I was recently interviewed by Leonard Sipes about “Early American Crime in the Media” for D.C. Public Safety Radio, which presents audio programs on crime, criminal offenders, and the criminal justice system.
The program lasts a half hour and covers the criminal justice system in colonial America, how crime was covered in early American newspapers, and [...]
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Read my article on Anthony Lamb, who was perhaps America’s most successful transported convict, in February’s issue of The Readex Report: “‘Human Serpents sent us by our Mother Country’: The Transformation of Anthony Lamb, Transported Convict.”
* * *
J. L. Bell posted a follow-up to my recent article about the burglar William Linsey on his Boston [...]
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Even though William Linsey was orphaned at a young age, this rough start did not appear to have any negative impact on him. Linsey was originally born in Palmer, MA in 1746, but at the age of two he went to live with Phinehas Mixture in Dudley, MA. By Linsey’s own account, Mixture raised him [...]
Filed in Criminals
|
Also tagged Branding, Connecticut, Forgery, Fraud, Imprisonment, Massachusetts, New England, New Hampshire, Prisons and Jails, Theft, Whipping
|
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
In May 1744, Elizabeth Robinson was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London to transportation to the American colonies for her involvement in the theft of 104 China oranges from a warehouse. She was loaded onto the Justitia that same month and eventually landed in Virginia. She ended up in Maryland, where she reportedly continued [...]
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
All of you who read these Lines may see
The sad and dire Effects of Sin:
Therefore if Sinners still you’l be,
Leave off to read ere you begin. (from A Few Lines)
These lines form the opening of A Few Lines upon the Awful Execution of John Ormesby & Matthew Cushing, one of two poems written [...]
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Sometime around midnight on June 10, 1664, Arthur Nottool, a tailor by trade and a servant living in Abington Cliffs, broke into the house of John Hunt of Eltonhead Manor in Calvert County, Maryland. Poking around in the dark, Nottool spotted an open trunk and removed a shirt from it. He also spied a gun, [...]
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Note: This post is the conclusion of the story of the “Harvard-Educated Burglars.”
In his History of New England, John Winthrop notes on June 5, 1644,
Two of our ministers’ sons, being students in the college, robbed two dwelling houses in the night of some 15 pounds. Being found out, they were ordered by the governours [...]
Monday, December 14, 2009
John Warren has just posted an article on his New York History blog about a new online exhibit by the New York Correction History Society. The exhibit chronicles the last execution to be carried out by hanging in the state of New York.
The hanging of John Greenwall for murder and burglary took place on December [...]
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
James Ward and Joseph Welde were positioned for success. Both were sons of prominent Puritan church men who were respected members of Massachusetts society, and both were enrolled at Harvard College, which would help them follow in their fathers’ footsteps and become leaders in their community.
One night in March 1644, Ward and Welde burglarized the [...]
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Outside of murder, burglary and robbery were considered the most egregious crimes in England and colonial America. Since burglars and robbers threaten the well-being and lives of victims while taking their property, they are regarded as worse than thieves, who try to steal without detection or intimidation. Burglary also conjures up feelings of discomfort, fear, [...]
