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- [00:00]
Josh Whalen
If you're paying more than $1 a month for any ED or hair medication, listen up at Joy and Blokes when you start TRT or Enclomiphene, you can add any ED or hair loss prescription for just $1 a month. $1 add ons with your hormone plan and right now all labs are 50% off. I'm Josh Whalen, founder of Joy and Blokes. I built this company because men are tired of paying for fragmented care without results. Every Joy and Blokes lab includes a visit with a licensed clinician who connects your symptoms to your biomarkers. You'll get a real plan that covers hormones, performance and confidence. If you're considering TRT or Enclomiphene, this is the most efficient way to do it. Get started@joyandbloks.com and use a promo code podcast. New customers get 50% off their labs and for a limited time, you can take advantage of our $1ed or hair loss add ons when you start TRT or Enclomophene. Not available in all states. Compounded medications are not FDA approved. Learn more at joyandblooks.com.
- [01:03]
Genevieve Manion
Hello and welcome to My Victorian Nightmare. I'm your host, Genevieve Manion, and I'm here to talk about mysterious deaths, morbid fascinations, disturbing stories, and otherwise spooky events from the Victorian era. Because to me there's just something especially.
- [01:22]
Co-host or Guest
Intriguing, creepy and oddly comforting about horror.
- [01:27]
Genevieve Manion
And mayhem from the 19th century. So listener discretion is advised. Hello friends and welcome to this, my 75th episode, the very last of the year. I hope that you are all having cozy, tasty holiday celebrations. People that you want to be around.
- [01:54]
Co-host or Guest
And if you have to hang out with people you don't want to be around, I hope that you have at least a dog.
- [01:59]
Genevieve Manion
They're so helpful in those situations.
- [02:01]
Co-host or Guest
A creepy baby, creepy pig, or frog faced newborn babies.
- [02:05]
Genevieve Manion
Always a fine distraction.
- [02:06]
Co-host or Guest
I thought that we would discuss some terrible things today. Thank you very much for joining me.
- [02:13]
Genevieve Manion
Okay, today for you, dear listener, I will have English bear ghosts, Welsh fasting.
- [02:20]
Co-host or Guest
Girls, rabid brides, maniacs with razors, and.
- [02:23]
Genevieve Manion
A attempted murder at a christening. A great deal of homicidal arson and a fatal masquerade. But first, a teeny tiny bit of haunted housekeeping. Thank you to Beth, Carolyn, Nina, Sarah, Lucien, Katherine and Madeline for joining the fan coven this week, as well as everyone who has subscribed to the show. You too can receive the show ad free a day early and also receive an entire audiobook on eclectic witchcraft weekly witchy content and bloody true crime extras every single week by clicking the link in the show description or by going to myvictorianightmare.com to learn more. And just a reminder, you can get that audiobook where to Begin on Eclectic Witchcraft all by itself. You don't even have to subscribe to the show again, just go to myvictorianightmare.com to find out how. All of those of you who have subscribed are the reason why my show can continue. So thank you from the bottom of my heart.
- [03:22]
Co-host or Guest
Alright, it turns out I have not told the story about my experience with the Borgs in 4D. Last week I mentioned that I thought I had told this story, but I went back through past shows and I haven't. So briefly just to explain why I was so passionate about hating anyone in costume. I don't care who you are. A number of years ago I had to go to Vegas for a job and luckily a good friend of mine was also there so I had someone to hang out with. But this person is also also randomly friends with insanely famous people. And I'm not going to say who it is because I don't want this to get back to them, but my friend wanted to go to what was called the Borg in 4D. It was a Star Trek themed attraction and restaurant that I don't think is still around. I had no idea whatsoever what this experience would entail. I don't watch Star Trek movies, but I get there and straight away I see it's full of people in Star Trek costumes, fully in character. Now I thought maybe this was just like a normal restaurant with like Star Trek decorations, but there are living breathing aliens and Borgs and they're like the waiters. So I'm sweating when I realize this because I already had a hard time being around people in costumes and character. When they approach me I feel like, do I need to play along? Do I need to act like a Borg too? To complete the Star Trek tableau? Will I look out of place? I don't know my lines. I don't know how to be at all. So like I said, I am sweating waiting for my friend to show up. And then my friend shows up and he has a famous person with him and he didn't tell me that this was gonna happen. So now I'm all nervous because I feel like I need to act like a cool person now for the famous person. But there are Borgs so I'm shaking and I'm stuttering desperately trying to hold it together. We sit down and all of the food in the menu is Star Trek themed. And I spy a Borger. And I think to myself, this is perfect. They can't expect me to play along if I have a big Borger in my hands and my mouth is full of Borger. I was so, so sadly mistaken. The Borg, as I understand it, is.
- [05:27]
Genevieve Manion
Not a benevolent creature.
