No. 469
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 16, 2020

Recruiting For Sin's Army

June 16, 2020
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 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!And we have mail!A murder, a lynching, and a scandal.How the grave marker of an ancient Roman sailor wound up in a New Orleans backyard.America's most haunted homes.How to make the perfect 14th century omelet.The fine art of forgery.The unsolved disappearance of Merlina the Raven.The Great Siege of Gibraltar.The Palace of Westminster fire of 1834.The Fasting
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Strange Company - 10/17/2025
John Albok saw much loss early in his life. Born in Hungary in 1894, he was drafted into war, then returned home to learn that two of his sisters died of starvation and his father had committed suicide. He may have been able to get through these tragedies by focusing on his passion: photography. As […]
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Ephemeral New York - 10/13/2025
The good-looking thirty-seven year old gentleman handling the reins behind the glossy matched pair pulling the spanking-new carriage drew the attention of more than one feminine eye.  Pacing down French St. at a sharp clip, the lady next to him, dressed neatly in a tailor-made suit with the latest in millinery fashion, smiled up at her coachman. Behind the lace curtains on the Hill section of Fall River, tongues were wagging about the unseemly pair. Lizzie Borden, acquitted of double homicide just six years earlier had come into her money and also her style of spending it on the good things in life.  Just what was going on between Lizzie and that coachman, unchaperoned and traveling together all around town? Chief among those who disapproved of the new coachman was sister Emma, who had been perfectly satisfied with Mr. Johnson, the former coachman who had managed their father’s Swansea farm. This new addition to the house on French St. was far too “at home” and casual for Emma’s proper standards. He did not behave sufficiently as a servant who ought to know his place. His presence in their home was causing gossip and attention, a deplorable situation for the retiring, modest older sister. Handsome Joe would have to go and Emma made sure of that in 1902 after three years of Joe’s service to the Borden sisters. Lizzie was not well-pleased with the dismissal. Ever since Emma Borden packed her bags and left French St. for good in 1905, friends, neighbors and now historians wonder what caused the split between two sisters who had been so close all their lives. Much has been made of the passing and short friendship Lizzie formed with actress Nance O’Neil as a possible cause of the rift, as well as “theater people” in the house and strong drink. Most likely it was a combination of things but one thing was for sure- Emma’s dismissal of the good-looking young coachman whom Lizzie had hired to drive her around town was a factor. 1900 census listing Joe, Annie Smith (housekeeper) Lizzie and Emma So, where did he come from and what became of Joseph Tetrault (also Tetreau and Tatro)?  Born on February 9, 1863 in Kingston, R.I. of French Canadian parents, he worked as a hairdresser/barber on Second Street in Fall River at one time.  Later we find him living a short distance away on Spring Street at a boarding house owned by Lizzie and Emma after the murders in 1892. His parents, Pierre Tetreau dit Ducharme and  his mother,Almeda Fanion were from Rouville, Quebec and had moved to Kingston, Rhode Island. Pierre worked in a woolen mill and had nine children with his first wife, Marie Denicourt, and six more with  second wife, Almeda. The last six included : Edward Peter 1861-1940 Joseph H.  1863-1929 Mary Elizabeth “Mamie” 1865-1956 Frederick A. 1871-1947 Francis “Frank” 1875-1935 Julia E.  1877-1973 We can only imagine the conversation between Lizzie and Emma about Joe Tatro – the arguments put forward, even heated discussions, but in the end, Lizzie had her way and in 1904 rehired Joe to resume his duties on French Street.  Added to Emma’s unhappiness about Nance O’Neil and other factors, Emma and Lizzie parted company in 1905. Joe remained driving Miss Lizzie until 1908, and for whatever reason, decided to move on. The 1908 directory lists him as “removed to Providence”. Joe never married. Perhaps he remembered his childhood in a house full of siblings and half siblings and parenthood never appealed to him. He decided to try his luck out in Ohio where his youngest sibling, Julia, had gone, now married to Alfred Lynch and where eventually all his full siblings would find their way. Al Lynch worked as a supervisor in a machine works in East Cleveland and he and Julia had two sons, Alfred Jr. and an oddly -named boy, Kenneth Borden Lynch.  One has to wonder about this last name.  Lizzie had two beloved horses, Kenneth and Malcolm. Was this a connection to Joe’s happy past on French Street where he had driven that team of horses?  Lizzie presented Joe with a handsome heavy gold watch chain when he left her in 1908.  The watch fob had an onyx intaglio inset of a proud horsehead to remind him of their days on French St. Joe’s youngest sibling Julia, who married Al Lynch. She was the mother of two sons including Kenneth Borden Lynch Sadly, Kenneth Borden Lynch was to marry, produce one son, and one day while attending to his motor vehicle, was run over by a passing Greyhound bus. Kenneth Borden Lynch, Joe’s nephew Joe Tatro developed cancer of the stomach and died at the age of 66 ½ from a sudden stomach hemorrhage on August 10, 1929.  His last occupation was one of a restaurant chef.  He was a long way from those carefree Fall River days.  He was buried in Knollwood Cemetery on August 12th from S.H. Johnson’s funeral home. His last address at 1872 Brightwood St. in East Cleveland is today just a vacant lot in a tired old residential neighborhood. He shared the home with another married sister, Mary R. Tatro Asselin.  There are still a few direct descendants of his immediate family alive, and they are aware of his connection to Lizzie Borden. Whatever memories of her, Joe took with him to the grave. (Photographs courtesy of Ancestry.com, Newspapers.com, The Cleveland Plain Dealer and Zillow.com)
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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
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Emma Malloy and George E. GrahamIllustrated Police News, April 17, 1886 & May 15, 1886.Famous Evangelist, temperance leader, author, and publisher Emma Molloy opened her home to the lost and lonely, much as others would take in stray cats. She had an adopted daughter, two foster daughters, and she found a job at her newspaper for George Graham, an ex-convict she had met while preaching at a
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"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Cursing In Church | Taking The Census.

