Murderesses and More:
Rare Americana from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
David Lesser's Catalogue 83 of Rare Americana
By Michael Stillman
David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books has issued its 83rd catalogue of Rare Americana. Lesser's catalogues are like a collection of snapshots of America in its earliest years. There are a few exceptions, but most items come from America during the period of the 1760s through 1860s. These are not the most famous of documents, such as the Declaration of Independence. Rather, what we see are pictures of life as typical people experienced it. We hear personal quarrels, sermons from preachers and educators, oratory from politicians, debates over slavery and other issues of the day, and lurid stories of crime. Not every speech of the day was a Gettysburg Address or Washington's Farewell. In fact, few were. Here is what people were really reading in America's first century.
Lucretia Cannon was not exactly a gentlewoman. Indeed, "Patty" Cannon was as notorious as they come. She appeared in the area along the Delaware-Maryland border, probably coming from Canada, around 1810. Already a woman of ill-repute, she disposed of her husband the old-fashioned way, perhaps the first of many men to meet their final rewards with Patty's assistance. She set up a tavern in Johnson's Corners (now Reliance, Delaware) and formed a gang of loyal and ruthless followers. Apparently, Patty was a tough, large, physically strong woman who could terrorize any man around. She made her tavern a welcoming spot for traveling slave dealers, a group generally not that popular at northern establishments. Her gang would pray on the weaker ones, relieving them of their money. Lest you think this was some sort of protest against the slave trade by Patty, she soon expanded into the business of capturing free Blacks and selling them into slavery in the South. She frequently had these new slaves shackled in the attic of her boarding house and tavern. Her luck ran out in 1829 when she was arrested for four murders, although she was suspected of over twenty. While awaiting trial in jail, she poisoned herself, making use of the one foolproof method of avoiding execution. The book is Narrative and Confessions of Lucretia P. Cannon, who was Tried, Convicted, and sentenced to be Hung at Georgetown, Delaware, with Two of her Accomplices. Containing an Account of some of the Most Horrible and Shocking Murders and Daring Robberies Ever Committed by One of the Female Sex. It was published in New York in 1841. Pictures show her gang shooting at slave dealers, and Patty burning a black child in the fireplace. Item 21. Priced at $1,250. For those of you who would like to meet Mrs. Cannon, she may be visited at the Dover Public Library in Dover, Delaware. Her skull is kept in a hatbox in the library's staff area, but their website says they "will be glad to show it to anyone who would like to see it." Visiting hours coincide with the library's regular hours.
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Murderesses and More:
Rare Americana from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
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Another not-so-fair lady was Laura Fair. Item 53 is the Official Report of the Trial of Laura D. Fair for the Murder of Alex. P. Crittenden... Ms. Fair had already been married thrice when she took up with Alexander Crittenden, a married man. Crittenden was supposed to have promised to divorce his wife for Fair, but never did. One day, seven years into the relationship, Fair followed Crittenden to a ferry where he was meeting his wife and fatally shot him. The San Francisco trial was a sensation. Fair's lawyers introduced a series of defenses designed to show she was incapable of mal intent. They mostly centered on her suffering from "female malady," something apparently caused by irregular menstrual cycles and being done wrong. She won the support of many suffragists. However, the all-male jury wasn't buying. They convicted Mrs. Fair and sentenced her to hang. She was the first woman sentenced to death in California. But cry not for Laura Fair. The state Supreme Court overturned the verdict because of improperly permitted evidence, and at her retrial, Mrs. Fair was acquitted on the grounds of emotional insanity. It's not clear whether the insanity was hers or the jury's, but she got off. A 1919 newspaper clipping attached to front free endpaper indicates Mrs. Fair lived for almost 50 years after her death sentence was imposed in 1870. Mr. Crittenden would have found that unfair. $750.
