to the upper echelons of Mardi Gras. Even if it can’t be proved that he was Ethel’s Felix, it seems quite probable.

On a side note, an article in The Daily Register, printed just prior to the 1893 coronation, referred to Hallie Triplett as “Empress Felicia II.” Whether that moniker, Felicia, was a figment of that particular writer’s fancy or something the organizers thought they’d try out, it clearly did not catch on.

On April 15, 1907 – 15 years after Ethel’s big night in Temperance Hall – she was married at the age of 32 to Julian Albertus Watters, who was 52. Seven-and-a-half months later, Ethel gave birth to her only child, Julian Albertus Watters Jr. Ethel’s husband was in the cotton business, and he amassed a substantial estate. When he died at the age of 59, his holdings were in the range of a million dollars. According to court records, Ethel made no claims to her husband’s fortune.

Five years after becoming a widow, Ethel at age 44, married a Mobilian who had moved to New Orleans, Edgar Rollins du Mont, age 50.

Edgar du Mont’s descendants said he and Ethel may have known each other as kids, possibly from summer days spent on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay, since the Hodgson and du Mont families both had waterfront property in Point Clear. Or the two could have met on Church Street in Mobile, since the du Monts lived at No. 51 Church Street, and the Hodgsons at No. 77, according to the 1880 census. At that time, Ethel was about 6 years old, and Edgar was 12.

Edgar du Mont was born in Brazil, while his father worked there, largely as a cotton broker. A year later, the du Mont family returned to Mobile. As a young man, Edgar went into the lumber business, which took him to Mississippi. A skilled rifleman, he raised a company of volunteers in Scranton, Mississippi, at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War and was commissioned as a captain.

In 1901 Edgar married Ivon Leone Garner in Moss Point, Mississippi, which “excited intense interest because of the prominence of the young couple,” according to a newsletter from that time. “The groom is the managing timber representative here of Messrs. Hunter, Benn & Co. of London, England, and Mobile, Ala., and Vice Royal Consul of Denmark. He … is well and favorably known for his social and business personality.” The newsletter, written for members of the Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, an organization of men in the timber business, noted that Edgar was “Hoo-Hoo No. 3936, and is very popular in the Order.” The couple had a daughter, Ivon Leone du Mont, 11 months after they married.

The du Monts moved to New York City so Edgar could receive treatment for the malaria he contracted in the war. He later moved to New Orleans to work for Standard Export Lumber Co. Ltd., but his wife either stayed in New York or spent a lot of time there for several years after. Her affair with a portrait artist became newspaper fodder in New York after the artist was arrested for assaulting “a woman posing as his wife.” That woman, Mrs. du Mont, later refused to testify against the artist. Edgar filed for divorce in 1911. All of the public attention on the affair must have been terribly embarrassing for Edgar, who was, by all accounts, a true Southern gentleman.

The day after Christmas 1918, Edgar and Ethel were married in Mobile at First Baptist Church on Government Street, with the renowned John W. Phillips officiating. Edgar’s daughter, who would have been about 16 at the time, and Ethel’s 10-year-old son, lived with the newlyweds in Edgar’s mansion just off St. Charles Avenue in the upscale Audubon Place.

Over the years, the du Monts were among the elite of New Orleans. Their names regularly appeared on the society pages, and Edgar eventually became president of Standard Export Lumber. He was also a president of the exclusive Boston Club, as well as the Lake Shore Club and the Louisiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution.

In 1933, at the age of 64, Edgar served as Rex. His Queen, as is the custom, was considerably younger, a 20-year-old debutante named Mary Frances Buck. The theme of the parade was to be The Conquest of the Air, but as luck would have it, New Orleanians did not get to see those floats until the next year. Because of rain, the 1933 Rex parade was canceled – apparently the first and, so far, only rain-out for that group.

Zulu paraded that day, as did Comus, but Rex and the Druids did not venture out. The Rex decision was made by the group’s powerful Captain. “If I send them out in this wet and cold, and these men develop five or six pneumonia cases, I should never forgive myself,” the Captain told the Times-Picayune. “One human life or even the life of one mule is worth more than a parade.”

Instead, Edgar and his queen were taken to the Boston Club on Canal Street, where Rex was presented with the key to the city by 14-year-old Helen Sonnier from the New Orleans Female Orphan Asylum. Wearing a pink silk dress with silver lace and a silver crown cut out of cloth, Helen had been chosen for the honor by Mayor T. Semmes Waimsley.

The Times-Picayune presented the pitiable picture of the little orphan girl left at the reviewing stands at Gallier Hall, waiting for the parade that never came. When asked if she was disappointed, little Helen said, “Well, yes, ma’am. But I was thinking, too, how many others are disappointed because they won’t get to see the parade.” Shortly after, Helen was told the ceremony would take place in the Boston Club before the entire court and many guests.

