Category Archives: Crime

1889: Three Bald Knobbers endure botched hangings

The Bald Knobbers were a vigilante gang active in southern Missouri during the 1880s. The group came together in 1883 to deal with bandits and cross-border raiders plaguing local farmers. By 1885, the Bald Knobbers had grown in size and become troublemakers as much as trouble-stoppers. They also adopted a crude but intimidating uniform: a black hood with eye and mouth holes removed and the corners tied to resemble ears or horns.

The lawless behaviour of the Bald Knobbers led to the formation of the Anti-Bald Knobbers, in effect a vigilante group formed to combat another vigilante group. In March 1887 Bald Knobbers in Christian County shot up the home of an opponent, killing him and another man. Three Bald Knobbers – Dave Walker, his son William and Deacon Matthews – were arrested, tried and sentenced to death.

Their hanging took place in Ozark, Missouri on May 10th 1889 but was appallingly handled:

“The trap was sprung at 9.53 this morning. Matthews went down while uttering a prayer. The stretch of the rope was so great as to let all the doomed men fall to the ground. The rope finally broke and William Walker fell loose and lay on the ground struggling and groaning. He was taken up by the sheriff and his deputies and again placed on the scaffold. Dave Walker was swung up and died in 15 minutes. John Matthews lived about 13 minutes and died with his feet on the ground. The scene was horrible in the extreme. William Walker was lifted almost insensible, helpless and groaning on the scaffold and the rope was again adjusted around his neck. The trap was again sprung and this time the poor wretch came to a sudden stop with his feet full 30 inches above the ground. He died without a struggle.”

A gunfight between Bald Knobbers, Anti-Bald Knobbers and lawmen in July 1889 ended most of the Knobber violence in Missouri. The Bald Knobbers later featured in the popular 1907 novel The Shepherd of the Hills and two film adaptations, including a 1941 release starring John Wayne.

Source: The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo (Missouri), May 14th 1889. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1587: Mrs Wanker and the Widow Porker carted for “whoredom”

During the Tudor period, the back-ends of carts often doubled as places of punishment for minor criminals and delinquents. Though the exact origins are unclear, to be dealt with at the rear of a cart marked one’s fall from civilised society. Scores of prostitutes and adulterers were ordered to be “tied to a cart’s arse” and either whipped there or paraded around town for public humiliation.

In 1555, a London man named Manwarynge was “carted to Aldgate with two whores from The Harry, for bawdry and whoredom”. In 1560, “the woman who kept the Bell in Gracechurch” was carted for pimping. Sir Thomas Sothwood, an Anglican priest, was carted for “selling his wife”. In North Carolina, Mary Sylvia was found guilty of blasphemy and “carted about town with labels on her back and breast, expressing her crime”.

Some were also punished for slanders involving carts. Sir Thomas Wyatt was thrown into prison in 1541 for telling others that Henry VIII should be “thrown out of a cart’s arse”.

Another brief but interesting mention of ‘carting’ comes from King’s Lynn, Norfolk, where in 1587:

“John Wanker’s wife and the Widow Porker were both carted for whoredom…”

Source: Benjamin Mackerell, The History and Antiquities of the Flourishing Corporation of King’s Lynn &c., London, 1738. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1922: Broadway pie pastry poisoner kills six

A nice slice of non-lethal huckleberry pie

On July 31st 1922, dozens of lunching New Yorkers crowded into the popular Shelburne Restaurant and Bakery at 1127 Broadway. For a few, it would be their last meal.

The Shelburne was famous for its peach and huckleberry pies but on this hot July day, the pies contained a deadly surprise: arsenic. As the afternoon unfolded, 60 of the Shelburne’s pie-eating patrons became seriously ill and required hospitalisation. Six of them did not survive. Four of the dead were young female office workers in their late teens or early 20s.

Police and city officials launched an immediate investigation, ordering a forensic examination of the leftover pie, the restaurant’s bakery and its stores. They found nothing amiss with the bakery’s flour and other ingredients, suggesting that the pie pastry had been tampered with by a mystery poisoner:

“According to [Commissioner of Health] Dr Monaghan, the ingredients from which the pie crust was made had been analysed and found pure, so that the arsenic must have been put in while the dough for the crust was being made. Dr Monaghan [was] also informed that the proprietors of the restaurant did not keep rat poison or any other insect powder containing arsenic about the place. Accordingly, he said the chances that the poison might have been mixed into the dough accidentally appeared to be very slight.”

Police attention turned to the three people employed in the bakery: the manager, the baker and his assistant. All denied any involvement, however, the baker falsely believed he was about to be fired while his assistant reportedly disappeared without a trace.

With no evidence, the New York police were unable to lay any charges. Unsurprisingly, the Shelburne’s clientele evaporated overnight and it was forced to close down the following year. The deaths also caused a slump in pie sales across New York:

“In spite of the fact that the poisoning was shown to be due to… food prepared only at the one restaurant, patrons of restaurants were reported yesterday to be eating only a small fraction of the pie usually consumed in this city. The demand for huckleberry and blackberry pie has fallen almost to nothing.”

Source: New York Times, August 2nd 1922. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1801: Welshman killed by a bread loaf to the private parts

Welsh coronial records from the spring of 1801 contain a brief but thought-provoking summary of the death of William Hopkin. According to an inquest held in Cardiff, Hopkin succumbed after being hit in the groin by a flying loaf of bread:

“At the Coroner’s inquest taken at Cardiff before the Bailiffs, William Prichard and Henry Hollier, on a view of the body of William Hopkin, found that he met his death through injuries received at the hands of Morgan Hopkin of Cardiff, labourer, who threw a twopenny wheaten loaf at the deceased and thereby inflicted a mortal blow upon his private parts, resulting in death a few days after such assault.”

