No. 645
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 19, 2024

John L. Sullivan Saved by a Neck.

November 6, 2012
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Encountering a ghost may be a strange, possibly terrifying experience, but fortunately they are rarely harmful.  However, every now and then there is an account of a spirit that is not just malevolent, but physically dangerous.  One such story was told by folklorist Mary L. Lewes in the December 1912 issue of “Occult Review.”  It concerns a couple named Mr. and Mrs. Caxton. 
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Strange Company - 3/18/2024
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HE DUEL IN ELLEN'S HONOR. Soapy Smith’s grandmotherOn Wednesday, August 9, 1820, an argument between 17-year-old, James Bowe Boisseau (1802-1820) and Robert C. Adams (unknown-1820) vying for the attention of 18-year-old Ellen Stimpson Peniston (1802-1860), took a terrible turn. The happy party in her honor took a tragic turn when the competition for Ellen’s affections ended in a deadly duel,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 1/10/2024
Going to the theater has always been a beloved New York City pastime. But theater became even more thrilling with the advent of open-air rooftop gardens—which hit the scene in the late 1880s with the opening of the rooftop theater at the Casino on Broadway and 39th Street. It wasn’t just the cool breezes that […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/18/2024
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
Dr. John W. Hughes. Dr. John W. Hughes was a restless, intemperate man whose life never ran smoothly. When his home life turned sour, he found love with a woman half his age. Then, he lost her through an act of deception, and in a fit of drunken rage, Dr. Hughes killed his one true love.Date:  August 9, 1865Location:   Bedford, OhioVictim:  Tamzen ParsonsCause of Death:&
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/16/2024
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.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
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
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Rogues & Brawlers. | Naughty Anthony.

John L. Sullivan Saved by a Neck.

Sulllivan saved.

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.