Saturday, November 24, 2012

The Baltimore Sorrow.


William James and Denwood Hinds of Baltimore were close friends who had served together in the Fifth Maryland Regiment. The friendship would have remained strong if William’s sister, Lizzie James, had not become hopelessly infatuated with Denwood Hinds. Lizzie’s love set off a chain of events that not only ended her brother’s friendship with Denwood, but resulted in her own death and the murder of her father.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Brutal Murder in Middletown.

On September 24, 1843, Lucien Hall murdered Mrs. Lavinia Bacon in Middletown, Connecticut.  I am planning a more detailed post on this murder, but for now, here is a great picture and summary reprinted from the 1844 edition of Confessions, Trials, and Biographical Sketches of the Most Cold Blooded Murderers by George N. Thomson:

Brutal Murder in Middletown.

A brutal murder was committed at Middletown on the person of Mrs. Bacon, by a man named Hall who was one of three taken up on suspicion. Hall confessed himself to be the murderer at the trial, and said he could not let the innocent suffer. He says he entered the house and took some money from a desk, before Mrs. Bacon discovered him. She entered the room where he was, he knocked her down with a chair, and beat her to death. He stabbed her with a large butcher knife several times while she was struggling to save her life. The murder was committed about 11 o’clock, A. M. The jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to be hung on the 20th of June 1844.

Source:

Thomson, George N, Confessions, trials, and biographical sketches of the most cold blooded murderers, who have been executed in this country from its first settlement down to the present time ... Hartford: S. Andrus and Son, 1844.

Friday, November 16, 2012

A Serial Murderer in the Regiment?

Check out my guest post at Civil War Medicine (and Writing) on Samuel E. Calhoun, who was either a psychopathic killer or the subject of a tall tale.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Joe Doran.

Little Murders:
From Defenders and Offenders:

Joe Doran.

"Joe Doran was sentenced to a term of sixty years in the penitentiary, for murdering his father-in-law, at a place called Lamar. Owing to the man’s laziness and refusal to support his wife and two children, she left him and went to live with her father. The husband being denied the privilege of even seeing the children became angry, purchased a revolver, and deliberately shot down the father and his wife. He was tried and subsequently received the above sentence."






Defenders and offenders. New York: D. Buchner & Co., 1888.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

"...as though he had shot her.”


Mary Pomeroy was the organist at the Prospect Avenue Presbyterian Church in Jersey City, New Jersey. In 1874 she was a beautiful young woman and an accomplished musician with a sterling reputation. Mary was renowned for her purity and virtue until she was seduced and abandoned by her pastor, the Reverend John Glendenning. She died soon after giving birth; her doctor said the cause of death was “a broken heart.” While Mary was technically not murdered, the people of Jersey City saw no difference. One newspaper story said of Reverend Glendenning: “He is as truly the murderer of Mary Pomeroy as though he had shot her.”