Colonel John Chiswell: The Celebrity Murderer (1766)

 

Williamsburg, Virginia

When we think of the Virginia of colonial times, the Virginia of Washington, Madison and Jefferson, we seldom think of the word MURDER.  And yet behind the façade of graceful mansions and quaint cobblestone streets, evil lurked.  Take for example the strange case of Colonel John Chiswell, someone today we might call “a celebrity murderer.”

 

Colonel John Chiswell was a very busy and important man.  He owned a huge plantation, he was a member of the House of Burgesses, and he was a colonel in the militia.  His wife was from a fine old family.  The Royal Governor, Francis Fauquier, was a close friend.  His son-in-law was Treasurer of the colony.  This was not a little man unknown in the colony.  Soon he would be even better known.

 

On June 3, 1766, Colonel Chiswell attended a session of the Cumberland County Court, to look after some land deals.  That evening he entered Benjamin Mosby’s tavern.  One Robert Routlidge, a blunt Scottish merchant who had had dealings with Chiswell before, approached the colonel.  Routlidge was clearly drunk, and not just a little drunk.  Routlidge proceeded to insult Chiswell and then threw a glass of wine in his face.  The short fused Chiswell picked up a pair of fire tongs and made for Routlidge.  The crowd in the room restrained him.  He next came at Routlidge with a candlestick.  Again he was restrained.  Next he picked up a punchbowl and made to break it over Routlidge’s head.  Again he was restrained.  A sheriff entered and ordered Col. Chiswell to leave, which he did, only to return moments later carrying a sword.

 

The sheriff tried to keep him from Routlidge but Chiswell bellowed that he would “run through any man” who tried to stop him.  Routlidge and Chiswell exchanged curses across the room until finally Chiswell called Routlidge a “Presbyterian fellow”, which was too much for Routlidge who broke free from those trying to calm him and squarely faced Chiswell.  In the next instant the colonel ran his sword directly into Routlidge’s heart.  The merchant fell dead.  Colonel Chiswell handed the sword to a servant for cleaning and then ordered a bowl of punch declaring, “He deserves his fate, damn him.  I aimed at his heart and I have hit it.”  The gaping sheriff immediately took Chiswell into custody.

 

The cold blooded murder of an unarmed man in front of a room full of witnesses, including a sheriff, was this an open and shut case?  Not according to Colonel Chiswell’s attorney.  According to the defense, due to his drunkenness Routlidge threw himself on the colonel’s sword. The incident was a mere accident.  After hearing the testimony of the witnesses, the examining court found sufficient evidence to prosecute the case.  Chiswell was held without bail, and an under-sheriff was ordered to transport the colonel to Williamsburg where he was to be jailed in chains while awaiting trial before the Governor.  News of the murder spread fast among Virginia’s power elite.  Three of the Governor’s closest confidants intercepted the under-sheriff and his prisoner before they could reach Williamsburg.  The distinguished deputation ordered the under-sheriff to release Chiswell on bail.  The colonel returned to the comforts of his townhouse in Williamsburg where he remained in seclusion.

 

Was the whole matter to be swept under the rug by Chiswell’s powerful friends?  Perhaps it could have been and would have been had it not been for one Robert Bolling who published an anonymous query in the Virginia Gazette of June 20, 1766.  Bolling broke the story to the general public.  “Upon an inquisition taken before the Coroner in Cumberland county, Robert Routlidge was found to be murdered (June 3d) by a sword in the hand of John Chiswell, Esq; whereupon he was committed to the county prison, and the examining Court, upon full evidence (refusing to bail him on a motion for that purpose) ordered him to the public prison, as the law directs, to be tried for murder.” Bolling continued the anonymous query by relat­ing the special treatment given to Colonel Chiswell by the Judges of the General Court. “ But before he was delivered to the keeper of the pub­lic prison, the Judges of the General Court, out of sessions, took him from the sheriff who conveyed him from Cumberland, and admitted him to bail, without seeing the record of his examination in the coun­ty, or examining any of the witnesses against him.”  Bolling’s query came to a thunderous summation, “I ask, whether this act of the three Judges of the General Court be le­gal. If it is legal, I have nothing more to say. If it is not legal, then I ask whether the act of these Judges has not a tendency to overturn the laws and constitution of the country, by their exercising an extra judicial power and controlling the course of law in a case of the highest con­sequence to the safety of the (king’s) subject(s)? Whether the bail taken by these Judges in an extra judicial manner can be liable on their recogni­zance, if Mr. Chiswell should not appear to take his trial? If they are not liable, whether it is not in fact a rescue, under pretense of law, of a person charged with an atrocious crime?”

