Pierre Cartier knew that selling the world’s most famous jewel required more than gemology. It required a story. In the winter of 1910, the jeweler invited Evelyn Walsh McLean to view a 45-carat blue diamond he had recently acquired. Instead of describing its clarity and cut, he told her about the curse—a tale of stolen idols, murdered owners, and beheaded queens.
Evelyn was not frightened. She was fascinated. She bought the diamond for $180,000 on January 28, 1911, and wore it for the next 36 years, even as tragedy consumed her family. Evelyn Walsh McLean was born in 1886 in a Colorado mining camp, the daughter of Thomas Walsh, a penniless Irish immigrant who spent two decades chasing gold before finally striking it rich.
In 1896, Walsh bought abandoned claims in the San Juan Mountains that other prospectors had dismissed. The previous owners had been hunting silver and walked past gray rock laced with gold telluride every day without recognizing it. Within two years, the Camp Bird Mine was producing $5,000 in ore daily. In 1902, Walsh sold his interest for approximately $5.
2 million. The family moved to Washington, D. C. , where Walsh built a 60-room mansion on Massachusetts Avenue for more than $800,000.
Presidents visited. Theodore Roosevelt counted Walsh among his friends. But the wealth came with costs. In 1905, Evelyn and her brother Vincent were in a car crash in Newport, Rhode Island.
Vincent, not yet 18, died. Evelyn survived with a shattered leg that healed imperfectly, leaving her with a permanent limp. Doctors prescribed morphine for the pain. She developed a dependency that would follow her for years, eventually joined by alcohol.
In July 1908, Evelyn eloped with Edward “Ned” McLean, heir to the Washington Post and the Cincinnati Inquirer. Both families objected. Two young people with unlimited resources and limited self-control, drawn together by mutual recklessness. Together, they controlled assets worth hundreds of millions in today’s currency.
During a honeymoon that lasted nearly a year, Ned bought Evelyn the Star of the East, a 94-carat diamond, for $120,000. It was her first great diamond, but not her most famous. Thomas Walsh died in April 1910, passing everything to Evelyn. She and Ned then purchased a 75-acre estate along Wisconsin Avenue called Friendship, with formal gardens, stables, and a golf course where powerful men conducted business.
Warren Harding was a regular visitor before he reached the White House, sharing poker and whiskey with Ned. When Harding won the election in 1920, the McLeans believed they had secured access to the presidency itself. Harding visited Friendship during his time in office. In May 1919, a car struck the McLeans’ nine-year-old son, Vincent, on Wisconsin Avenue, just beyond the gates of the estate.
He died. The public drew a direct line between the cursed diamond and the child’s death. Strangers wrote to Evelyn urging her to sell the stone before another victim fell. She refused.
At her son’s funeral, the blue diamond hung from her neck. She wore it to dinners and funerals for the rest of her life, insisting that bad luck objects were lucky for her. The scandals continued. In 1924, perjury brought down Ned’s political connections.
He had told a Senate committee that he personally loaned $100,000 to Albert Fall, the Secretary of the Interior. The loan explained Fall’s sudden wealth, Ned claimed. In fact, Fall had received the money from oil magnates who were granted drilling rights on federal land at Elk Hills, California, and Teapot Dome, Wyoming. Fall became the first cabinet member in American history convicted of crimes committed while in office.
Ned had tried to provide cover for him and was never prosecuted—his lawyers successfully argued that he was too foolish to have knowingly deceived anyone. In 1932, Evelyn was approached by Gaston Means, a disgraced detective and convicted fraudster, with a tale perfectly calibrated to her weaknesses. He claimed to have underworld contacts who could negotiate the return of Charles Lindbergh’s kidnapped infant son. Evelyn handed over $100,000 in cash, plus $4,000 for expenses.
The bills disappeared. Weeks of excuses followed. On May 12th, the boy’s remains were found in woods near the Lindbergh home. Means was arrested, convicted of larceny, and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison.
The money was never recovered. That same summer, thousands of World War I veterans gathered in Washington, demanding early payment of bonuses promised by Congress. The Bonus Army, they called themselves. More than 20,000 camped along the Anacostia River.
The Senate rejected their petition. No one left. Evelyn drove to the camp and ordered a thousand sandwiches, coffee, and cigarettes. She returned day after day.
On July 28th, General Douglas MacArthur led infantry and cavalry down Pennsylvania Avenue with fixed bayonets and tear gas. The shanties burned. Two men were dead, and hundreds were injured. The veterans were driven from the capital.
The Washington Post went at auction on June 1, 1933. Eugene Meyer paid $825,000. Four years earlier, Ned had refused an offer of $5 million. By then, Ned was no longer capable of managing his own affairs.
A court declared him legally insane in November 1933. He was committed to a psychiatric institution in Baltimore, where he suffered a fatal heart attack in 1941 at age 56. Friendship itself was sold to the federal government in 1942 for wartime housing. The estate was demolished, and apartment buildings rose in its place.
Evelyn moved to a Georgetown townhouse. Her daughter, also named Evelyn, died in September 1946 at age 24 from an overdose of sleeping pills. Seven months later, Evelyn Walsh McLean developed pneumonia and died on April 26, 1947. She was 60 years old.
In 1949, her surviving children transferred her jewelry collection to Harry Winston, a New York dealer. Winston displayed the Hope Diamond for years, touring it around the country for charity events. In November 1958, he gave it to the Smithsonian Institution. He sent it through the United States Mail, first class registered, insured for $1 million.
The postage cost $244. The most famous diamond in the world arrived at the museum in a brown paper package. It remains there today, 45.
52 carats of crystallized carbon, beautiful and silent about everything it witnessed.