- [05:29]
Co-host or Guest
And this waiter could smell my fear, I guess. So he didn't leave me alone. He hammed it up at me and specifically asked how my food was threateningly when my mouth was stuffed with Borger and I choked and I laughed it out of my mouth. And any hope that I had of trying to look cool in front of this famous person was dash cats out of the bag. I am not cool. I am a hurricane of conditions. Look, I know this is a very stressful story, so I'll just say that this harrowing event concluded with the worst possible experience, because after at least four near panic attacks coughing Borger out my nose, we went into the Borg experience, which is a simulation of being in a spaceship and getting attacked by Borgs. And I had to run. I had to run away from Borgs as part of the entertainment. And this is where the story concludes, because I don't want to think about it anymore. There were a few other singularly humiliating experiences, all in all, from that point.
- [06:27]
Genevieve Manion
On, which will haunt me for the rest of my life.
- [06:29]
Co-host or Guest
And that's. That's the Borg story, as it were.
- [06:33]
Genevieve Manion
Okay, let's have our first weekly segment.
- [06:37]
Co-host or Guest
With their own eyes, where I share with you the personal, haunting accounts of petrified Victorians. This one is fun, and it includes.
- [06:50]
Genevieve Manion
A few ghostly incarnations that I have.
- [06:52]
Co-host or Guest
Not heard of before, all nowhere near as frightening as anything I just discussed.
- [06:57]
Genevieve Manion
But they are all pretty upsetting. This article comes to us from the Sydney mail of 1870, and it is called the Tower Ghost, and it reads, we have heard, says the Pall Mall Gazette, of a most mysterious and disagreeable occurrence at the Tower of Lond, which is enough to set the nerves of the whole nation on edge. For some days, or rather nights past, the shadow of an axe has appeared on one of the walls of the building. The shadow made its last appearance, unless we are misinformed, in 1848, but what it has been doing since that time, we cannot say. There is no shyness whatsoever about it now. It does not object to be stared at and excites the curiosity of all who have the privilege, if not the pleasure, of inspecting it. A correspondent of the same Paper has since written the following letter. I am glad to perceive that the Tower of London, respectable old edifice as it is, still keeps its ghost, as all venerable buildings should do. You are perhaps not aware that one of the best authenticated ghost stories of this century belongs to that fortress, and I make no excuse for telling it to you at this season. As a Christmas story it is traditionally allowable. Mr. Edmund Lenthal Swift, who is still living, was an 1817 Keeper of the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London. He lived in the Jewel House and on a certain Saturday night in October 1817, was in his sitting room. The door was closed, the windows shut, and heavy curtains excluded the air. It was about midnight. Two candles were on the table. The rest I give in his own published word. I sat at the foot of the table, my son on my right hand, his mother fronting the chimney piece, and her sister on the opposite side. I had offered a glass of wine and water to my wife. Then, when on putting it to her lips, she paused and exclaimed, good God, what is that? I looked up and saw a cylindrical figure like a glass tube, seemingly about the thickness of my arm and hovering between the ceiling and the table. Its contents appeared to be a dense fluid white and pale azure, like to the gathering of a summer cloud and incessantly rolling and mingling within the cylinder. This lasted about two minutes when it began to slowly move before my sister in law, then, following the oblong shape of the table, before my son and myself passing behind my wife, it paused for a moment over her right shoulder, observed that there was no mirror opposite to her in which she could then behold it instantly. She crouched down, and with both hands covering her shoulder, she shrieked out, oh, Christ, it has seized me. Even now, while writing, I feel the fresh horror of that moment following hard at the heel of the visitation of my household. One of the night sentries at the jewel office was, as he said, alarmed by a figure of a huge bear issuing from underneath the door. He thrust at it with his bayonet, which struck the door even as my chair dinted the waistcoat. He dropped in a fit and was carried senseless to the guard room. His fellow sentry declared that the man was neither asleep nor drunk. He had seen him the moment before, awake and sober. Of all this I avouch nothing more than that I saw the poor man in the guard's house prostrated with terror, and that in two or three days the fatal result, be it of fact or fancy, was that he died.
- [10:35]
Co-host or Guest
End quote. God, that's a Sad ending to that creepy story.
- [10:38]
Genevieve Manion
Okay, let's talk a little bit about the ghosts of the Tower of London.
- [10:44]
Co-host or Guest
I did not find any other mentions of this terrifying axe shadow or the cylindrical ghost, but the bear is a repeat offender.
- [10:52]
Genevieve Manion
He lives with a family of about 12 other commonly known ghosts in and around the Tower of London. Currently, Henry III kept a menageri treasury of pumas, tigers, jackals, elephants and bears. The ghost of one of the bears.
- [11:07]
Co-host or Guest
Had been seen by the guard of the Crown Jewels in that article and has also been seen snooping around by.
- [11:13]
Genevieve Manion
Others around the Martin Tower as well.
- [11:15]
Co-host or Guest
Allegedly. It is also believed that Guy Fawkes.