The Rex ball was held at the Atheneaum, located at St. Charles Avenue and Clio Street. Edgar and Mary “presided … as gracious rulers of an adoring court,” the Times-Picayune reported. As is tradition, Edgar and Mary and members of their court journeyed at midnight to the Municipal Auditorium to greet the King and court of Comus.

The year after Edgar’s reign, Ethel du Mont was named Queen of the Mystic Club. A non-parading organization that debuted in 1923, the Mystic Club counted many of the top families of New Orleans society among its members. Edgar, for example, was not the only ex-Rex among them. The Queen of the Mystic Club had to be the wife of a member but was not the wife of that year’s king. The themes of the Mystic Club balls are very royal, depicting historical events from various monarchies. The theme of the ball on February 10, 1934, was Gustavus III of Sweden Visits Louis XIV.

Ethel died in New Orleans in 1958 and was buried in Magnolia Cemetery in Mobile. According to descendants, Edgar left the big house in Audubon Place after Ethel’s death, gave away most of their belongings and moved into an apartment. He died less than three years after Ethel and was buried next to her.

This article first appeared in the 2016 issue of Mobile Mask magazine

The Mystery of Mobile's First Mardi Gras Empress

Ethel Hodgson as the Queen of the Mystic Club in NOLA, 1934

 Lesson 4

QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

1. What do you think of Mardi Gras royalty - is it silly and wasteful or just good make-believe fun?

2. Our first Empress married a New Orleans Mardi Gras king. Do you think Mobile and New Orleans should have more Mardi Gras interactions?

3. Ethel was only 17 when she was Empress in Mobile, and her Emperor was 44. Was that weird or OK or, hey, it was a long time ago?

The Hodgson house, where Ethel grew up, on the southeast corner of St. Emanuel and Theatre streets

NOLA newspaper clipping announcing Edgar Du Mont as Rex and Mary Frances Buck as his Queen, 1933

The photograph of Ethel Hodgson that was printed in the book “Queens of Mobile Mardi Gras 1893-1986” – the same photo that has been hanging in the Mobile Carnival Museum – is not a picture of Ethel as Mobile’s first Empress or even a picture of her in Mobile.

Ethel was 17 when she was coronated by Emperor Felix in 1892. The photograph, however, clearly shows a woman in middle age.

Wayne Phillips, curator of Carnival collections for the Louisiana State Museum, solved the riddle. “That’s a photograph of Ethel du Mont as the Queen of the Mystic Club in New Orleans in 1934,” Phillips said. “I have no doubt.”

One of Ethel’s few direct descendants, Patricia Ezell, has a crown and scepter on display in the Ezell House, a for-rent event home on Conti Street owned by Patricia and her husband.

“They were in my bedroom throughout my childhood,” said Patricia, who was a Maid in the 1970 Mobile Carnival Association court. “I was told when I was a little girl that the crown and scepter were used in Mobile.”

Unfortunately, that’s not the case, Phillips said. The crown Patricia has, which is the same crown in the 1934 photo, was custom-made, probably in Europe, about the time of Ethel’s reign as Queen of the Mystic Club. It definitely was not made in the late 1800s, he said.

The scepter, which is not the same one that’s in the photo, was “mass produced” in the 1940s and 1950s, Phillips said. “I have seen several of them.” He speculated that the scepter she carried in 1934 was the same one her husband, Edgar du Mont carried in 1933 as Rex. “That was done a lot,” he said.

So what became of the crown Ethel wore in 1892 when she was coronated by Emperor Felix? It seems likely that she never had one.

There are no known photographs of the event or of Ethel as the Empress. The detailed story of her coronation published in The Daily Register on March 2, 1892, made no mention of crowns on either Felix or his Empress. The article described how Felix approached Ethel and “placed on her left shoulder the knot of Imperial colors – purple and gold, crossed with pure white.” The white was included to honor the Order of Myths milestone being celebrated that night.

After Felix’s Knights placed the same knots of colors on the left shoulders of the Maidens, Ethel’s colors were then “pinned with the gleaming Imperial Bee … in diamonds and opals.”

And that was it. No crowns, just a bumble bee pin. Patricia said she’s never seen such a pin among her great-grandmother’s belongings.

The story did mention a scepter. Ethel, the story said, had surely “added hosts of new subjects to that social sceptre she sways as easily as she did the mimic one which brought new homage last night.” The fate of that scepter is unknown.   

Even Ethel's Crown Has Been a Bit of a Mystery