Who Killed Benjamin Nathan?

Benjamin Nathan, a wealthy stockbroker and philanthropist, was found brutally beaten to death in his Manhattan home the morning of July 29, 1870. Some jewelry and a small amount of cash were stolen and the police were quick to rule the incident a burglary gone bad. But if so, how and when did the burglars enter? And how could four others staying in the house sleep through the violent attack? In fact, the Nathan murder looked more like a classic “locked-room” mystery—a mystery that remains unsolved.

Murder Will Out.

Little Murders

 

(From Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1880)
 

Murder Will Out.

Startling Developments of a Dying Man in Indiana.

After Sleeping Twelve Years in the Wilds of Brown County, the Spirit of Jamison Arises to Confront his Slayer.

Special Dispatch to the Cincinnati Gazette.

 

Columbus, Ind., April 26.—A few days ago a man by the name of Wm. J. Gillaspy died in Johnson County, and on his deathbed told of a murder that he was a party to that has been a mystery in the vicinity where it happened to the present time. About twelve years ago a prominent farmer and stock trader, of Johnson County, named Jas. Jamison, was missing, and no clew could be found of his whereabouts, and nothing has been heard of him except that his horse, saddle, and bridle were found a short time after the disappearance in the possession of a man by the name of Elias Curry, who lived in Hamblen Township, Brown County. Curry claimed days before that he bought the horse of Jamison a few days before he disappeared and suspicion rested on him at the time, but no steps were taken against him at the time. The man Gillaspy, when he found he was about to die, told that he and Curry, and a son of Curry’s and one of the most prominent citizens of Brown County, shot and killed Jamison on Hurricane Ridge, in Hamblen Township, Brown County, three-fourths of a mile from Curry’s house, and buried his body in a dense thicket by the road. They got $1,665 in cash and $3,000 in notes as the fruits of the foul deed, but the notes were destroyed as nothing was ever heard of them.

Curry, Gillaspy said, took the horse, saddle, and bridle in at $100, in the division of the spoils, which accounts for his being in possession of it. Curry has had an unenviable reputation as a suspicious character, and at one time narrowly escaped being lynched by his neighbors. The revelation of Gillaspy has created great excitement in the community and the matter will be probed to the bottom. John Jamison, son of the murdered man, resided in this place for several years, and lives at the present time in Jonesville, in this county. He left this mooring for Gillaspy’s former home to get all the information he could of the diabolical deed. It hardly seems possible that the man named in the confessions of Gillaspy can be guilty, as he has the respect of all who know him. Nothing has transpired in this part of Indiana for years that has created such widespread amazement, and further developments are looked for with the deepest interest.

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Cincinnati Daily Gazette, Cincinnati, Ohio, April 27, 1880

Murder! Murder! Murder!!

Little Murders

 

(From Flake's Bulletin, Galveston, Texas, January 15, 1870)

Murder! Murder! Murder!! 

 

 Last night, about half-past eight o’clock, the residents of Penn street were aroused by hearing the cries of “murder, murder, help, for God’s sake, help!” Visions of cut-throats, robbers and foot-pads arose in the minds of those who heard the terrible cries of distress. For five minutes the cries continued, until the whole vicinity was awakened and had lit their lanters, armed themselves in case of danger, and went forth to relieve the distressed

In a few more moments Messrs. J. L. Cravens, Tomlinson and Bishop, and a few others arrived at the spot where the cries were heard. The scene that they beheld was truly horrible. Two men named Shannessy and Brown, were facing each other, one with a pitchfork and the other with a butcher’s knife. They were both literally covered with blood. Shannessy had stabbed Brown severely with the pitchfork in the shoulder, and Brown had cut his opponent in the face.

The men both boarded with Mr. Chas. Dwyer, and the difficulty had started in the house. How they came to be so far away from their home bare-footed, bare-headed, and without coats on, we are unable to tell. After separating them, the crowd dispersed.

The difficulty occurred in front of the residence of J. K Cravens, Esq, on Penn street. What became of them after that we have yet to learn.—[Kansas City, Mo., News. Jan 3.


 

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"Murder ! Murder ! Murder!!" Flake's Bulletin, Galveston, TX,  15 Jan 1870: 1.

Scenes from the Fisk Assassination

Illustrations from the 1872 book Life, Adventures, Strange Career and Assassination of Col. James Fisk, Jr. provide a good graphic presentation of events surrounding the murder of Jim Fisk:

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.

The Horrible Murder in Division Street.

 An editorial on ruffianism from the New York Herald, June 11, 1872:

The Horrible Murder in Division Street.

