Via Newspapers.comThis week, we visit a haunted house that has a bit of Mystery Blood thrown in. The "Glen Elder Sentinel," August 20, 1903:A remarkable ghost sensation is disturbing the serenity of St. Peter Port, Guernsey, where a local photographer has just vacated his residence on the ground that he and members of his family have been terrified by supernatural visitations. The photographer
When Patrick H. Doherty joined the Fall River Police Department in 1885, he might have been astounded to learn that he would be involved one day in two notorious murder cases- both involving hatchets and axes. Patrick Doherty was born in Peoria, Illinois on August 10, 1859 to John and Mary Walsh Doherty. Later the family moved east to Fall River, and we find Patrick Doherty living at 104 Columbia St. (off South Main) and working as a laborer for a time employed by Fall River Iron Works and the Fall River Line steamboat company. He married Honora (Nora) E. Coughlin on April 25, 1887 at the age of 28, when he was employed at the Fall River Police Department as a patrolman. The couple would have seven children: Charles T., Frank., Grace, Robert, Helene, Margaret (called Marguerite), and John. Doherty, (as were several other patrolmen), was promoted to the rank of captain after their work in the case of the century, the Borden Murders of 1892. Doherty had arrived at #92 after George Allen on the morning of the murders, and was very quickly in the thick of the action, questioning Lizzie upstairs, looking at the bodies with Dr. Dolan, running down to Smith’s pharmacy with Officer Harrington to question Eli Bence, prowling the cellar for weapons with Medley, Fleet and Dr. Bowen, and making note of Lizzie’s dress. Doherty stayed on the job on watch at the Borden house until he was relieved at 9 p.m. When it came time for the inquest, it was Doherty who slipped down to 95 Division St. to collect Bridget, who had been staying with her cousin, Patrick Harrington after the murders. He would testify at the Preliminary and the 1893 trial in New Bedford. In the midst of the excitement in New Bedford as Lizzie’s trial was about to get underway, yet another hatchet killing took over the front page, the murder of Bertha Manchester on May 30th. It was a brutal attack to rival the Borden’s with the weapon being most likely a short-handled axe or possibly a hatchet. Doherty went out to the Manchester place with Marshal Hilliard, Captains Desmond, and Connors and Inspector Perron on June 6th with the suspect, Jose Correa de Mello, who revealed his hiding place for the stolen watch taken from the victim and her purse at that time. De Mello served time and then was sent back to the Azores, banned from stepping upon U.S. soil again. The Dohertys moved to 1007 Rock St. in 1897 and Patrick was pleased to walk his daughter Margaret (Marguerite) down the aisle in 1913. Patrick Doherty retired from the force in 1915 and succumbed to interstitial nephritis on June 28, 1915.. He, and some of his children are buried in St. Patrick’s Cemetery in Fall River. Resources: Ancestry.com, Parallel Lives,: A Social History of Lizzie A. Borden and her Fall River, Find-a-Grave.com. and Yesterday in Old Fall River: A Lizzie Borden Companion Fall River Globe June 28, 1915
Bernard Gussow was born in Russia in 1881. But by 1900 he’d made it to the Lower East Side, where he was described as an “East Side artist” in a New York Times article about paintings he displayed at an art show at the Educational Alliance settlement house on East Broadway. [“Subway Steps”] Gussow would […]
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,†is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
17-year-old James E. Nowlin murdered George Codman in a Massachusetts stable in January 1887. Then he took an axe and chopped Codman’s body into pieces. As he traveled home in a sleigh, he threw the pieces into the snow along the road.Read the full story here: Massachusetts Butchery.
Roped-inOmaha Daily BeeJune 25, 1884(Click image to enlarge)
OSSIBLE VICTIM OF THE JEFFERSON R. SMITH GANG. Omaha Daily Bee
June 25, 1884
COLORADO.
Col. Fletcher, a tourist from Boston, was roped-in by the bunko men of Denver and relieved of $1,000.
NOTES:
$1,000.00 in 1884 is the equivalent of $33,472.95 in 2023. According to the Rocky Mountain News there were at least two,
Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
The Bentz Stanley combination gets into a row in a Brooklyn boarding house.[more]
“Those theatre people have turned everything upside down in my house,” said Mrs. Lennon, the keeper of a lodging house at No. 178 South Fourth street, Brooklyn, the other evening. For the past week Mrs. Lennon entertained five members of the Rentz-Stanley variety company, who are playing an engagement at an Eastern District theatre.
The theatrical people were quietly eating their supper when the question of burlesque acting came up for discussion along with the roast beef and olives. “I think that burlesque is played out,” said a pretty little blonde at the end of the table.
“You are not old enough to think anything,” said a light comedian of the troupe, bolting half a hot potato and suddenly making a dash for the ice-pitcher.
“Well, I’m not such an old barn-stormer as you are,” said the little blonde, throwing a Judie wink at the handsome leading man.
“Barn-stormer!” cried the comedian. “Did I understand you, miss, to say barn-stormer to me?”
“That’s about the size of it,” said the little blonde.
“You haven’t any right to address an old gentleman in such language.” Said the leading lady.
“Old gentleman!” cried the comedian, whirling round and glaring at the leading lady. “If I was half your age I’d have applied for lodgings in the Forrest Home long ago.”
“Sir!” ejaculated the leading lady. “You forget that you dandled me on your knee when I was a mere kid—; should say child.”
“Not such a child either,” said the comedian bringing up one of his old-time sawdust smiles.
“This is too much!” cried the leading lady, bringing up a heavy coffee-pot and throwing it at the comedian’s head. The up tipped the left ear of the comedian and smashed into a thousand fragments against the wall. The petite blonde disappeared under the table.
“I have been insulted, and by an ex-ballet girl!” cried the tenor, picking up a pickle dish and giving it an underhand Chicago B. B. C. twist toward the blonde hair of the leading lady. A moment later the air was filled with sugar-bowls glasses, cups, plates and milk-pitchers.
In the midst of the battle the landlady, Mrs. Lennon, appeared in the doorway, but quickly retreated in the direction of the station-house. On the way she met two gallant officers of the peace, who returned with her to th house. As the officers rushed into the dining-room they found the battle at its height.
The comedian had entrenched himself behind the heavy villain, and from this secure position was pouring a raking fire of tumblers, oil lamps, butter-dishes, pepper boxes and tea-cups into the ranks of the party led by the leading lady, while the latter was returning fire with interest.
“Here’s a state of things!” shouted the officers, and shoulder to shoulder they advanced upon the rioters. The moment the contending armies caught sight of the “cops,” however, their valor forsook them and they attempted to play the baby act. In the meantime a large crowd had gathered in front of the house, but were disappointed, as the late contestants refused to make any complaints against each other.
“You will all leave my house forever!” cried the disgusted landlady, and she turned her histrionic pugilistic boarders out bag and baggage after collecting the heavy damages for the breakage occasioned by the skirmish.
“He who steals my purse steals trash,” cried the comedian, as he came up cheerfully with his share of the damages.
“‘Twas mine, ‘tis yours,” said the tenor, planking down his share.
“We must needs hie us to an inn,” murmured the heavy man, and they marched for the nearest hotel.
Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 24, 1885
"We follow vice and folly where a police officer dare not show his head, as the small, but intrepid weasel pursues vermin in paths which the licensed cat or dog cannot enter."
The Sunday Flash 1841