 

As the facts became known, outrage spread among the general public.  Increasingly angry voices were raised about both the murder and the special privileges that were being granted Colonel John Chiswell.  The murder was fast becoming, “the crime of the century”, pitting the power elite against the common man in a contest over equality before the law. 

 

In fact, Colonel Chiswell never came to trial.  Either pressured by friends or collapsing under the nervous strain, Colonel Chiswell committed suicide in his Williamsburg townhouse.  The Virginia Gazette reported that he died of “nervous fits, owing to a constant uneasiness of mind.”  This did not entirely end the matter.  By now the people so distrusted their political masters that they suspected a plot to smuggle a still very much alive John Chiswell out of the colony.  An angry mob stopped Chiswell’s funeral procession and demanded to see the body.  The coffin was duly opened and Colonel Chiswell’s body publicly identified.

Murder in Colonial Virginia

Virginia Legends and Lore

Was there a Curse on America’s Presidents?

 

Tecumseh

William Henry Harrison, born in Charles City County, was America’s ninth president.  Harrison was also the shortest serving president, dying thirty-one days into his first term.  A military hero in his younger days, the new president wanted to demonstrate his virility when he came to Washington.  He took the oath of office outside on a cold, wet day, without wearing a hat or overcoat.  Harrison’s inaugural speech dragged on for almost two hours (the longest inaugural speech ever), after which Harrison rode a horse in his own inaugural parade.  On March 26, Harrison was ill with cold like symptoms.  The next day he developed chills, and then a high fever.  The doctors were called in to treat the ailing president.  As was often the case in those days, calling in the doctors was tantamount to signing the man’s death warrant.  A team of doctors administered a regime of bloodletting to drain off the “bad humors”.  When this failed to produce the desired results, the doctors tried ipecac, castor oil, calomel, mustard plasters, a boiled mixture of crude petroleum, and Virginia snakeroot.  All of this expert medical treatment only weakened Harrison to the point of death, at which point the doctor’s concluded that he was beyond hope and would not recover.

William Henry Harrison was the first president to die in office, and around his death arose the legend of the Curse of Tippecanoe. 

Harrison had become famous as a military commander in Tecumseh’s War, waged against the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother Tenskwatawa.  The decisive battle of that war was the battle of Tippecanoe, and it was the fame Harrison won in this battle that helped propel “Old Tippecanoe” into the White House under the campaign slogan, “Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”  Also known as Tecumseh’s Curse, a grim pattern emerged after the election of 1840.  Death stalked any person elected president in a year divisible by 20.  William Henry Harrison elected in 1840, died in office.  Abraham Lincoln elected in 1860, died in office.  James A. Garfield elected in 1880, died in office.  William McKinley elected in 1900, died in office. Warren G. Harding elected in 1920, died in office.  Franklin D. Roosevelt elected in 1940, died in office.  John F. Kennedy elected in 1960, died in office.  Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, broke the curse.  Reagan served two terms and lived fifteen years after leaving the presidency.

Virginia Legends and Lore

The Crystal Skull and the Superstition Mountains

 

The Crystal Skull in the British Museum

One of the most bizarre stories coming out of Arizona’s Superstition Mountains, which is saying a great deal, is that of the search for the Crystal Skull.  The Crystal Skull is said to be an ancient Aztec artifact with mystical properties.  In the summer of 1980, one Joe Mays showed up trying to recruit guides and horses for a trek into the mountains to hunt for the Crystal Skull.  It was July, with the temperatures hovering around 110 degrees.  The locals weren’t too interested in the Crystal Skull, but they were very interested in all of the crisp one hundred dollar bills that Mays was splashing about.