- [11:19]
Genevieve Manion
Who planned to assassinate James I at Parliament in 1605, remains in spectral form in the Tower. He was imprisoned, tortured and executed in the White Tower dungeons. His ghost has reportedly been seen and heard near the dungeons. Visitors and staff report disembodied cries, unexplained cold spots and objects moving around, especially where he endured the rack.
- [11:44]
Co-host or Guest
But I wonder how they can be so sure it was him specifically. Many people died in that terrible way in that terrible place, so I don't know how they can be so sure without checking some identification. The ghost of Anne Boleyn, however, is fairly unmistakable.
- [12:00]
Genevieve Manion
340 years after her execution at the Tower Green, a soldier reported seeing seeing a light burning in the chapel of the Tower at night. He climbed up to see who was.
- [12:10]
Co-host or Guest
There, as it was supposed to be.
- [12:12]
Genevieve Manion
Empty in the middle of the night. He claimed to have seen a procession of ladies and knights led by a headless Anne Boleyn. Henry V is believed to appear at the stroke of midnight in the Wakefield Tower, the time when he was murdered at the altar in the King's private chapel in 1471, likely by an assassin sent by his nephew, the new King Edward. Sir Walter Riley, Queen Elizabeth, Elizabeth's courtier, with whom she had a very complicated relationship, has been seen roaming the halls. He was imprisoned for 13 years in the Bloody Tower and was beheaded in 1618 by the new sovereign King James I. Some claim to see his ghost carrying his severed bloody head at St Margaret's Church where he was buried. His ghost sightings are accompanied by the smell of tobacco. He was apparently a lover of smoking tobacco. There are few ladies who appear all white or all gray in the soft tower.
- [13:10]
Co-host or Guest
And one of the living yeoman warders, those are the guards of the Tower.
- [13:13]
Genevieve Manion
Of London, saw a mysterious all white woman sprinting around the grounds and attempted to charge at her with his bayonet in 1864. But the female trespasser vanished as soon as he pierced her with the bayonet.
- [13:27]
Co-host or Guest
All right, this one to me is particularly creepy.
- [13:30]
Genevieve Manion
There is an echo of a scream some folks claim to hear that is believed to belong to a woman named Margaret Pole, the Countess of Salisbury.
- [13:40]
Co-host or Guest
Again, I'm not sure how they can distinguish the identities of some of these specific specters. Margaret Poe was very sloppily beheaded by a young boy described as, quote, a wretched and blundering youth who missed her neck entirely and hacked haphazardly at her shoulders and head.
- [14:00]
Genevieve Manion
God almighty. All right.
- [14:01]
Co-host or Guest
I mean, now that I think of it, that kind of execution would probably yield a very particular kind of scream. It may be easier than I thought to identify the source of a wild scream on Tower Green as this poor female ghost. Yikes.
- [14:15]
Genevieve Manion
Okay, won't you follow me into the seance room where we discuss the goings on in the Spiritualist society of the 1800s. This article comes to us from the spiritualist newspaper from 1869.
- [14:32]
Co-host or Guest
But unlike the deposition articles that I.
- [14:34]
Genevieve Manion
Tend to read most often of spiritualists discussing their experiences with spirits, there is a section in this volume of just general news that interested in spiritualists. And I want to read it and dig in a bit. This is called the Welsh Fasting Girl, and it reads, after being watched for eight days by nurses from Guy's Hospital, the Welsh Fasting Girl died. And the jury at the inquest have returned a verdict equivalent to that of manslaughter against the parents. The members of the first committee who watched the child are strongly divided in opinion as to the guilt of the parents, who, for the most part, have been condemned by the general public and the newspaper. Professional mesmerists, who are few in number and free from the ignorance of medical men about many abnormal conditions of the body, think the facts to be in favor of the innocence of the parents, though probably they have too little influence to secure for the father and mother the benefit of the doubt when the case comes on for trial. End quote.
- [15:36]
Co-host or Guest
Okay, who were the fasting girls?
- [15:39]
Genevieve Manion
And what do mesmerists have to do with them?
- [15:42]
Co-host or Guest
And what did the mesmerists have to do with. With spiritualists?
- [15:45]
Genevieve Manion
This young girl mentioned in the article was Sarah Jacob, the most famous of the dozen or so fasting girls. In the 19th century, there was a very disturbing trend of young and often beautiful women claiming to not eat or drink anything at all. For weeks, months, or even decades.
- [16:05]
Co-host or Guest
They or their families would make these.
- [16:08]
Genevieve Manion
Claims, and they would invite journalists to come and report on the miraculous existence of their daughters. And watchers would be called upon to watch watch these ladies night and day to see if they were actually eating.
- [16:19]
Co-host or Guest
Or drinking in secret. These reports would cause quite a stir.
- [16:24]
Genevieve Manion
And families would charge people to come.
- [16:26]
Co-host or Guest
And behold their miraculous, thin, pale, yet.
