Maria Monk - Public Furor

Public Furor

Monk’s book caused a public outcry. Protestants in Montreal, Quebec, demanded an investigation, and the local bishop organized one. The inquiry found no evidence to support the claims, though many American Protestants refused to accept the conclusion and accused the bishop of dishonesty.

Colonel William Leet Stone, a Protestant newspaper editor from New York City, undertook his own investigation. In October 1836, his team entered the convent and found that the descriptions in the book did not match the convent interior. During their first visit, the investigators were denied entry to the basement and the nuns’ personal quarters. Stone returned to New York, interviewed Monk and concluded that she had never been in the convent. On a later visit, he was given total access to all quarters. Stone’s team found no evidence that Maria had ever lived in the convent.

Maria disappeared from the public view. It was later discovered that she had spent the seven-year period in question in the Magdalen Asylum for Wayward Girls. One critic points out that a nun character in her book, Jane Ray, was actually residing with Monk at the Magdalen Asylum, rather than at the Hotel Dieu Nunnery.

Many details of the story seem to have originated with Monk’s legal guardian, William K. Hoyte, an anti-Catholic activist, and his associates. The writers later sued each other for a share of the considerable profits, while Monk was left destitute, by most accounts returning to prostitution.