Salvation Army Tragedy.

 

In November 1891, The Northwestern Division of the Salvation Army held a muster in Omaha, Nebraska, to honor "La Marechale" Catherine Booth-Clibborn, leader of the Salvation Army in France. When the afternoon session ended on November 14, Captain Hattie Smith from Oskaloosa, Iowa, walked down the sidewalk conversing with Captain Wallace of Marshalltown, Iowa. Nettie Biedler, a private in the Army, rushed up to them and, without speaking, drew a revolver from the folds of her dress and fired at Captain Smith. Smith let out a shriek and fled down the sidewalk with Wallace. Biedler followed and fired again. The first shot had wounded Smith and she fell to the ground after running less than a block. Biedler then put the revolver to her own head and fired. She died instantly.

Captain Smith had been stationed at Council Bluffs, Iowa before being transferred to Oskaloosa about a month before. Nettie Biedler was also from Council Bluffs and the press first believed jealousy was the motive for the shooting. Hattie Smith was engaged to Lieutenant Berry, of Boone, Iowa, and it was believed that Nettie Biedler was trying to steal him from her.

On her deathbed, Captain Smith explained that the motive was jealousy of another kind. Severely wounded, Smith was carried from the sidewalk to a drug store, then to her temporary boarding place. A physician examined her but pronounced the wound to be fatal. While still able to speak, Smith explained that she had known Nettie Biedler in Council Bluffs and induced her to join the Salvation Army. When they met again in Omaha, Biedler greeted her with a great show of affection and on several occasions sought to occupy the attention of Captain Smith to the exclusion of all others.

"It was a case of jealousy,” said Smith, “She was jealous because I didn’t talk to her more."

Lieutenant Mary Bannister said she carried a message from Biedler to Smith saying Biedler wanted to talk. Smith replied that she was too busy. After lunch, the two did meet for an extended talk but what was said is unknown. Lieutenant Bannister heard Smith say several times that she must go, and Biedler tried to stop her. Biedler said if Smith went out and left her there, she would be sorry for it.

A reporter went to Nettie Biedler’s home in Council Bluffs and spoke with her younger sister. She said that Nettie and Hattie had been fast friends and she knew of no trouble between the girls which might account for Nettie’s actions. She also had no idea that her sister owned a revolver.

Captain Hattie Smith died later that day. The motive for the murder was never fully explained. The Chicago Tribune summed it up as “…a queer combination of jealousy and semi-religious frenzy.”

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Sources: 

“Bloody Deed at Omaha,” Chicago Tribune, November 16, 1891.
“The Motive Was Jealousy,” National Police Gazette, December 5, 1891.
“Salvation Army Tragedy,” Sioux City Journal, November 16, 1891.
“Shot by a Salvationist,” Saint Paul Globe, November 16, 1891.
“Was it Jealousy?,” Champaign Daily Gazette, November 16, 1891.

The Wakemanite Murder.

In 1855 a religious sect known as the Wakemanites met regularly at the home of Samuel Sly in New Haven, Connecticut. The Wakemanites were follower of Mrs. Rhoda Wakeman who had been chosen by the Lord to prepare the faithful for the return of Christ and the new Millennium.

69-year-old Rhoda Wakeman had previously lived in Greenfield, Connecticut with an abusive husband. Some 30 years earlier, Mr. Wakeman had beaten her so badly that, according to Mrs. Wakeman, he killed her. Two angels stood beside her and when they touched her with their bright swords she rose from the cloud of death and went to heaven.  She saw Christ, in his crown of thorns and with nails in his hands and he spoke peace to her soul. She saw God sitting upon his throne in all his glory surrounded by angels in white robes. Then a spirit took her to earth where she saw her dead body lying on the floor and she knew she had come back to this wicked world to live again. She had been dead for seven hours but rose again. From that point on she would communicate directly with God as she pursued her task of preparing the world for the second coming. 

When her husband died, she moved to New Haven where she was known as Widow Wakeman. She lived with her half-brother, Samuel Sly (aka Elder Sly), and gathered followers who met at his house to hear her message. They called themselves Wakemanites and called their leader The Prophetess. While the Wakemanites never numbered more than a dozen or so, they were true believers and devoted servants of The Prophetess.

In December 1855, Mrs. Wakeman began suffering from severe bodily pains. She knew exactly what caused the pains; one of her followers had stopped coming to meetings because he had become possed by an evil spirit. This evil spirt was not only a source of pain for The Prophetess but was also a great obstacle to the immediate commencement of the millennium. Moreover, if she should die as a result, her death would be followed by the general judgement and destruction of the world without any millennium.