Recruiting For Sin's Army

sins army

New York, New York, 1882 – Tempting to Ruin! How Gotham’s Palaces of sin are garrisoned out of the hovels. The gaudy spider spreading her webs for the flies who make her loathsome trade profitable.[more]

A portly female arrayed in a sealskin dolman to her heels and with her blonde wig topped with a Gainsborough hat, descended from the elevated road at the United States Hotel, this city, recently. In the hallway she met another female who might have been her twin sister as far as costume went. The pair exchanged a profusive greeting, and the fine carat solitaires in their ears radiated a blaze of splendor as their heads bobbed together in the regulation kiss. It would have been evident to an experienced eye that the authors of these amenities belonged to a class more familiar to the police court than the prayer meeting and the glories of the attire they flaunted bore the taint of shame.

One of the women consulted a watch encrusted with diamonds and led the way to the street. They crossed Fulton Street, where one halted at the corner. The other passed on to the opposite side of Water Street, where she likewise halted. The passers-by cast curious glances at them but they did not flinch. They held their posts with the air of having a reason for doing so.

In a few minutes the shrill voices of many whistles announced that it was twelve o'clock. From the doorway of a tobacco factory near by a couple of girls came out. They went into a neighboring coffee and cake shop, passing one of the waiting women, who eyed them closely. They were ordinary-looking girls, in the shabby brown-stained attire of tobacco strippers. After them appeared a very pretty girl of perhaps sixteen years, who had a touch of coquettishness despite her cheap dress. She passed the second woman, who addressed a remark to her. The girl started, and the woman put a card into her hand, which she slipped into her pocket as she hurried away.

By this time the girls were pouring out of the factory in a steady stream. With a number of them, always the best-looking, it was to be seen that the woman repeated the performance already described. At half past twelve the two women went away up Fulton Street, leaving the girls gathered on steps and in doorways eating their lunches and talking. Several of them were comparing the cards which they had received.

A Police Gazette reporter who had observed all approached one of these groups and after considerable persuasion induced a pretty German girl to exhibit her pasteboard to him. It bore the address of one of the most noted procuresses on Twenty-seventh Street.

"Do you know what that card means?" asked the reporter.

"The lady asked me to come and see her," replied the girl after a moment's hesitation.

"What did she say to you?" "She said," replied the girl slowly and with her eyes on the sidewalk, "that I ought to be doing better than stripping tobacco for a living and if I came to her she would show me how."

"And do you know what she means?"

The girl cast a stealthy glance at her questioner and began to cry. Several of her companions gathered around her and took her away, assailing the scribe in vigorous words and intimating that he had better mind his own business. The policeman at the corner, coming up to the Police Gazette representative, said:

"Have you been giving the girls a steer about the madams? I thought so. Why, they nearly blackguarded the buttons off my coat the other day because I wanted 'em not to have anything more to do with those women. It's an outrage. The women have been coming down here about once a week these three months or so, and every time they come you find a couple of the girls leaving the factory. There was a girl last summer, one of the prettiest little things you ever saw. Her brother works in the market. She was the first one them women pitched on, and her brother told me yesterday that she's in a place uptown and won't come home. Every now and then one of the girls comes down here all rigged out in sealskins and diamonds and then there's a flutter among the other girls and one or two of them disappear. The women you have noticed pick out tobacco factories because the girls who work in them are numerous enough to pick and choose from and because the business itself is an unpleasant one and any girl employed in it is glad to get the chance to better herself even if it brings ultimate ruin on her. They take one of the girls from here whom they have gotten into their clutches, dress her up, cover her with diamonds, fill her half full of champagne and give her money to treat her former fellow workers with, and send her down here and she does more harm than they themselves can do, for she can poison the mind of any girl she gets hold of."


The National Police Gazette, November 3, 1888