- [16:30]
Genevieve Manion
Ethereal and supernaturally gifted daughters. All of them were frauds. Many were proven frauds while being watched by watchers. But one in particular, this Sarah Jacob, died while being watched by doctors and nurses, which led to a manslaughter trial and fractured public opinion about who really was to blame. Throughout the 19th century, pale, frail, consumptive, even ladies were the epitome of fashion. They were weak, unself, reliant, like lily petals, the polar opposite of the strong, loud suffragette of the day. These starving women had an allure in general, especially to men who were the ones who mostly flocked in droves to these ladies homes to view them on display.
- [17:19]
Co-host or Guest
I discussed in episode nine, tuberculosis chic.
- [17:23]
Genevieve Manion
Where women would make themselves purposely look thin and sickly, literally poisoning themselves with arsenic to give themselves a ghastly pallor.
- [17:32]
Co-host or Guest
A similar aesthetic to heroin chic of the 90s. But where the mesmerists and the spiritualists come into play.
- [17:40]
Genevieve Manion
Here is the angle that some of these ladies were also claiming to possess magical supernatural powers. How else would they not be able to eat or drink for years if there wasn't something otherworldly going on? In the mid-1800s, mesmerists, or magnetizers as.
- [17:58]
Co-host or Guest
They were sometimes called, used the little.
- [18:01]
Genevieve Manion
Understood influence of hypnosis to make people do remarkable things. It looked like mesmerists had magical powers over people. They also successfully, in some cases used hypnosis to provide anesthesia. Hypnosis was successfully used in a number of instances to keep people in a stupor all throughout surgery. And many spiritualists believed that this power that they possessed was something supernatural. Again, something that they called magnetism. They believed that it was an invisible force like chi. And this force is what some folks.
- [18:36]
Co-host or Guest
Believed the fasting girls were like living.
- [18:39]
Genevieve Manion
Off of, feeding themselves with, with.
- [18:41]
Co-host or Guest
And so when that article mentions that mesmerists were getting involved in the situation.
- [18:46]
Genevieve Manion
Of the fasting girl that passed away.
- [18:48]
Co-host or Guest
That's the connection.
- [18:49]
Genevieve Manion
This was such an upsetting case. In particular, after only a few days of being watched by doctors and nurses to prove that she wasn't a fraud, Sarah Jacob, only 12 years old, died of starvation and her parents were found guilty of manslaughter. Again, just such a terribly tragic story.
- [19:10]
Co-host or Guest
Okay, let's treat ourselves to some More terrible information, this time provided by our favorite filthy mess of a tabloid from.
- [19:19]
Genevieve Manion
The 1800s, the Illustrated Police News, Law Courts and Record.
- [19:23]
Co-host or Guest
Goodness, this first one is terrible. It is called a rabid bride.
- [19:29]
Genevieve Manion
A lady bitten by a mad dog becomes rabid in 11 weeks.
- [19:33]
Co-host or Guest
An awful wedding morning.
- [19:36]
Genevieve Manion
And it reads, about 11 weeks ago, says the Pitsen Gazette, a young lady named Cox cox, daughter of Mr. Cox of Stoddardville, went into the yard to kill some chickens. The dog followed her, and picking up one of the chickens, ran off with it. She chased him with a stick to recover it, and coming up with him, he turned upon her and bit her in the arm, lacerating it fearfully. Her mother and brother, coming to the rescue, were also badly bitten by the infuriated beast. The wounds healed, however, and nothing more was thought of the matter. The young woman was engaged to be married to a young man living at Goldsboro named Alfred Kershock. And the wedding was appointed to come off at the place about two weeks ago on the wedding morning, as she was about to perform her ablutions.
- [20:22]
Co-host or Guest
Ablutions. I've never heard that word before.
- [20:25]
Genevieve Manion
The sight of the water sent a shiver through her whole system and frightened her. And at the breakfast table, the coffee had such an effect upon her that she spilled it all over the table. She then complained of feeling unwell, and her friends advised her to remain. Remain at home. But she said she did not want to disappoint and accompanied by a sister, proceeded to Goldsboro, where the wedding ceremony was performed. Immediately after, she was seized with spasms, bearing all indications of hydrophobia. In one of her lucid intervals, she.
- [20:57]
Co-host or Guest
Warned the company that she would bite them if they did not keep away from her.
- [21:01]
Genevieve Manion
But she said to her husband, al.
- [21:03]
Co-host or Guest
You need not be afraid. I won't bite you. In one of her proxyisms, she bit a lady who was endeavoring to soothe her. It was the wife of Dr. Hoffman.
- [21:13]
Genevieve Manion
Who drives the stage from Goldsboro to the Sand Cut, the DL and the W Railroad.
- [21:18]
Co-host or Guest
Soon after assuring her husband that she would not bite him, she was seized with convulsions and laying back in his arms, bit him and died.
