B (4:32)
Sometime around 1889, Benjamin Peitzel was in Chicago trying to make ends meet. The 33 year old worked mostly as a carpenter for hire, although he also had some sort of criminal past. That sort of moral flexibility came in handy during times of need. Benjamin was, after all, a married man with five children, and raising a big family wasn't cheap. But at this point in time, Benjamin was trying to make an honest living. He had actually invented a new type of coal bin, and he was showing it off in an exhibition of sorts of and so the story goes, that was where he met a man who would change his life forever. A man named H.H. holmes. But in order to understand the story of Benjamin Peitzel, we first have to understand who H.H. holmes was. First off, H.H. holmes was an alias. The infamous serial killer was actually born Herman Mudgett, a far less sinister and much more unassuming name. He was born in 1861 and grew up on a farm in New Hampshire. Herman was a polite, smart kid with lots of promise. He was also a bit of a loner and the frequent target of bullying. One day when Herman was a kid, he had to go to the doctor's office. According to his later autobiography, older kids were constantly relaying stories about horrifying things, hiding behind the doctor's closed doors. And sure enough, on this day, two other boys apparently forced Herman face to face with a human skeleton. They put the skeleton's hands on his face, trying to frighten him. It worked at first, but then something shifted for Herman. He became intrigued by the bones, not scared of them. If there was a moment that sent Herman down his eventual path, it might have been this one. From then on, the story goes, Herman no longer feared death. He was fascinated by it. Over the next few years, Herman's preoccupation with death transformed into a desire to go to medical school. And after graduating high school at the age of 16, he found a way to turn that dream into a reality. In 1878, a year after he graduated, 17 year old Herman married a young woman named Clara Lovering. Clara came from a privileged family, and she had the means to pay for Herman's tuition. So Herman went off to the University of Vermont with Clara footing the bill. But he didn't exactly fit in there. Herman didn't get along with his roommate, and he was a little too interested in dissecting bodies. After one term, Herman decided to head back home. But the call of the medical field was too strong to stay away. One year later, in 1881, Herman gave it another go. This time he went to the University of Michigan, where he studied under a professor named William Herdman. He was what they called a demonstrator of anatomy, which was the polite term for someone who dissected human bodies for science. Herman seemed to spend all of his time in his professor's office, helping him prepare and dissect bodies. And maybe joining his mentor on night trips to the graveyard. During the late 19th century, medical schools often resorted to working under the table with resurrectionists or grave robbers to get enough cadavers for teaching. And then Herman had an idea. He and a friend came up with a plan to defraud an insurance company. It would be simple. All they had to do was steal a body, create a fake identity for it, take out an insurance policy, stage an accidental death, and then, voila, they could collect. Herman didn't actually go through with it. But even if it was just a daydream, at this point, the idea had taken root in his mind and he wouldn't be able to shake it off. Meanwhile, things were not going well with Herman's wife, Clara. She had moved to Michigan with him, and by then they had a son, Robert. But Herman was said to be violent toward his wife. And Clara finally seemed to have had enough. Right before Herman's graduation in 1884, Clara took their young son with her and fled back to her family in New Hampshire. While we can't pretend to know Herman's mind, he didn't seem fazed by his wife leaving him. They would never actually get divorced. He simply carried on with his life without her. Soon after Clara's departure, 23 year old Herman graduated from the University of Michigan's Department of Medicine and Surgery. He was now officially a doctor. But after graduation, things started going south for Herman. Within a year or two, he cropped up in Chicago. Now going by the alias Dr. Henry H. Holmes. It's not exactly clear why he changed his name, but it may have been a way to evade the law. Before Holmes came to Chicago, he spent brief periods in New York and Philadelphia. In both cities, he ran afoul of the law. In New York, people had noticed Holmes coming into town with a young boy who then disappeared. When Holmes was questioned about it, he said the boy went back home. That story seemed to suffice, and there's some evidence to suggest that truly nothing nefarious went down. The young boy may have been Holmes son, Robert. Either way, Holmes faced a mountain of overdue bills and angry debt collectors, so he soon left town. Then he ended up in Philadelphia, where it was rumored that he got a job as a clerk at a drugstore. There were whispers that a young boy came into the store and purchased some medicine. Right after taking it, he died. Of course, Holmes denied having anything to do with it, but again, he immediately left town. And that's how he moved on to Chicago. In 1886, shortly after arriving, he got another job at a drugstore. Holton's Drugstore, to be specific. Some reports refer to a Dr. Edward Holton as the proprietor of Holton's Drugstore, A fellow University of Michigan alumnus who found Holmes to be an ideal hard working employee and eventually sold the place to him. In reality, Dr. Elizabeth Holton owned the pharmacy. And at least according to some sources, she and Holmes were more than employer and employee. They were lovers. She promised to give the store to Holmes in exchange for getting married. Holmes agreed only for Elizabeth and her young daughter to mysteriously disappear soon after. As always, when the police asked Holmes about their disappearance, he said they simply moved away. And they seemed to take his word for it, or at least didn't pursue him as a suspect. Although the truth of the matter may be far less sensational. According to Adam Selzer, author of HH The True History of the White City Devil, Elizabeth simply sold the store to Holmes. Her daughter sadly passed away nearly a decade later, but from gastritis. Not a gruesome murder. Either way. Once Holmes took ownership of the store, he purchased a plot of land across the street and began construction on a two story building. This building would eventually become what the tabloids deemed as Chicago's Murder Castle. The moniker came later, but it was based on the weird design of the building. In addition to Holmes eventual alleged crimes that took place inside. There were trapdoors and chutes, stairways that went nowhere, and doors that opened into walls and a giant furnace in the basement big enough to fit a person. In hindsight, these strange design choices were clear indications that something was seriously wrong with H.H. holmes. But at the time of the construction, people simply found it odd. It also helped that Holmes never let anyone spend too much time working on his building. He wanted to keep the rest of the world in the dark about what he was up to. For that reason, he constantly hired and fired new construction crews. Plus, Holmes didn't want to pay for the work being done. Every time he fired another crew, he claimed shoddy workmanship and refused to pay for their services. He did this with everyone from carpenters to furniture vendors. Supposedly, that is how he crossed paths with 33 year old Benjamin Peitzel, a Chicago carpenter for hire. The details are a little murky, but Erik Larson's narrative nonfiction book the Devil in the White City suggests that Holmes hired Benjamin to work on his building in November 1889, about three years after Holmes settled in Chicago. Adam Selzer's HH the True History of the White City Devil says the two also shared an office where Benjamin was selling a coal bin he had invented. The definitive truth of how they met has been lost to history, but once the two did cross paths, their lives would never be the same.