The Wakemanites understood the urgency and set about to rid Mathews of his evil spirt. One of the followers, Polly Sanford, was Justus Mathews’ brother; she went with her husband, Almeron Sanford to discuss the matter with Mathews and convince him to come to a meeting on Sunday, December 23. The group had been praying and singing since 2:00 that afternoon and Mathews arrived some time after 9:00 pm. He expressed a desire to be relieved of the evil spirit which afflicted him, and through him, afflicted others, especially The Prophetess. 

Polly Sanford tied a handkerchief over his eyes to diminish the power of the spirit and to prevent Mathews from enchanting anyone with his eyes. She tied his hands behind his back, “as they would the devil.” Then she left him alone and went upstairs to pray with the others. The meeting went on until 2:00 am and Mathews was visited at intervals by one or more of the company to beseech him to give up the evil one. They told him it would be better that he should die than that Mrs. Wakeman should be afflicted unto death and the world destroyed. He reportedly expressed a willingness to die. Eventually they all went home without checking any further on Mathews.

Justus Mathews never came home that night and the next morning his son went looking for him. He went to Sly’s house and when no one answered the door he broke it open. He found his father lying on the floor with pools of blood surrounding his head. His throat had been cut from ear to ear and his head nearly severed from his body. A small rope was found on the floor and marks on his wrists showed that he had been bound and his abdomen was covered with puncture wounds as if he had been stabbed with a table fork. The boy immediately raised the alarm.

Later that day a coroner’s jury was convened and many of those at the meeting gave evidence. They testified to the belief that if Mrs. Wakeman should die the world would be destroyed. They believed that Justus Mathews had killed himself to be rid of the evil spirit. Several Walemanites were arrested and charged with committing or in some way being accessory to the crime—Israel Wooding, Almeron and Polly Sanford, Abigail Sables, Thankful S. Hersey, Widow Wakeman, Samuel Sly, and Josiah Jackson.

On Wednesday, Samuel Sly confessed to the murder. He said his sister had been so distressed by the bad spirit in Mathews that he knew something must be done to remove it. As people were preparing to leave, Sly went into the front room where Mathews was sitting and locked the door. He struck the blindfolded man in the temple with a two-foot club of hazel wood knocking him to the floor, then struck him several more times with the club. He took out his pocketknife with its two-inch blade, commenced to cutting Mathews’ throat. Then he mutilated the corpse with a fork. 

He went to Thankful Hersey, who had a room in the house, and she brought him a basin of water to wash off the blood. They tore up his bloody shirt and burned it in Miss Hersey’s stove. He broke the club into three pieces and threw it along with his knife, into the privy vault.

That April, Samuel Sly, Widow Wakeman, and Thankful Hersey were tried for the murder of Justus W. Mathews. None of the Wakemanites who testified had wavered in their belief that Mathews had been possessed by an evil spirit and had to die to save the world. The verdict was not guilty on the ground of insanity and the defendants were sent to the Insane Retreat in Hartford, Connecticut.

This was not the last murder connected to the Wakemanites, here is the story of Justus Mathew's maniac nephew: Murdered by a Maniac

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Sources:
“Effects of Fanaticism,” Examiner and Chronicle, January 3, 1856.
“Horrible Ignorance and Superstition,” Portland Weekly Advertiser, January 1, 1856.
“A Most Horrible Murder! One of the isms.,” National Aegis, January 2, 1856.
“The New Haven Tragedy,” Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 12, 1856.
“The Wakemanites,” Manchester Daily Mirror, April 24, 1856.
“The Wakemanites,” New York Evangelist, April 24, 1856.

Crazy John Daley.

John Daley rushed from his house on Chouteau Avenue, St. Louis, bleeding profusely from the neck, at around 11:00 the night of May 11, 1883. He surrendered himself to Officer Jones, saying that he had just murdered his wife. Officer Jones summoned a patrol wagon to take Daley to the Four Courts, then went to Daley’s house to see about his wife.

Daley, a 55-year-old machinist, lived in a two-room house on Chouteau Avenue, with his 35-year-old wife, Eliza, and eight children, ranging in age from 5 months to 12 years. Inside the house Officer Jones found Eliza lying on the bed, her skull crushed and her throat cut. He found a rusty axe with blood on both ends of the blade. It appeared that Daley had first struck her head with the butt of the axe, then cut her throat, finishing the job with a knife.

There were no signs of a struggle. Eliza Daley was in her nightclothes, her shoes, and stockings by the side of the bed. The incident woke none of the children; the youngest lay by her mother’s side with blood on her head.

The Linville Murderer.