- [21:26]
Genevieve Manion
My God. The other members of the family who were bitten by the dog have not yet displayed any symptoms of the disease, but they live in hourly dread, as does the groom of the Rabb rabbit bride.
- [21:39]
Co-host or Guest
End quote. Damn it. Okay, I mentioned another article two weeks ago where two poor gentlemen were also.
- [21:46]
Genevieve Manion
Bitten by a rabid dog.
- [21:48]
Co-host or Guest
And then I saw this article, and I had to do some Thorough research. I was personally unaware about exactly what happens if you are untreated after contracting rabies. And I didn't believe that it made humans really do this, like truly feel compelled to bite other people. And it in fact, if the infection.
- [22:11]
Genevieve Manion
Is not treated, it is very common.
- [22:13]
Co-host or Guest
To feel compelled to bite other people.
- [22:16]
Genevieve Manion
The first symptoms are flu like then you feel weakness, feverishness, muscle achy, headachy. You might start to feel itchy, especially in the location of the bite. And within about two weeks of being.
- [22:28]
Co-host or Guest
Bitten, you could start to experience anxiety.
- [22:32]
Genevieve Manion
Hallucinations, confusion, aggressive behavior like thrashing and biting.
- [22:37]
Co-host or Guest
The panic around fluids is related to.
- [22:41]
Genevieve Manion
Having painful throat spasms that happen when you try to drink. This makes you think that you will choke. The biting specifically happens because the virus attacks the central nervous system which damages the brain and spinal cord. This specific damage disrupts normal brain function, leading to frenzied, reactive behaviors like biting rabies.
- [23:02]
Co-host or Guest
This terrifies me. It's literally like becoming a zombie.
- [23:05]
Genevieve Manion
Oh God, this poor woman and her.
- [23:08]
Co-host or Guest
Fiance and her whole family. Ugh. It just sounds like next level horror. Okay, let's have an article with some rich assumptions that I'm going to make about it. They could be entirely unfounded and I have no idea how to find out either way, but we will get there. This article is called A Truant Wife.
- [23:26]
Genevieve Manion
In a House of Ill Fame at Washington, and it reads, at the capital of the nation. On Monday morning the 5th, a young man named Charles Creamer arrived from Baltimore in search of his truant wife, whom he suspected was in a house of ill repute in the city. He applied to police headquarters and made his business known, and Detective McDevitt accompanied him to a house in B Street, where he soon found the object of his search. At the interview, she put on a bold and defiant air and he commenced blubbering.
- [23:58]
Co-host or Guest
It finally ended in his consenting to.
- [24:01]
Genevieve Manion
Take her back to Baltimore to live with him again, and they took the next train home. She, it seems, had found a new affinity and came with her new love to Washington. Hence the pursuit and these tears of the deserted one who might have been better employed than in hunting up such.
- [24:18]
Co-host or Guest
A reckless wood hullier. End quote. Okay. That term refers to Victoria Woodhull, a.
- [24:23]
Genevieve Manion
Proponent of the free love movement, supporting the belief that you shouldn't have to marry someone just to have a romantic.
- [24:30]
Co-host or Guest
Relationship with them, that the government should.
- [24:32]
Genevieve Manion
Have nothing to do with who you love and how you are allowed to love them.
- [24:36]
Co-host or Guest
Scandalous, outlandish stuff at the time to most people but here is the assumption that I have about this article.
- [24:43]
Genevieve Manion
I went searching to see if I.
- [24:44]
Co-host or Guest
Could find anything else about this and I did, kind of. I did find a notice of divorce proceedings in Baltimore between a Charles and Josephine Creamer only six months after this article was written. Now assuming they are the same people mentioned in that article, you would maybe assume, ah, she left him to go back to her free loving chosen lifestyle. But this story and its details, again if based in anything true, would only.
- [25:13]
Genevieve Manion
Have been known by one of the.
- [25:15]
Co-host or Guest
People in that article and that's the guy.
- [25:18]
Genevieve Manion
This article reads like a hit piece to me. When men and women would seek divorce in this time, which was a very expensive and humiliating thing, men would often accuse their wives of adultery or doing sex work to get out of paying them alimony. We saw this happen with women involved in the Jack the Ripper murders. A number of his victims were thought for decades to be sex workers, but it's likely that a number of them were not, but they had been accused in court by their ex husbands as such so that they could get out of paying them alimony. And in their cases it worked. And the assumption that they were sex workers stuck for for decades until historians dug deeper into the lives of the victims.
- [26:02]
Co-host or Guest
I am obviously just making a big fat assumption here, but I would wager Mr. Creamer maybe paid someone from the Illustrated Police News to cook up that story for him to use in court six months later. Again, I have no proof for any of this, but there's just something about it. It just seems like it was written.
- [26:19]
Genevieve Manion
To serve a purpose to me. But who can say?
