Via Newspapers.comI have nothing to add to this story, except that it’s certainly a funny old world. The “Blairsville Enterprise,” March 14, 1899:A petition filed at Cordele, Ga., for a receiver for the First National Bank ends a peculiar story. The bank was established by Dr. George W. Marvin. A few months after organizing it he married a Mrs. Cunningham, a widow, who brought to him a
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.
I’m thrilled to let everyone know that Ephemeral New York’s Gilded Age Riverside Drive walking tours are back and officially on the schedule this spring—and ready for sign-ups! More tours are planned through the year, but these are the first three of the season. Click the link for more information and how to get tickets. […]
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: […]
A driverless horse and wagon wandered aimlessly in the prairie
between Fort Gibson and Tahlequah in Indian Territory on December 3, 1883. Jim
Merrill heard the wagon come up to his front gate and went out to investigate.
In the bed of the wagon, he found the body of Arch Casey with a large bullet
hole in his left breast. The wagon tracks were clearly visible in the dirt. They
followed a
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 18 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)
oapy Smith in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 18, the continuation of page 17, and dated March 28 - April 12, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook
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 →
New York, New York, April, 1884 - How the battering-ram process is applied by the bulls and bears to while away the idle hours of the dull season.
The members of the New York Stock Exchange are a frisky set, and as one who knows says: "Brokers will be boys." Their wild freaks would sometimes lead a stranger to believe that they were just fresh from college.
Mr. J. C. Carey, better known as "Crosstown Carey," who has been a member of the Exchange for twenty years, was lately the victim of a terrible hazing on the floor of the Board. His arm is very lame, his chest black and blue, and his ribs an object of solicitude to his physician-all the result of the rough treatment received in the Board Room the other day at the hands of the younger brokers. Their propensity for fun had been fully awakened by hazing Mr. H. D. Knowlton, on the occasion of his debut on the floor. This gentleman being young and prepared for the reception always given to a new member, escaped from the clutches of "the boys" after a few minutes, considerably the worse for wear. Just then the hazers caught sight of Mr. Carey's portly form, and, in a spirit of pure fun, they went for him.
It was in vain that he rushed to the water cooler and threw glassfuls of the icy beverage at the advancing foes; it did not damp the ardor of their pursuit. They drove the victim into a corner, and, forming a long line, shoulder to shoulder, they rushed upon him with the force of a catapult. Many of the younger members of the Exchange are trained athletes, and this line of men swaying to and fro, gave him a terrible pounding before he could escape. Horseplay is tolerated by the laws of the Exchange, but if a member strikes another on the floor he is punished with suspension; consequently the victim of an assault of this kind is at a disadvantage. Even if this law did not exist, however, he would hesitate to strike his tormentors, knowing that there is not a grain of malice in the attack.
Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - April 5, 1884
The conmen of New York City were noted for their colorful nicknames: “Paper Collar Joe" Bond, “Grand Central Pete" Lake, Jimmy “the Kid” Fitzgerald, and the greatest of all, “Hungry Joe” Lewis.
Hungry Joe Lewis (Professional Criminals of America)
Joseph Lewis was given the sobriquet "Hungry Joe" for the soulful countenance he usually bore. An 1885 biography of Hungry Joe described it this way:
"His general expression, however, is one of a far-away, yearning sort, not exactly poetic, but sad and thoughtful, as though his mind was occupied with things outside of the usual frivolities of life."
This expression can be seen in Hungry Joe’s iconic mug shot in Inspector Byrnes’s Professional Criminals of America.
Hungry Joe was a bunco steerer (called “banco steerer” in New York and New England). He would quickly ingratiate himself to some stranger traveling through New York, gain his trust then lure him to some game or situation where the traveler would lose everything he had. Hungry Joe preferred preying on countrymen—farmers and other wealthy gentlemen unfamiliar with big city ways, who had come to town to sell crops or buy equipment.
Sometimes Joe would entice his mark to play banco, a rigged game involving dice or cards, in which early gains by the player quickly turned to enormous losses. The player would invariably pay to avoid publicity. Another scam he used was called the “envelope game.” The player pays ten dollars to select from a box full of envelopes. The envelope contains currency in amounts ranging from one to fifty dollars. The player can only bet his own money, not his winnings. In this game, the play is extended as long as possible and the player ultimately wins, only to find out later that he has traded his cash for envelopes full of counterfeit bills.
Other times Joe would introduce the mark to a beautiful woman with an endless supply of champagne. The mark would wake up the next day in a strange room with nothing left but an excruciating hangover. In at least one instance, Hungry Joe used this method to steal not only a farmer’s money but the crops he had come to town to sell.
Regardless of the game, the method of roping in the mark was always the same. An accomplice, known as a “feeler,” would identify a wealthy traveler then, through chance meetings and overheard conversations, gather as much information as he could about the man. The information would be related to Hungry Joe who, armed with this knowledge, would pretend to recognize the mark from his hometown. He would pose as the son of the man’s banker or another prominent citizen of his town, and the mark, pleased to be recognized by someone so worthy, would be open to whatever Hungry Joe proposed.
Hungry Joe’s most audacious score was fleecing Oscar Wilde out of $5,000 at a game of banco. During the English poet’s 1883 visit to New York City, Hungry Joe finagled an introduction and palled around with Wilde for a week, dining at New York’s finest hotels, before suggesting that they try a game. As everyone does, Oscar Wilde lost at banco and wrote Joe a check to cover his losses. The next day, realizing that he had been swindled, Wilde stopped payment on the check, but he did not press charges. The incident so impressed New York Police Inspector Thomas Byrnes that on a subsequent arrest he said to Hungry Joe,
“You are able to make a fortune honestly, for any man who has the ability to fool Oscar Wilde and to bunko him has ability not only to make a living honestly, but to make a fortune, and when you get out of your present strait I would advise you to turn your attention to something that is honest.”
Hungry Joe managed to avoid any major prison time until May 1885 when he was arrested for stealing $250 from an English tourist. He had lured Joseph Ramsden of Manchester into a game of three card monte and when Ramsden pulled out a roll of ten pound notes, Hungry Joe, in an uncharacteristic fit of impatience, grabbed the roll and ran. He was caught, arrested, and sentenced to four years in Sing Sing.
After serving his sentence, Hungry Joe Lewis allegedly took Inspector Byrnes’s advice and went straight, opening a laundry business.
Sources:
Asbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1928
Byrnes, Thomas. Professional Criminals of America. New York: Castle & Company,Ltd, 1886.
Sante, Luc. Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.
Tousey, Frank. The Life of Hungry Joe. New York: Frank Tousey, 1885.
"Wise Oscar Wilde." The Morning Record, Meriden, CT, 20 Oct 1893.
"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 Sunday Flash 1841