Thursday, December 13, 1877, began as an ordinary day for Alfred Jones, a 72-year-old farmer in Linville, Ohio. He walked to Brownsville and returned home about 11:00, had lunch, sat down to relax and dozed off. He awoke when he heard the sound of squeaking shoes coming from the back porch—he had heard that sound before and thought it meant his daughter was up to no good. 

A Maniac's Deed.

For several weeks in November 1892, Herman Siegler had been depressed and melancholy. Siegler was a wood carver employed by Wolf Bros. of West Erie Street, Chicago and was known as a man of good disposition who had, to all appearances, a happy domestic life. He and his wife Emilia had been married for eleven years and had three children, the oldest was 10-years-old and the youngest just a few months old. None of his family or friends could explain his recent depression.

Fanaticism and Murder.

Little Murders

(From Centinel of Freedom (originally published in The Troy Times), May 10, 1859)

Fanaticism and Murder.

The Quiet Sabbath was broken in upon yesterday by the commission of a horrid murder, in the town of Sandlake, about fourteen miles from Troy, of a daughter by her father and only surviving parent, a man about 60 years of age named John Belding. The scene of the homicide is about four miles East of Sliter’s tavern, and near the steam saw mill on Sandlake road. The parties lived in a little house, in which the father earned a livelihood for himself and daughter by following the trade of a shoemaker. The daughter’s name as Christina. She is about nineteen years of age, and is described by the neighbors as a quiet and well-behaved girl. She had been unwell for some time, and, it is said, had been under the care of a female doctress residing in Berlin, in this county, named Weaver. Her mind, it appears, was somewhat affected, but whether from religious excitement or from some other cause, we are unable to say. She labored under the impression that the devil had possessed her, and used to pray very frequently for deliverance from his grasp. A day or two before he murder, the old man and daughter went over to the house of David Horton who resided opposite the Beldings, when Christina said she had taken medicine of Mrs. Weaver, and it made her feel as if “the devil was in her, and she would scratch him off; but that she had thrown the medicine away, and drove the devil away too.” The old man had not done much work recently, as it affected the  girl’s head, and it is supposed that in consequence of his care of her, want of sleep, &c., his own mind had become temporarily affected, and while under the delusion that “Dena,” as he calls her, was the devil, he killed her.

The account which Belding gives of the affair is, that he saw the devil lying on the bed and he struck it in the face. The girl, it appears, was lying down in the back room. Belding followed her from that room to the front room, in which the murder was committed with a shoemaker’s hammer. Her skull was completely smashed to pieces. Portions of the hair were scattered about the room, and pieces of the skull were lying over the floor. Her face too was considerably bruised and disfigured, but no marks of violence were discovered on the other parts of her body. Belding says he thought she was the devil—that she appeared to him to be four times as large as “Dena”—and from his previous and subsequent conduct there can scarcely be a doubt that the old man imagines he had a fight with the devil, or he he expresses it, with “three devils, and he had all he could do to kill them.” They lived alone in the house.

Fanaticism and Murder.

Little Murders

(From The Wooster Republican, January 2, 1871)

 

Fanaticism and Murder.

 

The Cause of the Murder of the Family Near Dayton, O.

Cincinnati, March 11. – Further particulars in regard to the murder of a woman and three children, near Dayton, Saturday night, indicate the murder was committed by the father, Leonard Marquardt, who is evidently insane from a spiritual cause. The story the man himself tells is that a few days ago he read a chapter to his family from the Bible, and then rising up, accused his wife of being a witch and using witchcraft. He says his eldest daughter confirmed him in his suspicions. He says also that on Saturday night he told his wife he wanted their children to leave; then he and his wife stripped naked, and knelt down and prayed for fifteen minutes. They then stripped two of the children and took them out and drowned them and laid them side by side on the bank of the stream. They then dashed out the brains of the infant and left it in the woods, after which they returned home and went to bed. After lying there for fifteen minutes he told his wife that he wanted to send her to heaven also, and immediately fell upon and strangled her to death. After that he arose and prayed until three o’clock in the morning, when he went to the nearest neighbor and told him the whole story. Marquardt is a Germen farmer, and has been in this country about eighteen years. The murdered woman was his second wife.

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"Fanaticism and Murder." Wooster Republican, 14 Mar 1872: 2.

Murderous Clergy.

In the nineteenth century men of the cloth were often looked upon with as much suspicion as respect. When a minister was accused of murder it would turn the community against him, especially if a woman was involved. Though often condemned in the court of public opinion, clergymen fared much better in a court of law. All of the religious leaders in in our list were acquitted (though one Sunday school superintendent was hanged.)

