No. 600
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 30, 2023

A Duel with Whips.

A Duel with Whips. Two hot-blooded Georgians fight till they are raw and their weapons give out and
July 14, 2015
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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
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Strange Company - 3/29/2023
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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
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/3/2023
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 […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/27/2023
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: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
 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.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/25/2023
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,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/12/2023
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 […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
A Hot Day in New York. | Eaten by Sharks.

A Duel with Whips.

Duel With Whips

A Duel with Whips. Two hot-blooded Georgians fight till they are raw and their weapons give out and then call it a draw. [more]

Two Georgians Fight Until they are Raw, But Neither Wins.

In Harmony Grove, Ga., a few weeks ago as already briefly reported in these columns, a couple of men, a Mr. Hill and W. L. Goss, had a novel Duel. An eye witness of the affair thus reports it:

Hill was the challenger, and Goss said he didn’t care to fight with deadly weapons, but if Hill would not be satisfied any other way he would fight him with buggy whips. The distance and other rules to govern the fight were made, new buggy whips were procured and the parties toed the mark, about five feet apart, and operations commenced. The battle ground was in front of Freeman’s livery stable in the heart of the town, and it was not long until the most of the citizens of the place were looking on at a safe distance. No one had interfered and the combatants were making steady and regular licks upon each other without flinching ant the stoics of the whips could be heard several blocks away, as they went whizzing through the air and upon the backs of the two men.

Occasionally one or the other would back a little from his line, but he would soon come back again to the scratch. Whenever they got tired one would call out to hold up for awhile, and they would go a t it again. The fight continued for over three hours, with short intervals for rest. After the second round Hill, who had no covering on his back except a shirt, insisted that Goss should pull off his coat, which he did, and they took both hands to their whips and went to work. By this time the news of the fight had spread all over the town; some of the merchants closed their stores and business was generally suspended to see what would be the result of the encounter. After they had worn out $7 worth of buggy whips and were completely tired down they agreed to quit, and Hill told Goss that he was satisfied.

From parties who saw Hill’s back we learn that there was not a place on it that you could place a silver quarter without touching the welts of the whip had made, and he was marked all over in the same way. We learn that Goss was not hurt quite so bad.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 21, 1882.