Mary Grace Quackenbos

Mary Grace Quackenbos Humiston ( Winterton) (1869–1948) was the first female Special Assistant United States Attorney.

She was educated at Hunter College in New York and graduated in 1888. She also taught for a short time at the Collegiate School on West 77th Street. With an independent fortune she entered the study of law at the Law School of New York University in order to better manage her estate. and, after spending one year with the Legal Aid Society, was admitted to the bar in 1904 and eventually made the decision to practice regularly.

People's Law Firm Quackenbos founded the People's Law Firm in 1905.

One of her best-known cases was that of Mrs. Antoinette Tolla, a woman from Kingsland, New Jersey, who was accused of murdering Joseph Sonta and sentenced to death. At the request of the Italian Consul-General, Count Massiglla, Quackenbos agreed to take the case and refused to take a fee, saying she "would prefer to take the case without remunera as woman for woman." On March 9, three days before Mrs. Tolla was to hang, Quackenbos, after a week's effort, induced the board of pardons of New Jersey to commute the death sentence to seven and one-half years imprisonment. She demonstrated that Tolla had killed Sonta in self-defense, and that the evidence she presented at trial had not been properly translated.

Peonage During the early years of the People's Law Firm, Quackenbos was approached by several clients that wanted assistance finding relatives or friends that had gone South and then disappeared completely. Upon investigation she discovered rampant peonage in turpentine camps in the South, as well as a network of agents that operated in New York City to lure workers to the southern camps.

Due to these investigations the Department of Justice ultimately hired her as Special Assistant United States District Attorney for the Southern District of New York. That appointment was then extended to cover peonage matters throughout the country.

Quackenbos arrived at Sunnyside Plantation across the river from Greenville, Mississippi in the town of Lake Village, Arkansas in July 1907 to investigate the allegations. Sunnyside was owned by the O.B. Crittenden Company. Among the firm's senior partners was LeRoy Percy, a lawyer, cotton planter, and Delta political leader. While at Sunnyside Percy arranged for her notes to be stolen from her hotel room and then "recovered" by a close associate – sending the message to Quackenbos that she could not touch him.

Percy used his personal friendship with then-President Theodore Roosevelt to have Quackenbos removed from the investigation at Sunnyside. Ultimately though, her report was released, and the investigation resulted in a slowing of Italian laborers to the Mississippi Delta, as the Italian government began to warn immigrants away from settlement there. To these critics in one Louisiana newspaper she responded, "One thing which I am compelled to fight against is the fact that few persons yet realize my motive and purpose. With proper support I believe I can completely wipe out peonage in the south within the next year." Quackenbos believed that immigration would actually increase if the conditions for the workers in the South were improved. Her disappearance became wrapped up in national concerns about white slavery that were sweeping the country at the time. Suspecting the police had not fully investigated his daughter's disappearance, Henry Cruger posted a $1,000 reward and hired Humiston to investigate. She took the case pro bono, and after interviewing several Harlem residents and deciphering a blurred message on a blotter, Humiston determined to search the basement of suspect Alfredo Cocchi. There Humiston found the body of Ruth Cruger.

Cocchi was arrested in Bologna, Italy, and sentenced to 27 years in prison.

Personal life Quackenbos Humiston was married twice, the first time to Major Henry Forrest Quackenbos in New York City on June 5, 1895.

Mary Grace Humiston died in 1948 at the age of 77, in French Hospital in New York City. During the time leading up to her death she lived at the Vanderbilt Hotel.

The podcast Tenfold More Wicked Presents Wicked Words produced an episode, "Brad Ricca: Mrs. Sherlock Holmes," about Ricca's book detailing the events of the Ruth Cruger case. The episode was released on June 13, 2022.