Wednesday, January 18, 2012 When Mrs. Clark refused to let Moses Paul, a Native American, “have a dram” at Clark’s Tavern in Bethany, CT on a Saturday night, he was incensed. He became so disorderly, in fact, that he was forcibly removed from the tavern, but not before he vowed to exact revenge. Not long after the disturbance, Moses [...]
Wednesday, December 7, 2011 Murder and Mayhem in Essex County by Robert Wilhelm (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2011), 128 pp. Robert Wilhelm has earned a reputation for writing compelling accounts of 19th-century murders on his blog, Murder by Gaslight. He has more recently taken on a new project, The National Night Stick, which chronicles the oddities and outrageous [...]
Thursday, October 20, 2011 After one week, hunger finally drove Owen Syllavan out of his hiding place in the Connecticut woods and forced him to seek refuge with an acquaintance. Syllavan cut open a plank in the floor of his friend’s house, dug a large cavity that went under the hearth of the fireplace, and rigged a vent so [...]
Filed in Criminals | Also tagged Branding, Connecticut, Counterfeiting, Ear cropping, Execution, Forgery, Imprisonment, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pillory, Punishment, Whipping | Wednesday, February 16, 2011 Robert Wilhelm, the author and publisher of the excellent Murder by Gaslight blog has just launched a new website called The National Night Stick. Readers of crime on the Web have come to expect engaging tales of 19th-century murder and mayhem on Murder by Gaslight, and The National Night Stick promises to follow in this [...]
Johnson Green was born in Bridgewater, MA on February 7, 1757 to unmarried parents. His father was a servant who worked for Timothy Edson. His mother was a widow named Sarah Johnson. His mother’s maiden name was Green, so he was sometimes called Joseph-Johnson Green. Green’s father was African American; his mother was Irish. Green [...]
Wednesday, April 28, 2010 Isaac Frasier was colonial America’s most prolific burglar. In his Brief Account of the Life, and Abominable Thefts, of the Notorious Isaac Frasier, he recorded over 50 acts of burglary and theft and stated that he committed many more that he could not specifically remember. He toured all over New England and into New York, [...]
On August 23, 1773, Martin Bicker took out the above newspaper advertisement in the hope that it would lead to the capture of Levi Ames’s accomplice in burglarizing his house. Tucked away in the back pages of the Boston Post-Boy, the ad marks the first time that Levi Ames was mentioned in print. Soon, however, [...]
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, Burglary, Connecticut, Forgery, Fraud, Imprisonment, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Prisons and Jails, Punishment, Theft, Whipping | 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 [...]
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 Tom Cook was a notorious New England thief who happens to have been born in my hometown of Westborough, MA. He called himself “The Leveller” and cultivated a reputation for stealing from the rich and readily sharing his ill-gotten gains with the poor. Stories of his exploits have been handed down for generations. Alice Morse [...]
Read my new book, Bound with an Iron Chain: The Untold Story of How the British Transported 50,000 Convicts to Colonial America, an Amazon.com bestseller! Visit Pickpocket Publishing for more details.
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