Souvenirs of Murder.

Luminous-Lint, a website devoted to history, evolution and analysis of photography has a great on-line exhibition of 19th century British and American murder photographs: Murder Most Foul: A Selection of Nineteenth Century Murder Cases. These portraits of killers and their victims were sold to the public as souvenirs of the murders. Here are some photos from the exhibition, pertaining to murders already covered at Murder by Gaslight, including a young Lizzie Borden: 

Josie Langmaid "The Murdered Maiden Student"	Jennie Cramer Found Drifting with the Tide
Rose Clark Ambler The Raven Stream Crime.	Harry Hayward, Claus Blixt, Adry Hayward, Catherine Ging The Minneapolis Svengali
Lizzie Borden Lizzie Borden Took an Axe...Or Did She?

The 50 Best American History Blogs

Murder by Gaslight is proud to be included in Online Colleges' list of 50 Best American History Blogs:

The 50 Best American History Blogs

Jack-Pot in Alaska

In an old book, recently, I found a story about a murderous 1897 card game in Alaska which featured the notorious outlaw, Soapy Smith. To get an expert’s opinion, I sent the story to Jeff Smith at Soapy Smith’s Soap Box. It turns out, the story is very likely true.

Here is a link to the story and Jeff’s take on it: A Jack-Pot in Alaska: The story of an unknown gunfight.

Duel Day

From the Bowery Boys:

Happy Duel Day 2011: When Vice Presidents attack!

207 years ago today, Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Though the two men obviously did not like each other much, they made a pretty good legal team. In 1800, just four years before the duel, they worked together to win an acquittal for Levi Weeks for the murder of Gulielma Sands - The Manhattan Well Mystery.

The Exoneration of John Gordon

Update 6/29/2011
On June 29, 2011, Rhode Island Governor Lincoln Chafee signed an official proclamation granting a full pardon to John Gordon, who was executed in 1845 for the murder of Amasa Sprague. Details here:


Justice delayed no longer justice denied after pardon



Update 6/23/2011
The motion to pardon John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague has passed the Rhode Island Senate 33-3. It's now up to the governor. Read about it here:

Measure pardoning Irish immigrant John Gordon in 19th-century murder goes to R.I. governor



2/28/2011
A motion has been submitted to the Judiciary Committee of the Rhode Island House requesting the pardon/exoneration of John Gordon for the murder of Amasa Sprague—a crime he, almost certainly, did not commit. The progress of this motion can be followed here: The Exoneration of John Gordon. The site also includes detailed information on the original trial and the people involved in the case. We wish them the best of luck with the motion.

The Grizzly Bear Tragedy

It's Bloody Murder Monday at YesterYear Once More. The story of a stabbing at the Grizzly Bear saloon, on the San Francisco Waterfront, in June 1893: Brutal Murder on the Water Front

Another Unsolved Axe Murder

From Lizzie Borden: Warps & Wefts:
Another Unsolved Axe Murder

Early American Crime

I was interviewed today at Early American Crime. Stop by and read what I have to say about Murder by Gaslight and my new blog, The National Night Stick.

The National Night Stick

I’m pleased to announce the launch of The National Night Stick, a blog devoted to Crime, Eccentricity and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America. Modeled after the National Police Gazette, the National Night Stick will feature stunningly illustrated stories of the dark side of American history:

Crime
We will present all facets of 19th century crime. “Rogue's Corner” features a weekly mug-shot and criminal biography of a noted ne’er-do-well from the pages of Inspector Thomas Byrnes’s Professional Criminals of America (aka Rogues’ Gallery.) And more often than not, the feature stories will include a bit of larceny.

Eccentricity
We will bring you the big ideas that came from an era in America when anything seemed possible - not the ideas that led to progress and invention, but dangerous ideas like train wrecks as entertainment, secret societies and private armies, religious movements that failed miserably and political machines that were all too successful.

The Sporting Life
We will visit those utterly disreputable but raucously joyous institutions found in every American city: saloons, vaudeville houses, dime museums, boxing rings, gambling hells, opium dens, and brothels.

The National Night Stick will also feature post summaries from Murder by Gaslight and other crime and history related blogs. It is guaranteed to be different on each visit.

As The Sunday Flash said in 1841:

"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 National Night Stick

Arsenic and Old Lace

Here is an interesting post from Lizzie Borden: Warps & Wefts: The Story Benind Arsenic & Old Lace. It's about "Sister Amy" Archer-Gilligan, the real-life inspiration for the play and movie Arsenic and Old Lace. Proof once again that truth is indeed stranger than fiction.