- [26:23]
Co-host or Guest
Alright, this next one is truly, truly awful.
- [26:27]
Genevieve Manion
It is called A Man and his wife murdered and burned in Indiana. And it reads, a horrible tragedy came to life early this morning in Clark county, two miles above New Albany, Indiana. A log house in which a German named Bentley resided was found burned to the ground, the chimney having fallen into the cellar. The men who made the discovery secured a hook and lifted out of the cellar the legs and arms of Bentley and his wife, also the skull of Bentley. It is supposed they were murdered for their money as Bentley sold a large lot of bacon yesterday and the house was burned to cover the crime. The county coroner and a large number of people from New Albany and Jeffersonville went to the scene today and the case is now being investigated. End quote. Okay, I looked into this and very sadly it doesn't appear that this case was solved. I saw the story in a number of papers, so it is true, but nothing else. After March of that year, 1872. I also tried to find their graves but I couldn't find them.
- [27:31]
Co-host or Guest
Ugh.
- [27:31]
Genevieve Manion
Just such a God awful tragedy.
- [27:33]
Co-host or Guest
Okay, our next one has a hell of an illustration on the instagram and is a hell of a story. Just when you think it can't get worse, it gets worse and worse and worse. This is called Struggle for Life in the Grasp of the Mad Men.
- [27:50]
Genevieve Manion
Ann purdy at Newburgh, New York and it reads on the morning of March 7th, a tragedy occurred near the Hudson river, seven miles north of Newburgh, resulting in the wounding of two sisters, one of them, perhaps fatally, by a maniac brother. The wretched man, whose name is George William Purdy, is a well to do farmer, about 40 years of age, unmarried and residing with his mother and an aged lady, Mrs. Phoebe Purdy and sister Ms. Eliza Purdy, on the homestead, left them by the husband and father, Mr. Isaac Purdy, who died two or three years ago. A widowed sister, Mrs. Anna Conkling, lives in the vicinity, but had been for two or three days assisting her mother and sister in the work of taking care of George, who has been unwell for several years. He has suffered from epileptic attacks and from temporary insanity, having been thrown off his mental balance, it is said by troubles which have occasioned prolonged litigation in regard to disputed property. On the night previous to the assault, George occupied a small room opening into the sitting room, where the sisters had arranged a bed for the night upon the floor in order to be near the brother and attend to his wants. The mother also slept in the room. At about 4 o' clock in the morning George entered the room occupied by the three women and saying that the ticking of a clock there annoyed him, preventing him from sleeping, so he stopped the clock. He returned to his bedroom, but remained there only a few moments. Opening the door again, he either fell or threw himself at full length with arms extended on the floor of the sitting room. The ladies were greatly alarmed and taking him from the floor they laid him upon their bed. Observing no ill effects of the fall, they left the left him lying there, went into his room and lay down on his bed. The mother remained near her son. In a few minutes he jumped up excitedly, seized a heavy fire shovel lying near the stove and started for the room in which the sisters were. Opening the door he shouted, I am going to kill you. The next place we'll meet is at the Bar of God.
- [30:01]
Co-host or Guest
Very eloquent for maniac.
- [30:03]
Genevieve Manion
He struck them each several blows in the head and then seizing each by the throat and he tried to choke them to death. Although partially stunned from the effects of the blows with the shovel, they struggled with all their might and at length released themselves from his powerful grasp and went into the sitting room. He followed them there and the struggle for life was renewed. The mother now taking part, assisting with her feeble powers her daughters in the struggle. The stove was overturned and the house set on fire.
- [30:35]
Co-host or Guest
At length the sisters the of again.
- [30:36]
Genevieve Manion
Broke loose from the murderous madman and ran towards the doors, Ms. Purdy to the front and Mrs. Conkling through the kitchen to a door in the rear of the house. The former made good on her escape and went to alarm the neighbors. But the maniac brother, having now possessed himself of a razor, overtook Ms. Conkling as she was leaving the house and.
- [30:56]
Co-host or Guest
Attempted to cut her throat.
- [30:58]
Genevieve Manion
Here the unfortunate woman had another terrible struggle with the brother and in the course of a sustained two severe cuts in the right arm, one of them just missing the main artery. He, however, overcame her and drew the.
- [31:11]
Co-host or Guest
Razor across her throat, making a terrible.
- [31:14]
Genevieve Manion
Gash, laying bare the windpipe and the.
- [31:17]
Co-host or Guest
Root of the tongue, but not cutting the arteries. By this time the sister was returning.
- [31:23]
Genevieve Manion
Followed at a short distance by one of the neighbors. The madman left Mrs. Conkling and ran to meet Ms. Purdy, seized her by.
- [31:30]
Co-host or Guest
The hair of her head and threw.
