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

A Madman in the Pulpit.

Charles Emmons takes possessions of a Springfield, Mass., church and turns it into a fort.
August 1, 2016
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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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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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 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
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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
The American Hat Guard. | Reward.

A Madman in the Pulpit.

Madman in the pulpit

Charles Emmons takes possessions of a Springfield, Mass., church and turns it into a fort. [more]

When the Rev. Mr. Dorchester entered the Olivet Congregational Church in Springfield, Mass., the other morning he found that the pulpit was already occupied by Charles M. Emmons, a member of the church and an employee of the government at the United States Armory. Emmons gained admittance at an early hour, and had hits position well fortified before anyone else arrived. Around his body he had wrapped a sofa cover and thrown a black veil over his head and face. The janitor tried to eject him, but as he approached the pulpit the madman fired three shots in rapid succession. All of them lodged in the ceiling.

In the meantime the congregation had begun to arrive, and the news spread throughout the city. In less than fifteen minutes the church had a larger congregation than ever before in this history, but all kept a respectable distance from the lunatic’s gun. Then the janitor, reinforced by Deacon Adams, other church members and four policemen, re-entered the church, but they were unable to capture the pulpit. Emmons, with a revolver in each hand warned them not to advance.

Several persons who knew him tried to persuade him to leave the pulpit, but he answered their entreaties by pointing his revolver at their heads and warning them to retire. The police attempted in various ways to direct the attention of the crazed man, when it was planned to rush upon and over power him. But this was only the signal for more shooting, two bullets grazing the helmet of the officer who made the attempt. The officers then held a council, and it was decided that as Emmons was so well armed it would be more prudent to await events.

Emmons held the fort unit after 2 o’clock, when he fell asleep in his chair. Then Detective Atkins and patrolman Hanes crept carefully up to the platform and pounded upon him. Emmons struggled desperately, but was soon overpowered, disarmed and handcuffed. As they started for the police station Emmons begged to be allowed to put on his overcoat. The handcuffs were taken off for this purpose, and before he could he prevented the madman brought out another small revolver and fired again but hit no one.

Search showed that Emmons had converted the pulpit into a veritable fortress. He had poured a pound of powder into the marble urn to make, as he afterward said, the smoke of incense. He had enough canned meat, crackers and water to supply him for several days; in fact he has since admitted that he thought it might be a week before he got an audience adding that he would have remained there till he starved.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 12, 1892.