 

 

We are becoming so used to the reign of ruffianism that it requires some outrage of unusual barbarity to thoroughly arouse our indignation. But even the meekest citizen will be of opinion that the murder of Augustus Brown, on Saturday night, ought to be followed by vigorous action looking towards the suppression of rowdyism.It will not do to allow gangs of loafing ruffians to assemble at street corners and insult peaceable passers-by. As we have before pointed out, these assemblages are constantly leading to murder and robbery. The judicial authorities are as much to blame in this matter as are the police, for the cure for this crying evil is very simple. Instead of allowing members of gang to come into court and swear an alibi, every man known to have been present at the time of a murder ought to  be held as an accessory, unless he give such information as will aid the cause of justice. So long as ruffians can find immunity from the law by swearing for each other the respectable classes of the community will always be at the mercy of the scum of our population. Murder succeeds murder with alarming rapidity in our midst and unless the law can afford the citizen better protection than it does at present the citizen will be forced in self-defense to take action independent of the authorities.

We have constantly urged the suppression of the corner loafer gangs, and this last murder, by its cold-blooded atrocity, must bring home to every man the necessity which exists for the course we have strenuously recommended. The best was of striking terror into the gangs of rowdies by whom we are beset is by making every individual responsible for the crimes of his companions. There can be no just objection to such a course; it is followed in all cases of crime against property, and ought to be enforced with double stringency incases of crime against the person. If one of a gang rob a house the whole gang may be punished, and if one of a gang commit murder his companions and encouragers ought also to be exposed to the action of the law. If the judges and juries would act on this principle for six months and  decline to be influence by representations of politicians, the violence and aggressiveness of our rowdy population would soon cease.

 

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"The Horrible Murder in Division Street." New York Herald 11 Jun 1872: 7.

Scenes from Smuttynose.

Haley Dock and Homestead. The murder occurred in the third house from the left.

An article in the October 1874 issue of Harper’s Magazine describes a trip to the Isles of Shoals off the coast of New Hampshire and Maine. Though it discusses the current inhabitants and the long history of the islands, the article and its illustrations center on the memory of the brutal murders of Anethe and Karen Christensen, just a year and a half earlier.

A Savage Ruffian!

James Fennimore Cooper recalled a day in June 1806 when he joined the population of Cooperstown, New York, to witness an eclipse of the sun. The eclipse was not the only memorable sight he saw that day, a prisoner had been brought up from his windowless dungeon to view the event. The man “with haggard face and fettered arms…the very picture of utter misery,” was Stephen Arnold, convicted of beating to death his six-year-old adopted daughter Betsey Van Amburgh for mispronouncing a word.

Clement Arthur Day.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Clement Arthur Day.

"Clement Arthur Day, who murdered Josie Rosa on the morning of June 9th, 1887, was hanged at Utica, Feb’y 9th 1888. Day killed the woman, who was living with him, by stabbing her twelve or fifteen times, because she was going to leave him and go home to her sick mother. He felt no concern on account of his crime on the morning of his execution, ate a hearty meal, then sang several songs, danced a jig, &c. He twanged a guitar, laughed and joked, and altogether entertained his keepers, and at the gallows even assisted in putting the noose around his neck."

 

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

Arthur Spring Jr. vs. Arthur Spring Sr.

On the morning of March 11, 1853, the bodies of  Mrs. Honora Shaw and her sister Mrs. Ellen Lynch were found brutally stabbed and beaten in the front room of their home on Federal Street in Philadelphia. Circumstantial evidence pointed to Arthur Spring, a frequent guest of Mrs. Shaw’s, as the murderer. But the most damning evidence against Spring was the testimony of his nineteen-year-old son, Arthur Jr. who directly accused his father of the murders.  Arthur Spring vehemently denied the charge and countered by pinning the murders on his son.

Deserved Double Lynching.

Little Murders

 

(From The Wheeling Register, Wheeling, West Virginia, June 6, 1885)

Deserved Double Lynching.

 

Two Brothers Swing for Murder – Wholesale Murder Plot Revealed

 

Marshalltown, Iowa, June5. – Fin and Mans Rainsbarger were taken from jail at Eldora, Hardin county, at 1 o’clock this morning, by a mob of seventy-five masked men and riddled with bullets, so as to be unrecognizable. They are brothers of the two Rainsbargers now in the Marshal county jail here, for the murder of Enoch Johnson, and were arrested yesterday for an alleged attack on Doctor Underwood, who is prominent in the Rainsbarger prosecution.

