In February 1932, a twenty-year-old Bostonian named Elizabeth Barrett Cook was sailing in the steamer Chinese Prince from Naples to Gibraltar. However, when she received a cablegram from a Helen James, announcing the death of Cook’s fiancé, St. George Arnold, the young woman naturally planned to head home as soon as possible, although the message, rather oddly, told her “on no account” to
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph. The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
On the northwest corner of First Avenue at First Street, on the border of the East Village and the Lower East Side, is a handsome red-brick tenement. Five stories high (with a two-story, beach house–like penthouse on the roof, but that’s a subject for another post), it’s a typical, well-kept building likely on this corner … … Continue reading →
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: […]
Myron Buel.“He possesses an expressionless and almost idiotic countenance.” Illustrated Police News.Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20
years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine
Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he
was tried and convicted of first-degree murder.
Buel
Soapy Smith's "star" notebookPage 10 - original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)OAPY SMITH'S "STAR" NOTEBOOKPart #10 - Page 10
This is part #10 - page 10, dated 1882. This is a continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1.
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 … Continue reading →
Niagara River, December 19, 1837 - American steamship, Caroline, was burned by the British, and cut loose to plummet over Niagara Falls, [more]
In the years following the War of 1812, relations between the United States and Great Britain were relatively peaceful. But for many living along the border between the United States and Canada— from Vermont to Michigan—the war never really ended. On the Canadian side, rebel factions formed to liberate Canada from British rule. They were supported in the United States by private militia groups known as the Patriot Hunters. Tension continued to rise between the rebels and the British, until 1837 when the first major battle of, what would be known as the Patriot War, was fought.
In December1837, Canadian rebel leader, William Lyon Mackenzie, set up headquarters on Sailor Island, on the Canadian side of the Niagara River, and declared himself head of the provisional government of the Republic of Canada. The rebels were joined by at least 200 enthusiastic Americans. They set up artillery on the Island and began shelling the British at Fort Erie. To supply the forces with food and ammunition, the rebels employed the American owned steam ship, the Caroline.
The British Commander, Colonel Allen Napier McNabb, believed that a rebel invasion was imminent, and that the Caroline would be used in the invasion. He asked Captain Andrew Drew if he could cut out the Caroline. When Drew responded that nothing could be easier, McNabb said, “Well, go and do it.”
Drew called for volunteers who “would follow him to the devil.” He got many takers, and on the night of December 19, 1837, Drew led a group of sixty men in rowboats, across the Niagara River. Captain Drew and his men boarded the Caroline, and after a brief skirmish, during which Drew himself, killed Amos Durfee, an African American crewmember of the Caroline, the British took control of the ship. The sent the rest of the Caroline’s crew ashore, then cut it loose from the moorings. They set fires at four places on the ship, then towed it into the current, where it would be carried over Niagara Falls.
This is how the scene as described in 1839, in an American pamphlet titled, “An Address Delivered at Niagara Falls, on the evening of the twenty-ninth of December, 1838, the anniversary of the burning of the Caroline:”
“The scene now became one of awful sublimity. The Caroline was in flames, and the resistless flood was bearing on her on toward the cataract. As the fires curled about her, her engine began to work, by the heat of the burning vessel, and the pitchy flames threw a red glare on the wild scenery around her. It showed the wintry forest, and glowed upon the waters; it revealed the rebel island, and the barracks of the British soldiers. Onward the burning vessel was borne, and nearer and nearer the mighty precipice. From one side she was viewed with exultation; from the other, with deep threats of vengeance; and as she neared the foaming gulf, the hell of waters, they tell of dark forms that were seen amid the flames and of death shrieks, that rose shrill and piercing above the noise of the rushing waves. Still she rushed on, and still the scene increased in grandeur, until her burning timbers were extinguished by the flood, and a few blackened fragments, thrown up on the shore were all that remained of the ill-fated Caroline.”
Early reports said that the Caroline went over the falls with over a hundred men still aboard. In fact, the ship was empty; all except Amos Durfee had gotten off safely.
Neither the United States nor Great Britain was anxious for another confrontation so the matter was settled with discreet diplomacy. Captain Drew was tried in a New York State criminal court for the murder of Amos Durfee, but he was not convicted.
But the burning of the Caroline became a rallying cry for the people of New York State, and the ranks of the Patriot Hunters grew rapidly. Amos Durfee was the first casualty of the Patriot War; he would not be the last.
"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