"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnWelcome to this week's Link Dump!Enjoy some music from the Strange Company HQ orchestra while you read.Political connections and getting away with murder.The Tradeston Flour Mills explosion.Primitive submarine? Or cauldron for fish stew? You make the call!The dreaded Aztec Death Whistle. (Note: If you do play this video--and I'm not sure I recommend
Soapy Smith in Leadville, ColoradoJuly 21, 1880Soapy and partner, rear, between carriagesCourtesy Kyle Rosene collection(Click image to enlarge)
Soapy Smith's stereo-view photographLeadville, Colorado, July 21, 1880Where was it taken?WHERE IN LEADVILLE WAS THIS TAKEN?(Click image to enlarge) Those who have read Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel may recall seeing the
Shelley M. Dziedzic Many years ago Warps & Wefts published the story of Eliza Darling Borden who threw her young children down the cellar cistern at #96 Second Street. The two youngest, Holder and Eliza Ann drowned. Maria, the oldest child managed to survive a terrible fate while her mother used a straight razor to end her own life. Eliza was married to the brother of Abraham Borden, Andrew’s father, whose name was Lawdwick Borden. For years his name has seen any number of spellings but Lawdwick seems to be the correct one as it appears in numerous records, including the city directories. Lawdwick would have been Lizzie Borden’s great-uncle. Lawdwick worked for a good part of life in a planing mill, not surprising as his brother Cook Borden owned a lumber business. He was born March 14, 1812 to Richard and Martha “Patty” Borden. Lawdwick married Maria “Mary Jane” Briggs on September 8, 1833 in Dartmouth. The marriage ended tragically with Maria’s death on January 5, 1838 . After only five years of marriage and the deaths of their two infants, Maria (born and died in 1834) and Matthew (born and died in 1836) . Mrs. Maria Borden is buried in Oak Grove Cemetery. Lawdwick found himself a young widower. But not for long. His second wife, Eliza Darling (1811-1848) is the woman from whom all the interest stems. We know about her because of Lizzie Borden’s trial. The topic of her horrific suicide by straight razor after casting her children in the cistern on May 10, 1848 arose as the defense was looking at Lizzie’s possible mental competency, citing the sad tale of Eliza Borden, who may have suffered what today is termed postpartum depression. It was soon pointed out that Eliza, Lizzie’s great-aunt, was only a Borden by marriage – not a blood relation. Fall River Daily Evening News May 17, 1848 Son Holder S. Borden 1847-1848 Daughter Eliza Ann 1846-1848 Maria Borden (1844-1909) was spared and went on to marry twice and have children of her own in the city of Fall River, as was reported during the time of Lizzie’s trial. Maria first married Samuel Bond Hinckley (1832-1918). Sam was from Machias, Maine and the couple were wed on October 2, 1866. It appears the couple did not have children and that there was a divorce involved as Captain Samuel Bond Hinckley is buried in Riverside, California with his second wife, Julia and had attained the rank of Captain. Maria Borden Hinkley’s second husband was John B. Chace. They were married on November 27, 1873 in Somerset, MA. It was the first marriage for John B. Chase. The couple had two children, Lawdwick Chase who died on March 2, 1875 from severe lung congestion and Emma Lou Chase. The 1880 census shows Maria and John with daughter Emma Lou living in the Lawdwick Borden house at #96 Second Street. By that time, Andrew, Abby, Lizzie and Emma had been living next door at #92 for eight years. Maria Borden Hinckley Chase died at her home at 517 Middle Street on June 17, 1909. Here is her obituary from the Fall River Herald, June 18, 1909. Maria’s daughter Emma Lou would marry Harry F. Goulding at her father’s home in April of 1912. Her mother did not live to see her daughter and only surviving child’s wedding. Their son, Borden Chase Goulding born on September 27, 1914 became a design engineer for Rolling Mills and lived in Worcester MA. So what became of Lizzie’s great-uncle Lawdwick? Why he married twice more after the tragedy with wife #2. His third wife was another Eliza – Eliza Tripp! After her death, Lawdwick married yet again. Wife #4 was Ruhama Crocker who outlasted Lawdwick who died on October 6, 1874. Ruhama died in June of 1879. Fall River Daily Evening News, June 18, 1879. Lawdwick Borden left his nephew Jerome C. Borden as trustee of his estate- inherited by his daughter Maria Borden Hinckley Chase. So who is buried where? Lawdwick with wife Eliza wife 2 and Eliza wife 3 and the two children who drowned (Eliza Ann and Holder) as well as his two children by Maria Briggs, (Matthew and Maria) are in the Borden plot in Oak Grove Cemetery. First wife Maria Briggs “Mary Jane” Borden is buried in the Oak Grove plot , wife #4, is buried in South Attleboro, Maria Borden Chase and her husband John B. Chase are in Oak Grove Cemetery and Maria’s first husband Sam Hinckley is in Riverside, California. It’s an interesting family story, especially now that the Lawdwick Borden house is in the news over the controversy concerning the coffee shop. Alice Russell would live in that house as well as Dr. and Mrs. Michael Kelly- all connected to Lizzie Borden!