Results of a Feud

The lynching of Rainsbarger at Eldora, last night, is the result of an old feud that has be brewing in Harden county for many years. It originated in a family quarrel a great many years ago and culminated last year in the murder of Johnson. For this crime the two Rainsbarers, Nathaniel and Frank, are now in jail at Marshalltown, charged with murder. Accusation was made by the wife of Nathanial, who is a daughter of Johnson. Among the most prominent men in the county , who testified at the preliminary examination was Dr. Underwood, of Eldora. His life was threatened by the gang a few days ago. Suspicious movements were discovered by a party upon whom a watch was set. It was discovered in a secret communication with the Rainsbagers. It was finally found that a plot was being concocted

To Murder a Number of Leading Citizens

of the county. These facts developed only a day or two ago. Night before last Dr. Underwood and Dr. Riedenour, a dentist, were shot as they were driving along in the country. The former was wounded and hit once. Only though a number of shots were fired, this attempt drove the citizens to desperation, and Rainsbargers having  been arrested  last evening, were, during the night, taken out and lynched as stated. The brothers lynched were known as Fin and Mans. Fin was a pardoned convict charged with murder. The family and their followers are hard characters and have given peaceable a great deal of trouble. Great excitement prevails. Public sentiment, however, generally approves of the lynching. It is doubtful if any prosecutions are made.

 

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The Wheeling Register, Wheeling, West Virginia, June 6, 1885

The Vanderpool-Field Tragedy.

Though he was only twenty-one years old in 1869, Herbert Field had already faced death numerous times in a variety of exotic locations. Field had lived an adventurous life and seemed to attract danger, but he never encountered a danger he could not overcome until he settled down in Michigan to become a banker.

James H. Jacobs.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

James H. Jacobs.

“On the night of 11th of December 1886, Jacobs stabbed Elmer E. Quigley in the stomach with a butcher knife. The affair occurred near Jacobs house, at Lancaster, Pa. Jacobs was abusing his children, who were outside the house. Quigley came along and remonstrated with Jacobs for abusing his children, who were crying. After some words, Jacobs went into the house, got a knife, came out and plunged it into Quigley, killing him.”

 

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

Reprinted from New York Herald, December 22, 1868.

A Visit to the Tombs.

An Interview with the Prisoners Committed for murder—What They Say and Think—Drink and Bad Company the Pathway to the Gallows—Pistol, Knife and Stiletto Freely Used.

The Tombs (NYPL)

The Tombs of New York has become as familiar to the people of America s the Bastille of Paris to the people of France. There the contrast ends. Once in the living tomb of the Bastile the victim might exclaim with Sterne’s Starling, “I can’t get out, I can’t get out;” for the grave was the only release to the poor victim of some petty tyrant’s hate whom a lettre de cachet swept from his path.

How different in the Tombs! Though human laws and the good society demand the punishment of criminals, it is divine to temper justice with mercy and kindness, and this, it is believed, is done there. The prisoners are treated kindly, allowed to partake of the sympathy of their friends, and even more substantial favors.

The Walworth Patricide.

The name Walworth was an old and venerable one in the state of New York. William Walworth arrived there from London in 1689; during the American Revolution, Benjamin Walworth fought in the Battle of White Plains; Reuben Hyde Walworth, in 1828, was named Chancellor of New York, the state’s highest judicial office. But in 1873 the name Walworth was forever tarnished when Frank Walworth murdered his father Mansfield Walworth.

Mrs. Sarah Rhodes.

Little Murders:

From Defenders and Offenders:

Mrs. Sarah Rhodes.

“This remarkable woman, who sports a moustache, is accused of murdering Farmer Blizzard, a married man, and who seemed to be infatuated with this woman.  He called upon her at Greenville, Va., where she resided on the evening of January 28, and took her riding in his buggy. At a lonely spot while crossing a bridge, the woman first shot the farmer and then hacked his body with an axe. She then dragged him from the wagon and threw his body over the bridge to the river below.”

 

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

Guest Blogger: ExecutedToday.com

 

ExecutedToday.com recently celebrated its 2,000th consecutive day posting execution stories from all times and places—that’s every day since October 31, 2007. You’d think they would run out of material but there is no end in sight.

 

This is the second guest post from ExecutedToday.com and once again it is an honor to include one of their gallows tales on Murder by Gaslight. This one is a hanging in Nebraska for a murder that was never committed.

1887: William Jackson Marion, who’d be pardoned 100 years later

Originally posted on ExecutedToday.com March 25th, 2011 by Headsman
         
On this date in 1887, William Jackson Marion was executed in Nebraska for the murder of his best

friend, John Cameron.

Jackson had always upheld his innocence and his ignorance of Cameron’s fate; he was the picture of “utmost coolness” on the scaffold, declaring only “that I am a sinner, the same as other men. I have made no confession and have none to make. Go to the court dockets and see where men have been tried and acquitted and compare my case with them.”