Jack the Ripper: The Prime Suspect

Jack the Ripper: The Prime Suspect
by Michael Connor

What if Jack the Ripper wasn’t Prince Albert Edward, or Lewis Carroll, or Oscar Wilde’s lover or any of the dozen or so flamboyant, globe-trotting eccentrics usually named as suspects? What if he was just a local workman who fit the murders into his daily schedule? Someone like cart driver Charles Allen Lechmere, who was on the scene when the first body was discovered and who gave a false name at the inquest. Police in 1888 let him walk away, but in a modern murder investigation he would have been the prime suspect.

Abby Borden Crime Scene

Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts has in interesting slide show of the Abby Borden crime scene as it was then and as it is now: Lizzie Borden Crime Scene. The entire house has been nicely restored and is now the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast in Fall River, MA. The murder is renacted there every August by the Pear Essential Players.

The Virtual Dime Museum

The Glass Bridge
The story of the 1891 murder of Frieda Borchinsky and her five year old son Isaac. And of a haunted Brooklyn tenement.

Who was the first American serial killer?

Crime history 101: Who was the first American serial killer?

I’ve never understood the appeal of serial killers. Sure, there is the shock value of an individual taking remorseless pleasure in unspeakable acts. But shock value is not enough; a murder without a motive just isn't a story.

Though I am not a fan of serial killers, I am a fan of historical accuracy and apparently so is Dan Norder, Crime Historian for examiner.com. His post, Crime history 101: Who was the first American serial killer?, provides a sampling (admittedly incomplete) of American serial killers in reverse chronological order.

Though he lists Jack the Ripper as a possible American serial killer, like me Norder does not think any of the arguments asserting this are convincing. And his list easily debunks the myth that H. H. Holmes (1890s) was America’s first serial killer.

So, who was America’s first serial killer? Norder likes the Harpe brothers (1799).  Until something earlier turns up, so does Murder by Gaslight.

A Rash of Murders

There has been a rash of 19th Century American murder postings around the web recently.  Here is a samplng:

from Ephemeral New York
Grisly murders rock 19th century Staten Island

from History and Women
The Murder of Helen Jewett
(more on Helen Jewett)

from Nobody Move!
This Day in Crime History July 2 1881 - The Assassination of James A. Garfield
This Day in Crime History July 8 1898 - The murder of "Soapy" Smith

from The Bowery Boys
First officer Down: Highbinder riots at St Peter's Church

from JTR Forums
1885 Austin Texas Murders

from Clews
Before H.H. Holmes, there was...Harry Hayward
(more in Harry Hayward and H.H. Holmes)

YesterYear Once More

Recommended:

YesterYear Once More is a great American history blog that returns to those thrilling days through newspaper clippings and period artwork. They have a number of regular features such as Tragic Tuesday, Horse Thief Thursday, and, of course the favorite around here, Bloody Murder Monday. This Monday’s post is:


Brutal Blute Kicks His Wife to Death

It is the story of the 1886 murder of Margaret Blute by her husband John in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, told entirely with newspaper reports from the time. To quote Mr. Blute, “This is a bad piece of business.”

Visible Proofs

Do modern crime scene photographs leave you sick to your stomach, or have repeated viewings of mangled corpses left you utterly desensitized to blood and gore? Either way, it may be time to return to a day when crime scene pictures were works of art. Visible Proofs: Forensic Views of the Body, a website maintained by U.S. National Library of Medicine, has an array of stunningly creepy 19th century crime scene paintings, with descriptions of the circumstances behind them. Taken from Atlas of Legal Medicine published in 1898, they were apparently used as a teaching aid. The Atlas itself can be read on-line, or downloaded as a pdf file or in several ebook formats: Atlas of Legal Medicine (warning: Unlike the excerpts, the book as a whole is extremely graphic. View at your peril.)

Visible Proofs contains a wealth of exhibits and information on the history of forensic technologies such as Bertillon cards (precursor to mug shots), Reading gunshot patterns, the Marsh test for detecting arsenic poisoning, and others. It includes biographies of forensic science pioneers and crime related artifacts like a pamphlet from the 1680s - "A True Relation of a Barbarous Bloody Murder..." And there’s a utopian view of the future of forensics as envisioned in the 1930s.

Visible Proofs - well worth a click.