"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 […]
Tommy Shea has a run-in in a Boston barber shop which will no doubt prove his last one. [more]
Ever since the Kerrigan-Wallace fight, last Thursday night, John L. Sullivan has been on a racket, and had a good-sized jag on Saturday night. All day Saturday the big fellow and Tommy Kelly, a fighter of less renown; Tom Keefe, alias Shea, who has just finished a term of three years for highway robbery, and John Ryan, a Cambridge sport had been painting the town, visiting barroom after barroom and drinking at every place.
Rumor has it that Shea was angered by Sullivan’s actions at the Thursday night fight, and as soon as he got drunk he laid the big fellow with a gun. He was not so drunk, though, that he didn’t have a wholesome respect for the law, and if it was his intention to harm Sullivan he played his cards well.
But Sullivan wouldn’t get mad. Shea insulted him to a most outrageous unprovoked manner and kept at it so persistently as to give some color to the story of a plot to kill Sullivan. He wanted Sullivan to make the first assault, knowing that public opinion would secure his acquittal on the grounds of self-defense. Sullivan’s phenomenal streak of good temper perhaps saved his life He listened good-naturedly to Shea’s talk, and seeing the horrified look on the faces of all those present he played the magnanimous dodge to perfection.
The quartet made a round of the saloons, and at 6 o’clock brought up at Billy Haggerty’s barber shop. Haggerty is a candidate in the lower branch of the Legislature, and Sullivan is his right bower. It was not a very clean-looking set of men who filed into the barber shop in Sullivan’s wake, but all anticipated a general overhauling by hands that had become adept in the art of reducing swelled heads. There were two vacant chars, Sullivan made a bee line for one and stretched out for a nap, while the barber dashed on the lather and scraped the iron jaw of the big fighter. Ryan surrendered himself for similar treatment. Kelly was next and Shea was fourth on the list Shea didn’t seem to mind the delay; in fact, he seemed glad of the chance to use his tongue more freely, and he walked up to the champion and “roasted” him even more savagely than before. Sullivan became impatient under the tongue lashing, and rising in his chair with his face covered with lather, he turned on the ex-convict and said:
“Oh, go to ____, you ____ __ ___ _____, I don’t want anything to do with you. Go talk to Kelly; he’s doing nothing. Go away from here, anyhow. I won’t have you around. You just shut up.”
Shea thought discretion was the better part of valor and turned his attention to the ex-pugilist. Kelly cleverly disguises his fifty-odd years by dying his mustache and plays the role of a young sport.
He had a reputation in his day of being the gamest light-weight in the ring, but he also has the reputation of being a bad man to tackle when his dander is up, owing to his weakness for the knife. Saturday night he reached the ugly stage of his drunk and was in no frame of mind to stand chaffing of any sort.
He was sitting in a chair, tilted back against the wall, waiting for the welcome call “Next.” Shea called to the bootblack, and sat down for a polish, but his tongue kept on wagging, and in a few minutes he had Kelly furious. He was too drunk to know his danger. Kelly didn’t say anything, but he jumped to one of the barbers, snatched the razor from his hand and made a lunge at Shea, and slashed him under the left side of the jaw, making a gash three inches long. It was deep, too, but escaped the big vein and artery. Sullivan was asleep and didn’t know what was going on until he heard a fight in progress behind him. Ryan saw Kelly swing the razor, and jumped from his chair to save Shea, but he was too late. He saw the blood fly, and then opening the door, kicked Kelly into the street. Kelly disappeared in the darkness. Shea was seen to be seriously wounded and Dr. McDonald was called to stop the flow of blood. Sullivan inquired as to the cause of the row, and then he too, walked out of the barber shop.
Kelly went to a lawyer and asked him whether he would “skip or surrender.” He was advised to go to the police station and upon being confronted by the dying man a sickening sight ensued.
Kelly is locked up.
Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, November 9, 1889.
"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