Mays brought a small crew with him and contracted with Peralta Stables and local guides for support.  He intended to go into the mountains for three weeks.  As it turns out, Mays was spending money from investors, and he was spending it very lavishly, in the end some twenty thousand dollars (sixty thousand dollars in today’s money).  Mays was using an “ancient book” as his bona fides for the investors.  

Unfortunately for Mays, his investors were an unsavory lot who were used to getting a high return on their money.  The investors suggested to Mays that his next stop would be the Atlantic Ocean in a pair of cement overshoes, unless he produced and produced fast.  After a few more days of fumbling about the Superstitions, Mays came up with a brilliant idea.  He convinced the investors that they should make a video documentary, “that would make millions!” Mays had the gift of the gab, and the investors bought into the scheme. 

The Crystal Skull has an interesting history.  In the late nineteenth century, when European interest in ancient culture was at its peak, Crystal Skulls, supposedly of pre-Columbian Aztec or Mayan origin, began appearing in major museums in England and France.  It was one, Eugène Boban, an antiquities dealer who opened his shop in Paris in 1870, who is most associated with nineteenth century museum collections of Crystal Skulls. Boban is said to have tried to sell a Crystal Skull to Mexico's national museum as an Aztec artifact, but was unsuccessful. Boban later moved his business to New York City. A Crystal Skull was exhibited at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, in New York. It was sold at auction, and bought by Tiffany and Co., which later sold it at cost to the British Museum in 1897.

The Crystal Skull in the Musée de l'Homme's in Paris was donated by Alphonse Pinart, an ethnographer who had bought it from Eugene Boban.

It was not until the twentieth century that the truth came out.  Studies demonstrated that the skulls were manufactured in the mid-nineteenth century. The skulls were crafted in the nineteenth century in Germany, quite likely at workshops in the town of Idar-Oberstein, which was renowned for crafting objects made from imported Brazilian quartz. This type of crystal was determined to be only found in Madagascar and Brazil, and thus unknown to the Aztecs or Maya.

In 1992, the Smithsonian investigated a Crystal Skull provided by an anonymous donor.  Supposedly, the artifact was of Aztec origin. The investigation concluded that this skull was made in the 1950s or later.

Legends of the Superstition Mountains

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Was Custer wiped out by a “Mysterious Renegade”?

 

In his book, Son of the Morning Star: Custer and the Little Bighorn , Evan S. Connell tells us

 “News of the Little Bighorn calamity was at first discredited.  Americans could not believe that Sitting Bull had defeated General Custer….they refused to admit that an uneducated savage could have defeated a West Point graduate.  Therefore such a genius must be … a disguised renegade.  So it was alleged that a mysterious swarthy youth from the Great Plains, nicknamed “Bison”, had attended West Point and there absorbed the military science that laid General Custer low.” (Connell, 223) 

The Indian View of the Battle of the Little Bighorn

The Lonely Prophet of the Pearl Harbor Attack

 Admiral James O. Richardson

Most people believe that the American Pacific Fleet had had a long history at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii by December 7, 1941.  Such was not the case.  Until February 1941, the U.S. Pacific Fleet homeport was San Diego, California.

In 1940, the Roosevelt Administration, without consulting with senior military advisors decided that stationing the Fleet in Hawaii would restrain Japanese aggression in the Far East.

Admiral James O. Richardson, as Commander in Chief, United States Fleet (CinCUS), protested stationing the Pacific Fleet in Hawaii. Richardson, the Navy's outstanding authority on Pacific naval warfare and Japanese strategy, believed that a forward defense was neither practical nor useful and that the Pacific Fleet would be the logical first target in the event of war with Japan since it was vulnerable to air and torpedo attacks. At least two naval war games, one in 1932 and another in 1936, proved that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to such an attack.

In October 1940, Richardson went to Washington, D.C. to present his viewpoint in person to the President.  Franklin Roosevelt was annoyed by the criticism and made clear his own opinion that war with Japan would not happen anytime soon.  Richardson put his career on the line by requesting a second face-to-face meeting with Roosevelt five days into the New Year of 1941.  The plain-spoken Admiral said, “Mr. President, I feel that I must tell you that the senior officers of the Navy do not have the trust and confidence in the civilian leadership of this country that is essential for the successful prosecution of a war in the Pacific.”

