New York American and Journal Sunday
January 18, 1903Darmstadt: Another Tragedy in the Eisenberg Family Heiress Hunt Leads to Suicide Brother of Prince Eisenberg Who Made a Failure in his Quest for a Rich American Bride, Puts Bullet in Brain.
Story of the search of the Golden Fleece
(Special cable to New York American)Darmstadt Jan 17– The heiress hunting trip of Prince Eisenberg that failed continues to make trouble. Some time ago the chief of the family had to retire for failure to pay back the money advanced him for his tour of the United States, undertaken to capture a rich girl.
Now his brother, Prince Ernest, has fired a bullet into his head because he was tired of guilded poverty. Ernest is a Lieutenant of the 115th Infantry and will die. Though a nephew of Francis Joseph (Emperor) he is so poor that he had to take up residence in the barracks.
The heiress hunting trip referred to in the dispatch refers to Leopold the sometime hereditary Prince of Isenberg-Birstein, and his attempt, some ten years ago, to recoup the lost fortunes and estates of his family by seeking the hand of a wealthy American heiress. This scheme and it’s attendant failure are well remembered by many American people.
The Eisenbergs were mortgaged up to the limit. The princely jewels were pledged and Leopold was woefully in need of funds. Things were becoming desperate and banks holding the Eisenberg paper were beginning to clamor for a settlement, when after a family consultation, Leopold decided to come to America and marry a wealthy girl. Having no funds sufficient to procure a suitable equipment, the Prince appealed to the Bergische Bank, the Vereinsbank and the Werttemberg (Wuttemberg) Bank to come to his assistance. He explained his scheme and it appeared to plausible to the bankers they readily loaned him something like 100,000 as a pledge for payment of the loan upon the marriage of the Prince.
Leopold sailed for America with his vales and a dozen trunks, arriving in New York, and without the slightest foundation of fact, first cabled to Germany that he had captured the heart and hand of Miss Consuelo Vanderbilt. Next it was rumored he was engaged to Miss Anna Gould. All these were fairy tales and Leopold, a sadder and more impoverished prince, recrossed the ocean and faced a stormy interview with his parents and the bankers. The story closes with suits, which completely wrecked the Eisenbergs, brought the bankers who had backed the prince by accommodating.