	Rev. Ephraim Kingsbury Avery - 1832 Rev. Ephraim Kingsbury Avery was accused of seducing and murdering Sarah Maria Cornell, but the two had a long, contentious history and the jury was convinced that Sarah killed herself and framed Rev. Avery.
	The Prophet Matthias - 1834 Robert Mathiews, aka the Prophet Matthias, was the leader of a religious cult and controlled all aspects of his followers’ lives. When co-founder Elija Pierson was found dead, the Prophet Mathias was accused of going too far. The jury disagreed.
	Rev. Henry Budge - 1859 When the wife of Rev. Henry Budge was found with her throat cut, suicide was suspected, but soon suspicion fell on the Reverend. Despite compelling evidence against him, Reverend Budge was acquitted.
	Rev. John S. Glendenning - 1874 Church organist Mary Pomeroy was seduced and abandoned by her pastor, Rev. John Glendenning. She died soon after giving birth to his child. Though not technically a murderer, Glendenning was tried by the Presbyterian Church who found him innocent of all charges.
	Rev. Herbert H. Hayden- 1886 Rev. Herbert Hayden was accused of stabbing and poisoning Mary Stannard, a young housekeeper employed by his wife. Many  believed that he had seduced and impregnated her. He denied it all and was released after a hung jury.
	Theo Durrant - 1895 Mild-mannered Theo Durrant was the superintendent of Sunday school at Emmanuel Baptist Church in San Francisco. But Theo had a dark side—he murdered and mutilated two young women, leaving their remains in the church. "The Demon of the Belfry" was convicted.

The Boston Belfry Tragedy.




In the early 1870s, the city of Boston experienced a rash of gruesome murders. In October 1871, 18-year-old Kate Leehan was raped and murdered. A year later the dismembered body of Abijah Ellis was found floating in the Charles River. In 1874, Jesse Pomeroy killed two children and tortured several others. And, perhaps most disturbing to the people of Boston, a series of violent sexual assaults committed between 1871 and 1875 resulted in the deaths of two young women. These crimes remained unsolved until a Sunday in May 1875 when the body of five-year-old Mabel Young was found in the bell tower of the Warren Avenue Baptist church shortly after Thomas W. Piper, was seen leaping from the belfry.

"Murdered by a Maniac” Guest Post by James Schmidt

I am pleased to welcome guest blogger, James M. Schmidt to Murder by Gaslight. James writes about the American Civil War is the author of several books, including Galveston and the Civil War: An Island City in the Maelstrom. An article of his was recently published in The New York Times for their “Disunion” series on the Civil War. James also blogs about the Civil War from a medical point of view at Civil War Medicine (and Writing).

Today James will be taking a break from the battlefield, but not from violence, as he relates a fascinating tale of murder in Connecticut from the 1850s:

 

Murdered by a Maniac

by James M. Schmidt

 

The epitaph on a headstone in Sperry Cemetery in Bethany, Connecticut, bears witness to a horrible crime committed on New Year’s Day 1856:

In Memory of
Ichabod Umberfield
who was murdered by a maniac
Jan’y 1, 1856

The grim prose is actually only a hint of a week’s worth of violence and madness that began on Christmas Eve 1855 and took three innocent lives.  It offers a trail of treasure in primary material and engaging stories for anyone who takes the time to investigate the tale.  It also crosses multiple subjects of interest to people who enjoy studying the 1800s: cults, Spiritualism, mental illness, journalism, court proceedings, incarceration, class distinctions, and much more.

Mr. Umberfield was murdered by Charles Sanford, who had also killed another man, Enoch Sperry, earlier that day.  News of the grisly killings was reported throughout the area and then across the country.  Typical was this notice in the Hartford Daily Courant on January 3, 1856:

Terrible Affair with a Maniac

Two Men Murdered!

GREAT EXCITEMENT IN WOODBRIDGE.

The father of Hon. N. D. Sperry, Secretary of State, and a farmer, named Ichabod Umberfield, were cruelly and savagely killed by a lunatic named Charles Sanford, in the town of Woodbridge, on Tuesday… He seems to have accidently encountered Mr. Sperry, in his sleigh, about a half mile from the main road, on what is called the Shunpike, about 11 o'clock A. M.; to have made an assault on Mr. Sperry; dragged him from his sleigh … Mr. Sperry was struck first on the right temple with the head of the axe; then another blow just above the right ear, both of which produced fractures of the skull. He was then struck with the edge of the axe on the neck, the blow entering just under the chin, which it wounded and nearly severed his head from his body.

Sanford was apparently driven mad by the murder of a relative a week earlier, and that is an even more interesting story!

"...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.”