- [31:31]
Genevieve Manion
Her to the ground. He would doubtless have succeeded in taking her life, but for the efforts of Daniel Van Orsdale, the neighbor referred to, who knocked the madman down and secured him. The flames were extinguished and surgical aid was procured for the sister who had been cut with the razor. Although she had sustained terrible injuries, some hopes are entertained that she will recover. Ms. Purdy. Purdy was badly cut and bruised about the head, but is not seriously injured. The old lady, Mrs. Purdy, is slightly injured in the struggle with her son. She was dragged around the room by the hair of her head and was bruised by his falling upon her. In the course of the morning an officer arrived from Marlborough, a mile distant, and the son was handcuffed. He went to bed and continued to feign sleep all the morning, warning, refusing to reply when spoken to. From the expressions which he used during the struggle, it is supposed that he intended to kill his mother and sisters and then commit suicide. He was then taken to the asylum next day. The family is one of the most respectable in the section of the country in which they reside, and they receive the warmest sympathy of their neighbors. End quote.
- [32:44]
Co-host or Guest
Oh my God.
- [32:45]
Genevieve Manion
It appears that Somehow it indeed Ms. Conkling did survive. I found a few articles about the situation written a few months later, and it was added that she did indeed.
- [32:56]
Co-host or Guest
Survive having her throat slashed all the way to the tongue, which jumping Jehoshaphat crumbs and carrots. Just reading what I wrote into my own script there just made me dizzy. I have yet to faint on my own show, but I just got close.
- [33:13]
Genevieve Manion
Close.
- [33:13]
Co-host or Guest
I'm not even kidding. If that ever does happen, I promise to make sure not to edit it out. That would be hilarious. Just like a clunk and prolonged silence. Okay, our next one is intense. Not as intense as that last one, but it's certainly an inappropriate place for attempted murder.
- [33:31]
Genevieve Manion
I'll say.
- [33:32]
Co-host or Guest
Also great illustration for this one. This article is called A Bloody Christening.
- [33:37]
Genevieve Manion
In Boston, and it was reads A few days since the infant child of Daniel Cannon, who resides in the Highland district of Boston, was christened, and the happy father resolved to celebrate the event by a social party. He invited his friends to the merrymaking and a goodly number responded. About two o' clock in the morning, as the company were preparing to depart, Timothy Cannon, a cousin to Daniel, presented himself at the door and desired to be admitted.
- [34:04]
Co-host or Guest
Now, between between the cousins a feud.
- [34:06]
Genevieve Manion
Had existed for a long time, and.
- [34:08]
Co-host or Guest
If Timothy had not also been imbibing freely during the evening, he would not have ventured to cross Daniel's threshold.
- [34:15]
Genevieve Manion
As soon as Cannon heard Timothy's voice, he rushed to the door and in a violent manner demanded to know why he had dared come to the house.
- [34:23]
Co-host or Guest
The interrogation was neither politely nor kindly answered, which greatly tended to increase Daniel's Ireland.
- [34:30]
Genevieve Manion
He seized his cousin by the collar of the coat and endeavored to eject him from the house.
- [34:35]
Co-host or Guest
A scuffle ensued in which Timothy drew a small pocket knife and struck Daniel twice. The first blow passed between the third and fourth ribs and penetrated the right.
- [34:45]
Genevieve Manion
Lung, and the second inflicted an ugly wound in the abdomen.
- [34:49]
Co-host or Guest
The injured man then fell to the floor, exclaiming, oh, I am killed.
- [34:56]
Genevieve Manion
And in the excitement of the melee the would be murderer escaped and up to the latest accounts managed to elude the efforts of the police to arrest him. Dr. Mann, who attended Cannon, states that his injuries are painful and severe, but in all probability will not terminate fatally. The wife of the unfortunate man had not fully recovered from her sickness, and.
- [35:17]
Co-host or Guest
The excitement caused by the occurrence, it.
- [35:19]
Genevieve Manion
Is feared, will lead to serious results. End quote Ominous.
- [35:24]
Co-host or Guest
Okay, another presumably miraculous recovery.
- [35:29]
Genevieve Manion
Here I found a few more articles about this altercation, and none of them.
- [35:33]
Co-host or Guest
Mentioned that the cousin died. Terms like murderous assault were used to describe what happened to Dennis, not Daniel Cannon. The Paper got his name wrong, but.
- [35:43]
Genevieve Manion
None of them mentioned that the assault actually resulted in him dying.
- [35:47]
Co-host or Guest
His cousin though, did get caught. He tried to skip town and made it all the way to Portland, Maine.
- [35:52]
Genevieve Manion
Where he was arrested a few days later.
- [35:55]
Co-host or Guest
I didn't find any more about a trial though, unfortunately. But it's likely that if Dennis did survive, there wouldn't have been a publicized trial. God, you know that family for the rest of that kid's life probably told that story about when cousin Timmy stabbed his dad at his christening. I bet they told it every Christmas. Alright, this next one is a nail biter. It is called A deserted Maiden of.
- [36:18]
Genevieve Manion
St. Louis attempts to burn her lover Alive.
