On November 9, 1838 the Greenville Mountaineer reported on a murder trial against none other than its own editor, mister William Lowndes Yancey. Yancey shot and killed his wife’s uncle, Dr. Robinson Earle, on South Main Street in broad daylight in September 1838. The Yancey family was well known in the Greenville area in the 1820s, as was the Earle family, which caused this trial to become a rather...
Writer of the Greenville Century Book S.S. Crittenden has personal ties to that fateful day in November 1838, when newspaper editor William Lowndes Yancey shot his wife’s uncle, Dr. Robinson Earle in the heart of the downtown area. The murder was conducted because Earle had called Yancey ‘a damned liar,’ and Yancey felt that he needed to defend his honor against Earle’s accusations. This remarkable...
On April 1st 1965, a cross was burned outside the late Viola Liuzzo’s house in Detroit, Michigan. The Brownsville Herald reported a few days later that another cross had since been burned, making it “the fourth cross burning in Detroit in less than 24 hours.” The incident occurred on the front lawn of the Liuzzo house just two days after the funeral of Viola Liuzzo, commemorating the life the...
The Mansion House in the town of Greenville, South Carolina was erected in 1820 on South Main Street, where it successfully functioned as a hotel. John Nolan included a drawing of this Greenville hotspot in his book A Guide to Historic Greenville, which allows his readers to peek back at forgotten times. The Mansion House was not just any hotel, as every notable who had to visit Greenville in the...
On 10 February 1843 Singleton Mercer shot and killed Mahlon Hutchinson Heberton aboard the ferry John Finch. Public sympathy for Mercer was high and just over a month later, on 28 March, Mercer was acquitted of the charges on the grounds of insanity— a relatively new and controversial defense. The defense was controversial because the murder was one of revenge. Heberton, often described as handsome...
Walt Whitman, one of the major American writers of the Civil War, wrote When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd after the assassination of the very charismatic leader of the Union during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln. This poem mourned the death of the powerful, western fallen star which was now hidden by blackness, leaving only desperation and bitterness behind. The poem followed the coffin throughout...
Alexander Rea was murdered on a Saturday morning on October 23, 1868 while on his way to the coal mine where he worked. He was shot six times at close range and $500 dollars was stolen from his body. The corpse was hidden in the bushes and was not discovered until the next day. Eleven years later three suspects were arrested and tried for the crime. Patrick Hester, Peter McHugh, and Patrick Tully, ...
In 1876 the New York Times published an article describing the murder trial of John P. Jones , a mine boss of the Lehigh and Wilkesbarre Coal Company. It was widely believed that Jones murderers were members of the secretive and violent Irish labor union called the Molly Maguires. During this time stories of the Mollies murdering mine bosses that crossed the group were very common. A very interesting...
Around one o' clock Friday morning Albert Browning, "a freedman and quiet inoffensive citizen of the city," lay resting peacefully in his home with his wife and little children. For unknown reasons a number of white men grabbed him and led him just a few feet outside of his home. They tied the terrified man's hands behind his back, went into his home, and began robbing him of his money, many types...