Richardson’s warnings went unheeded, and by February 1, 1941, the Admiral was out of a job, re-assigned from Fleet duty to desk duty in Washington. 

On December 7, 1941, forces of the Empire of Japan launched a devastating sneak attack on the American Fleet at Pearl Harbor, as predicted.

         Sneak Attack! (Four Alternative History Stories)

The Most Gruesome Sight in Tombstone, Arizona?

 

The Tombstone Merman

In 1880 the remains of a “Merman” were brought to Tombstone, Arizona.  Mermen, the male counterparts of mermaids had a long tradition in Western mythology, dating back to the time of the ancient Greeks.  The creatures are said to be human from the waist up and fish-like from the waist down.

Chinese businessman Quong Kee had this particular specimen on display at his “Can Can Cafe”, where it both intrigued and horrified his customers.

Although during the 19^th century artifacts such as this were still thought by some to be real, the hoax can be traced back to 16^th century China, where such mermen were manufactured by joining the upper part of a monkey’s body with the lower part of a fish.  These oddities were imported into Europe by the Dutch East India Company, where they were taken to be the remains of actual creatures.

In 1845, sideshow impresario P.T. Barnum began displaying a mummified mermaid supposedly caught in the waters off Fiji.  Once again this was a feat of taxidermy which melded a monkey and a fish.  Barnum made a fortune showing the weird creature, and there were soon many copycat creations appearing in sideshows.

Although there are many mummified mermaids, mermen like the one in Tombstone, now on display at the Bird Cage Theater, are rare.  There is another one of these rare artifacts on display at the Indian Trading Post in Banff, Canada.

Virginia Legends and Lore

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Tombstone Arizona’s Grisliest Murder

 

In the early 1880s, Tombstone, Arizona was a violent, chaotic, roaring, mining town.  Sudden death was commonplace, and the population of the Boot Hill graveyard soared. 

Tombstone’s grisliest murder occurred at the Bird Cage Theatre (which also served as a saloon and brothel) and involved two “Painted Ladies”, Margarita, the belle of the Bird Cage, and Little Gertie called “the Gold Dollar” who worked at a rival brothel.

Tombstone Arizona

The women fell out over a man, one Billy Milgreen, a two bit gambler.  In 1882, Gold Dollar had had enough of Margarita’s poaching customers.  Little Gertie, a petite thing, grabbed a handful of Margarita’s hair and stabbed her in the chest with a double edged stiletto.  Gold Dollar did a thorough job, hacking at the other woman’s heart with her blade until her rival was well and truly dead.

Billy Milgreen

Little Gertie, the Gold Dollar

Gold Dollar fled the scene but was soon arrested by the town Marshal.  No charges stuck.  The murder weapon had disappeared, so the peace keepers reasoned there was no evidence, despite the presence of eyewitnesses.  Gold Dollar continued a favorite in the town.

The Grave of Margarita

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Tombstone Arizona’s Boot Hill Graveyard

Called “The Tombstone Cemetery”, but better known as the Boot Hill graveyard, this infamous Arizona burial site was used from 1878 to 1884 as the last resting place for some of the town’s first pioneers.

This cemetery reflects the violent times associated with this roaring mining town in the early 1880s. 

Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, Frank McLaury

These three cowboys are probably the best known residents of Boot Hill.  All three were killed in the shootout at the OK Corral, a gunfight between the Earp brothers, Doc Holliday and the criminal element known as “the cowboys”.

 

                    Tex Howard

Tex was legally hanged on March 8,1884, having been found guilty of killing several people during the robbery of a store in Bisbee.

 

 John Heath

Heath was taken from the county jail and lynched by a mob on February 22, 1884.  He was the leader of the gang that killed several people during the robbery of a store in Bisbee.

George Johnson

George Johnson was hanged by mistake.  Johnson innocently bought a stolen horse but was accused of being a horse thief.

Seymour Dye

Thirty five year old Seymour Dye was driving a hay wagon when he was set upon by Indians.

Joseph Ziegler

The twenty seven year old Ziegler was murdered by a fellow miner with whom he had been quarreling.

Lester Moore

Moore worked for Wells Fargo.  He was murdered by a man over a package.

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The True Story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith

      Two of Virginia’s most unusual and colorful characters were Captain John Smith and the Native American princess Pocahontas.