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: […]
William Farrell, Patrick Muldoon, and “Tonce” Joy played cards in Muldoon’s Cincinnati saloon on November 30, 1896. They were secretly colluding to cheat a fourth man. After skinning their victim, Joy’s job was to steer him away, but when he returned for his share, his partners wouldn’t pay. A fight ensued, a pistol fired, and “Tonce” Joy stagged out of Muldoon’s saloon to die. Farrell and
How boring would the New York City subway system be if every station was built at the same time, resulting in a uniform look for the signs outside every subway entrance? Luckily, that didn’t happen. As stations opened across the boroughs in the decades after the 1904 debut of the first stretch of the IRT, […]
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 […]
New York, New York, 1882 – Tempting to Ruin! How Gotham’s Palaces of sin are garrisoned out of the hovels. The gaudy spider spreading her webs for the flies who make her loathsome trade profitable.[more]
A portly female arrayed in a sealskin dolman to her heels and with her blonde wig topped with a Gainsborough hat, descended from the elevated road at the United States Hotel, this city, recently. In the hallway she met another female who might have been her twin sister as far as costume went. The pair exchanged a profusive greeting, and the fine carat solitaires in their ears radiated a blaze of splendor as their heads bobbed together in the regulation kiss. It would have been evident to an experienced eye that the authors of these amenities belonged to a class more familiar to the police court than the prayer meeting and the glories of the attire they flaunted bore the taint of shame.
One of the women consulted a watch encrusted with diamonds and led the way to the street. They crossed Fulton Street, where one halted at the corner. The other passed on to the opposite side of Water Street, where she likewise halted. The passers-by cast curious glances at them but they did not flinch. They held their posts with the air of having a reason for doing so.
In a few minutes the shrill voices of many whistles announced that it was twelve o'clock. From the doorway of a tobacco factory near by a couple of girls came out. They went into a neighboring coffee and cake shop, passing one of the waiting women, who eyed them closely. They were ordinary-looking girls, in the shabby brown-stained attire of tobacco strippers. After them appeared a very pretty girl of perhaps sixteen years, who had a touch of coquettishness despite her cheap dress. She passed the second woman, who addressed a remark to her. The girl started, and the woman put a card into her hand, which she slipped into her pocket as she hurried away.
By this time the girls were pouring out of the factory in a steady stream. With a number of them, always the best-looking, it was to be seen that the woman repeated the performance already described. At half past twelve the two women went away up Fulton Street, leaving the girls gathered on steps and in doorways eating their lunches and talking. Several of them were comparing the cards which they had received.
A Police Gazette reporter who had observed all approached one of these groups and after considerable persuasion induced a pretty German girl to exhibit her pasteboard to him. It bore the address of one of the most noted procuresses on Twenty-seventh Street.
"Do you know what that card means?" asked the reporter.
"The lady asked me to come and see her," replied the girl after a moment's hesitation.
"What did she say to you?" "She said," replied the girl slowly and with her eyes on the sidewalk, "that I ought to be doing better than stripping tobacco for a living and if I came to her she would show me how."
"And do you know what she means?"
The girl cast a stealthy glance at her questioner and began to cry. Several of her companions gathered around her and took her away, assailing the scribe in vigorous words and intimating that he had better mind his own business. The policeman at the corner, coming up to the Police Gazette representative, said:
"Have you been giving the girls a steer about the madams? I thought so. Why, they nearly blackguarded the buttons off my coat the other day because I wanted 'em not to have anything more to do with those women. It's an outrage. The women have been coming down here about once a week these three months or so, and every time they come you find a couple of the girls leaving the factory. There was a girl last summer, one of the prettiest little things you ever saw. Her brother works in the market. She was the first one them women pitched on, and her brother told me yesterday that she's in a place uptown and won't come home. Every now and then one of the girls comes down here all rigged out in sealskins and diamonds and then there's a flutter among the other girls and one or two of them disappear. The women you have noticed pick out tobacco factories because the girls who work in them are numerous enough to pick and choose from and because the business itself is an unpleasant one and any girl employed in it is glad to get the chance to better herself even if it brings ultimate ruin on her. They take one of the girls from here whom they have gotten into their clutches, dress her up, cover her with diamonds, fill her half full of champagne and give her money to treat her former fellow workers with, and send her down here and she does more harm than they themselves can do, for she can poison the mind of any girl she gets hold of."
"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