No. 675
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 8, 2024

So Far from Home

The Pearl Bryan Murder.
December 21, 2021
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 "The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnWelcome to this week's Link Dump!It's not the only new thing around here, I guess.Britain's last executed witch...may not have been executed after all.Why we call it a "grandfather clock."The British "bonfire night" of 1824.Why ancient Roman concrete was so strong.The use of medicinal herbs 15,000 years ago.To some people, it's a museum.  To
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Strange Company - 11/8/2024
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.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Soapy Smith's "star" notebookPage 11 - original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH'S "STAR" NOTEBOOKPart #11 - Page 11     This is part #11 - page 11, dated 1882. This is a continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1.    &
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/5/2024
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: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Myron Buel.“He possesses an expressionless and almost idiotic countenance.”  Illustrated Police News.Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20 years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Buel
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/2/2024
On the northwest corner of First Avenue at First Street, on the border of the East Village and the Lower East Side, is a handsome red-brick tenement. Five stories high (with a two-story, beach house–like penthouse on the roof, but that’s a subject for another post), it’s a typical, well-kept building likely on this corner […]
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Ephemeral New York - 11/4/2024
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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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Taking a Criminal's Measure. | Nothing But Wind!

So Far from Home

her struggle (Illustration from: The Mysterious Murder of Pearl Bryan, Or, The Headless Horror. Cincinnati: Barclay & Co., 1896.)

Yes. they drove far from the city,

To a place so far from home,

There they left her body lying

Headless and all stained with blood

Pearl Bryan (traditional ballad)


New Book!

So Far from Home
The Pearl Bryan Murder
by Robert Wilhelm

FrontCoverWeb2The headless corpse of a young woman, discovered in the woods of Northern Kentucky in February 1896, disrupted communities in three states. The woman was Pearl Bryan, daughter of a wealthy farmer in Greencastle, Indiana, and her suspected killers, Scott Jackson and Alonzo Walling, were dental students in Cincinnati, Ohio. How Pearl Bryan died so far from home is an enduring mystery.

 
It was the age of yellow journalism when sensational murder cases drove newspaper circulation, and daily papers competed to print the most gruesome details and explicit illustrations. Local crimes became national news, and readers followed the daily progress of police investigations and murder trials as if they were serialized mysteries. The murder of Pearl Bryan in 1896, featuring a headless body, remorseless villains, and threats of civil unrest, fit the bill perfectly. So Far from Home: The Pearl Bryan Murder revisits the story as it unfolded in the daily press.
 
Available at Amazon.