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Author Archives: Anthony Vaver

Anthony Vaver has broad expertise in the social and cultural history of crime and punishment. He holds a Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and an M.L.S. from Rutgers University.

Early American Criminals: The Curse on Joseph Lightly

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Joseph Lightly relates in his Last Words and Dying Speech that when his mother learned he had enlisted in the British army, “she told me she hoped she should hear of my being hanged, for my Cruelty of going to leave her against her Will.” Lightly’s mother may simply have been reacting to the moment, […]

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The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: bone orchard or bone yard

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

bone orchard or bone yard – a cemetery, graveyard, burial place. Sources Farmer, John S. and W. E. Henley. A Dictionary of Slang and Colloquial English. Abridged from Slang and Its Analogues. London: George Routledge and Sons, 1912. Partridge, Eric. A Dictionary of the Underworld. New York: Bonanza Books, 1961. Note: See “Cant: The Language […]

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Special Announcement: A New Book by Anthony Vaver Will Be Published By Pickpocket Publishing

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

My new book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America will be published by Pickpocket Publishing in the early summer of 2011. In the 18th century, thousands of British convicts were separated from their families, chained together in the hold of a ship, and […]

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The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: bone

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

bone – 1. to take, steal, as in the way a dog runs off with a bone; 2. to be arrested, carried off, taken into custody; 3. to beg, to ask for. Sources London Antiquary, A [Hotten, John Camden]. A Dictionary of Modern Slang, Cant, and Vulgar Words. 2nd ed. London: John Camden Hotten, 1860. […]

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The American Malefactor’s Dictionary: boat

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

boat – 1. transport; 2. transport a prisoner; 3. to go in with, as in “to boat with another”: “to be his partner in the same boat—in the same scrape”; 4. to go to sea. Sources Barrère, Albert and Charles G. Leland. A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon, and Cant. [London]: The Ballantyne Press, 1889. Matsell, […]

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