- [36:21]
Co-host or Guest
And it reads, a comely looking and.
- [36:24]
Genevieve Manion
Sprightly girl named Lizzie Rhode was brought.
- [36:27]
Co-host or Guest
Before the criminal court at St. Louis on the 8th, where without much formality, she pleaded guilty to the charge of arson. The story is a brief one.
- [36:37]
Genevieve Manion
Last fall the girl fell out with her lover, Thomas Collins, who according to her statement, first obtained her affections and.
- [36:44]
Co-host or Guest
Then deliberately wrought her ruin.
- [36:46]
Genevieve Manion
Getting tired of her, he abandoned her, whereupon she swore that she would take her revenge.
- [36:51]
Co-host or Guest
Revenge by burning him alive. After making the threat, Lizzie was foolish enough to attempt to carry it into execution.
- [36:58]
Genevieve Manion
Collins boarded at 617 Spruce street and thither one fine morning between 4 and.
- [37:04]
Co-host or Guest
5 o', clock, his cast off mistress.
- [37:06]
Genevieve Manion
Went, taking with her a bundle of.
- [37:08]
Co-host or Guest
Combustibles and a can of coal oil.
- [37:11]
Genevieve Manion
Going directly to Collins door, she piled her flammable material against it and soaking the heap with coal oil, applied a match. As soon as the fire got fairly started she walked quietly away to her.
- [37:24]
Co-host or Guest
Home and went to bed, leaving the unfaithful Thomas to a foretaste of his final residence. Unfortunately for Lizzie, the threats were proven against her and the fact that she had started the fire and the result.
- [37:37]
Genevieve Manion
Was a sentence to the penitentiary for two years.
- [37:39]
Co-host or Guest
In all probability this will confirm her.
- [37:42]
Genevieve Manion
To a life of shame and villainy.
- [37:44]
Co-host or Guest
And send her out to prey upon the world degraded in mind and heart. Collins, on the other hand, got up leisurely when he sniffed the smoke, opened.
- [37:53]
Genevieve Manion
The door, put the fire out and had the girl arrested.
- [37:57]
Co-host or Guest
She will not trouble him anymore for two years, which is a pleasant reflection. End quote. So apparently that fire did a lot more damage than the article proclaimed. I found in Another article that Mr. Collins woke to the door itself being engulfed in flames and the inside of the door was burned. How he was able to put out.
- [38:19]
Genevieve Manion
The fire by himself is unclear.
- [38:21]
Co-host or Guest
Maybe he had help, but it sounds pretty serious. And what's kind of messed up here, apart from trying to burn this guy alive, is that he wasn't the only.
- [38:29]
Genevieve Manion
Person who lived there.
- [38:30]
Co-host or Guest
There were a number of other innocent folks living in that border boarding house. I tried to see if I could determine what happened to Lizzie Rhode, if she committed any other attempted homicides after she was released. I didn't find anything conclusive, but I.
- [38:45]
Genevieve Manion
Did find a woman that would have.
- [38:47]
Co-host or Guest
Been about her age that died of.
- [38:49]
Genevieve Manion
Yellow fever five years later in that part of St. Louis where the arson occurred. No other mention of a woman of that name in St. Louis after that. Perhaps, sadly, that may have been what.
- [39:01]
Co-host or Guest
Became of her okay, our final article has a fabulous illustration. It has a sad ending, but it is pretty funny.
- [39:10]
Genevieve Manion
It is called Fatal Result of a.
- [39:12]
Co-host or Guest
Masquerading Joke at Millerton, New York and.
- [39:16]
Genevieve Manion
It reads A few nights since at Millerton, Dutchess County, New York. Mr. Clark, a hotel proprietor who was on the point of attending a masquerade ball, donned the grotesque costume in which he was to have appeared and presented himself before his mother, who was at the time feeble in health. The shock was too much for her.
- [39:35]
Co-host or Guest
Weak health and she was at once seized with bleeding at the lungs and soon died. The foolish habit of practical joking has.
- [39:44]
Genevieve Manion
Been so often attended with fatal results.
- [39:46]
Co-host or Guest
That it should be punished as a crime. End quote. It's hard sometimes to know if these reporters, quote unquote, are serious. I read an article from this paper.
- [39:58]
Genevieve Manion
Last year about the terrors of French balls.
- [40:01]
Co-host or Guest
These fancy dress parties. They were described as orgies, which they were probably just people dressing up, getting.
- [40:08]
Genevieve Manion
Plastered and having a great time.
- [40:09]
Co-host or Guest
Luckily, the Illustrated Police News wasn't respected in its day and affected public policy.
- [40:16]
Genevieve Manion
Very little, I imagine. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more, please rate the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Leave me comments because I love them so much and join the fan coven to directly support my show. Listen ad free and for even more creepy and witchy content. Until next time, be kind to yourselves and I will see you in your nightmares.