And then, as given by the Gage County Democrat, the first, last, and only man hanged in Beatrice “stood erect upon the trap-door while his hands and feet were bound, the black cap drawn over his face, and the noose adjusted,” the trap sprung, and after a thousand-plus people had taken the opportunity to view this infamous corpse, it was buried in the potter’s field.

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It was then 15 years since young “Jack” Marion and John Cameron had hauled out from Grasshopper Falls, Kansas, looking for work on a railroad.

Somewhere in the wilderness, John Cameron disappeared, and Marion returned to his mother-in-law’s saying his buddy had left. Marion’s whereabouts fade; he’s supposed to have drifted in Indian country: was it flight? It sure looked that way a year later, when a body turned up with clothes that matched Cameron’s … and bullet wounds in the head.

Settling an Old Feud.

Little Murders

 

(From New York Herald, New York, New York, October 20, 1885)
 

Settling an Old Feud.

 

A serious stabbing affray occurred in a lonely portion of South Orange, N. J., on Sunday night, which will probably result in a murder. About eleven o’clock on Sunday night Morris Foran, of South Orange, entered the tavern kept by Mrs. Mary Briarton on the Ridgewood road. James Tanzey, of Milburn; William P. Brown and Ira Smith, of South Orange, entered the barroom a little later, and, having drunk some whiskey, were about to leave, when Tanzey saw Foran and scowled. His companions left the saloon, but he stood in the doorway until Mrs. Briarton went into a back room. He then walked over to Foran, and inquired in a surly tone, “Are you Morris Foran?”

Mrs. Briarton could not hear the answer, but in a minute she heard a scuffle and heard Foran exclaim, “I am stabbed!”

Rushing into the room, she saw Tanzey and Foran struggling on the floor. Tanzey had a large clasp-knife in his hand and Foran was making desperate efforts to wrest it from him. He was covered with blood, and after shaking off his antagonist by a desperate effort, he fainted. Fanzey was about to rush upon him again when Brown and Smith seized him and dragged him from the saloon.

Dr. Chandler was summoned, and when he arrived he found that Foran was terribly wounded. There was a gash in his stomach five inches long, from which the entrails protruded. He was moved to Memorial Hospital in Orange, where he lingers in a critical condition.

Justice of the Peace O’Reilly arrested Tanzey, whom he found on the Valley road. On being asked the cause of the stabbing, Tanzey, who bore two slight cuts on his face, replied that it was a woman affair. Becoming excited, he waved his fist in the air and exclaimed:--

“I’ve been waiting two years for this chance.”

“For what chance?” asked the Justice, “To stab Foran or go to jail?”

“Go to jail,” replied Taney quickly.

The prisoner formerly kept a saloon in Millburn, but lately he was employed as a mason in Short Hills. It is rumored that two years ago he and Foran quarreled about a woman. Foran is a contractor and has a wife and three children.

 

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New York Herald, New York, New York, October 20, 1885

The Woman in Black.

A prominent California legislator was sitting with his wife and son on board the Oakland-San Francisco ferryboat El Capitain the evening of November 3, 1870. They did not notice the woman, dressed entirely in black, wearing a broad brimmed black hat with a black veil covering her face, as she approached them. From the folds of her dress the woman pulled a derringer and shot the man in the chest. The family recognized the woman in black then; it was Laura Fair and she was finally ending her tumultuous affair with Alexander P. Crittenden.

Insurance Murders.

Life insurance has always provided incentive to murder. Depending on the state of their relationship, the beneficiary may come to view the insured as more valuable dead than alive. In the nineteenth century, life insurance fraud was much harder to detect than it is today. There is no telling how many times it succeeded, but here are some notable failures:
:

	William Udderzook - 1873 William Udderzook and Winfield Goss devised a plan to defraud an insurance company by passing off an unidentified corpse as Goss. Fearing the Goss would give them away, Udderzook made sure that Goss would never be seen alive.
	Benjamin Hunter - 1878 When Benjamin Hunter loaned $12,000 to John Armstrong, he required Armstrong to take out a life insurance policy in Hunter’s name to secure the loan. The amount of the policy was $26,000 and Hunter saw an opportunity to make a sizeable profit.
	The Blue Eyed Six - 1878 Six Pennsylvania men, down on their luck, thought they could make some easy money by insuring the life of Joseph Raber, an elderly recluse. They grew tired of waiting for Raber to die and decided to take matters into their own hands.
	Sarah Jane Robinson- 1886 Sarah Jane Robinson had a tendency to live beyond her means but she had a simple solution to her debt problems—she would insure the lives of her family members then poison them.
	Harry Hayward - 1894 Harry Hayward was a handsome rogue with a very persuasive personality. He persuaded Catherine Ging to take out an insurance policy in his name, then persuaded Claus Blixt to murder her.