Sadly, further research was not able to uncover the nature of William Hopkin’s injuries, why or how the loaf was thrown and whether the perpetrator was brought to justice. The fate of the deadly bread is also unknown.

Source: Glamorgan Calendar Rolls (Cardiff), Spring 1801. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1846: James Brown finds John Kerry in bed with his wife

In October 1846, the Sunday Times reported that James Brown had appeared in court charged with assaulting John Kerry, after finding Kerry in bed with his wife. The Browns had been married for four years but often quarrelled.

According to James Brown he had left London on business – but returned after receiving an anonymous letter informing him of John Kerry’s dalliances with his wife:

“Determined to sift the matter he came to London, and on proceeding to the bedroom of his lodgings, he heard his wife and Kerry talking together in a loving and affectionate manner. Feeling satisfied that they were on the bed together, he burst open the door [and] commenced beating both of them, giving Kerry a sound drubbing.”

James Brown’s wife refused to press the charge of assault against her husband, however Brown was convicted of assaulting John Kerry and fined three pounds or two months’ imprisonment.

Source: The Sunday Times (London), October 25th 1846. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1671: John Bold passes water in a Wigan well

John Bold was one of Wigan’s naughtier historical residents. According to the records of Wigan’s Court Leet, he appeared several times before local magistrates during the late 17th century. Bold was twice sued for assault, first by Robert Casson in 1669 and again by William Scott three years later. In 1670 Bold was bound over and ordered to behave appropriately, after residents testified that he had assaulted Peter Leigh and abused Richard Markland and his wife.

Bold was also accused of swearing ten times at the Mayor of Wigan. He appeared again in 1671, after four witnesses testified that:

“John Bold, gentleman, did in a very rude, foul and beastly manner abuse the stone well in the Wallgate by pissing in the same, to the great loss and detriment of the neighbourhood…”

Source: Leet Records, Wigan, rolls 32-34 (1669-72). Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1884: Joe Quimby shoots his wife, gets a governor’s pardon

In March 1884, several newspapers reported that a West Virginia man, Joe Quimby, had shot dead his wife while drunk:

Quimby was duly charged with murder. In September, he appeared before a Mason County judge and was sentenced to 15 years’ hard labour. But in October 1891 Quimby, then less than halfway into his sentence, was given a governor’s pardon that generated considerable controversy at the time.

According to the papers of West Virginia governor Aretas B. Fleming, Quimby was pardoned on vague medical grounds because he “only hobbles about the place [the prison] doing nothing”. Quimby’s pardon was granted against the express wishes of the prison superintendent.

Source: Jamestown Weekly Alert, March 14th 1884; Public Papers of A. B. Fleming, October 23rd 1891. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1900: Harry Potter – bully, thief, hobby horse rider

In January 1900, a Chester Castle magistrate heard a charge of theft laid against Harry Potter, described as “a respectable boy of eleven”. According to the prosecution, Harry Potter had accosted and robbed a much smaller boy named Joseph Goodwin:

“Goodwin, who was only seven years of age, was sent on Thursday by his mother to buy some groceries, and was given [three shillings and sixpence] to pay for them… Potter asked him if he had any money [and] without further parley put his hand in Goodwin’s pocket, bringing out two shillings in silver. With his plunder Potter then took his departure… spending the money upon bottles of ginger beer and trips on hobby horses, etc.”

Harry Potter pleaded guilty to the charge and the magistrate sentenced him to “six strokes of the birch rod”, expressing his hope that this would “have a salutary effect upon him.”

Source: The Cheshire Observer, January 13th 1900. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1724: Pirates employ musical bottom-stabbing

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a worldwide celebration of pirate cliches, memes and stereotypes. Real pirates, of course, were less predictable and much more dangerous than cinematic representations.

Pirates of the 17th and 18th century had a well justified reputation for brutality. They reserved their worst tortures for captured sea captains, particularly if evidence suggested they had mistreated their own crews. A 1669 report from a British colonial official described one form of pirate violence:

“It is a common thing among privateers… to cut a man in pieces, first some flesh, then a hand, an arm, a leg… sometimes tying a cord about his head and twisting it with a stick until the eyes shoot out, which is called ‘woolding’.”

Worse treatment was given to a woman in Porto Bello:

“A woman there was set bare upon a baking stone and roasted, because she did not confess of money which she had only in their conceit.”

In 1724, a mariner named Richard Hawkins, who spent several weeks captive aboard a pirate vessel, described a ritual dubbed the Sweat. It was usually employed to extract information from prisoners:

“Between decks they stick candles round the mizen mast and about 25 men surround it with points of swords, penknives, compasses, forks, etc., in each of their hands. The culprit enters the circle [and] the violin plays a merry jig… and he must run for about ten minutes, while each man runs his instrument into [the culprit’s] posteriors.”

Sources: Letter from John Style to the Secretary of State, 1669; Richard Hawkins in British Journal, August 8th 1724. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.

1864: George Harrison’s costly ferry ride

In 1864, George Harrison of Liverpool took a Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey – without a Ticket to Ride – and found himself before the beak in Birkenhead:

Source: Liverpool Mercury, August 25th 1864. Content on this page is © Alpha History 2019-23. Content may not be republished without our express permission. For more information please refer to our Terms of Use or contact Alpha History.