Mrs. Fair may have gotten away with murder, but Stephen and Jesse Boorn were two brothers who almost paid dearly for a murder that never happened. In 1812, their brother-in-law, Russell Colvin, of whom they were apparently not fond, disappeared from their farm in Manchester, Vermont. Seven years later, their uncle Amos Boorn had a dream in which Colvin came to him and said he had been murdered, though he named no names. Colvin's ghost told Amos where he had been buried. Though no remains were found, some personal items were, which Mrs. Colvin identified as her husband's. A few bones were later found elsewhere which were dubiously identified by a physician as being human. Jesse Boorn was arrested, but Stephen was out of reach, having moved to New York. While in jail, Jesse supposedly confessed to a cellmate, who conveniently agreed to testify against Boorn in return for his own release. Facing mounting "evidence" against him, Jesse then confessed to authorities, evidently attempting to protect his father and himself by placing most of the blame on brother Stephen, who was safely in New York. However, Stephen chose to return to Vermont to defend his name. Instead, he was arrested, and in time, he too would confess, hoping to escape the death penalty. No matter. Both brothers were convicted and sentenced to die, though Jesse's sentence was commuted to life. Then, barely a month before Stephen was to be executed, an article about the case in the New York Evening Post caught the attention of a New Jersey man who knew of a Russell Colvin in his hometown. Colvin was brought to Vermont, whereupon the good folks of Manchester immediately realized they had made a big mistake. Perhaps the moral here is to be a little wary of confessions of guilt given under trying circumstances. The book is Mystery Developed; or, Russell Colvin, (Supposed to be Murdered,) In Full Life: and Stephen and Jesse Boorn, (His Convicted Murderers,) Rescued from Ignominious Death by Wonderful Discoveries. The author of this 1820 book was Rev. Lemuel Haynes, himself a remarkable person. A free black man, Haynes had enlisted as a minuteman in the colonial army in 1775, and in 1776 volunteered for the expedition to Ticonderoga. He first became a minister in his native Litchfield County, Connecticut, but was forced from the pulpit by racial prejudice. He would later have a long and successful ministerial career in Rutland, Vermont. Item 76. $1,250.
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Murderesses and More:
Rare Americana from David Lesser Antiquarian Books
none
Item 46 is Zachariah Eddy's Philandrianism: an Oration delivered...in Raynham [Massachusetts]...at the Celebration of the Anniversary Election of the Philandrian Society. Good luck looking up the definition of "philandrianism." Evidently it is not what philanderers practice. Rather, it was a philosophy that promoted volunteerism and similar civic-minded ventures. However, this group of philanderers or whatever they were called must not have lasted very long as I can find no references to them later than 1807. This pamphlet was printed in 1800. $350.
Another remarkable group in Massachusetts of this era was the Humane Society. Its history is told in A Discourse, Before the Humane Society, in Boston: Delivered on the Second Tuesday of June, 1787, by John Lothrop. Their specialty appears to have been bringing drowned people back to life, certainly a worthy cause. Lothrop recounts their "astonishing success...for the recovery of drowned persons, and others in whom, by various accidents, the vital flame seemed to be wholly extinguished." Astonishing is an understatement. It also includes the methods of treatment to be used on those "apparently dead from drowning." Item 98. $300.
Item 81 is a broadside defense of Mormon business practices, likely printed in Salt Lake City around 1884. With the heading Words and Deeds. The Mormons and Temperance..., it denies that Mormons have commercial interests in "gin mills, tap rooms and pot houses, gambling houses, pool and billiard tables, bowling alleys, skating rinks, brothels and kindred concerns in Utah." It goes on to say, "Not a single reputable 'Mormon' is engaged in any of these vile pursuits." Vile pursuits? Bowling? Skating? $150.
Item 17 fits an odd niche in the annals of abolition. It is Emancipation in Missouri, Speech of S.M. Breckenridge, Delivered in...1863. When Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, it applied only to those states at war with the Union. Missouri was the oddity, a slave state not part of the rebellion. However, as defeat for the Confederacy became inevitable, Missouri found itself in a most awkward position. Lincoln proposed financial assistance to slave owners for freeing their slaves, but Missouri balked at the offer. Judge Samuel Breckenridge was one of those who favored gradual emancipation. A series of proposals would run through the Missouri legislature the next two years, with greater and greater limitations placed on the continuation of slavery. Ultimately, by 1865, Missouri would voluntarily prohibit it and with no compensation to slaveholders. It was a stunning turnaround in a state where antislavery agitation was an invitation to trouble just a few years earlier. $275.
There are many more fascinating stories in this catalogue. To see what is available, you can visit the website of David M. Lesser Fine Antiquarian Books at www.lesserbooks.com or call them at 203-389-8111.
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