     Captain John Smith was an English soldier of fortune who fought his way across Europe in wars being waged by the various rulers in Slovenia, Hungary and Transylvania, earning many awards for bravery.  The Prince of Transylvania awarded Smith with a title and his own coat of arms which displayed the heads of three Turks killed and beheaded by Smith in individual combat.  But Smith’s luck was about to run out.  In 1602 he was wounded in battle and captured by the Turks.  He was sold into slavery and marched six hundred miles to Constantinople.  Here Smith was presented to his new master’s fiancée as a gift.  The woman promptly fell in love with Smith and tried to convert him to Islam.  When this didn’t work, she shipped him off to her brother in Rostov in what was then Turkish occupied Russia.

    The brother beat Smith frequently and put an iron collar around his neck.  John Smith was a man that required a great deal of breaking, and his new master did not succeed.  In fact, Smith killed him and escaped on his horse.  With the help of local Christians, Smith traversed Russia and Ukraine, making his way to Germany, France, and finally England.  After travelling some eleven thousand miles between 1600 -1604, you would think that Smith would be done with long journeys, but his longest journey was just about to begin.

    In April 1606, the Virginia Company was granted a royal charter by King James I to establish a colony.  In December, three ships carrying one hundred and four settlers, including Captain John Smith, set sail for Virginia.  Impressed by Smith’s military record, the Virginia Company had invited Smith to join the enterprise as a member of the new colony’s seven man ruling council. 

   Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America, named in honor of King James I, was founded on May 14, 1607.  The early going was tough for the colonists.  The colony suffered from food shortage, disease, and unhealthy drinking water, all in addition to skirmishes with the local Powhatan tribe.  In the autumn of 1607, Captain Smith conducted trips to Powhatan villages to secure much need food.  During one of these forays, Smith was taken prisoner by a large Powhatan hunting party and ultimately brought before Wahunsenacawh, better known to history as Chief Powhatan.

  According to Smith, his head was placed on two stones and as he was held down, a warrior prepared to smash in his skull with a heavy club.  Before the fatal blow fell, however, Chief Powhatan’s daughter Pocahontas rushed to Smith’s side and placed her head on his, preventing the attack. Thus was born the legend of the beautiful princess saving the life of the intrepid English explorer.

  It is easy to understand how Smith, unfamiliar with Powhatan customs thought he was about to be murdered when, in fact, he was being inducted into the tribe.  According to some anthropologists, Smith was undergoing a ritual adoption ceremony, and after the ceremony was treated well and ultimately returned to Jamestown.  As for the Native American princess, her real name was Amonute (she also had the more private name Matoaka). Pocahontas was a nickname which meant “playful one.”  Did she really save John Smith?  Smith only wrote of the incident years later when he was safely back in Europe and there was no one around to contradict his version.  Some have suggested that he took the story of the hero being saved by the beautiful daughter of a powerful lord from an old Scottish ballad.

   Whatever the truth of the rescue story, Pocahontas lived a remarkable life.  While Smith was with the Powhatans he spent time with Pocahontas and they taught each other rudimentary aspects of their different languages.  Pocahontas became an important emissary to the Jamestown colony, negotiating the release of prisoners and occasionally bringing food to the hungry settlers.  Notwithstanding her efforts, relations between the colonists and the Powhatans remained strained.  In 1609, the starving colonists threatened to burn Powhatan villages unless the tribe brought them food.  Chief Powhatan offered to barter for food with Captain John Smith.  Supposedly the chief intended to ambush and kill Smith, but Pocahontas warned Smith of the plot and saved his life (again?).  Smith returned to England after this incident.

   Pocahontas avoided the English until 1613 when she was kidnapped.  The English informed Chief Powhatan that Pocahontas would not be returned unless a food ransom was paid and certain stolen weapons returned.  The ransom was slow in coming and Pocahontas remained a prisoner in the settlement of Henricus where she was under the care of a minister.  Here she learned how to speak English and learned about both Christianity and European culture.  Pocahontas converted to Christianity and took a new name, Rebecca.

   After she had been a prisoner for a year, Sir Thomas Dale, with one hundred and fifty armed men, marched Pocahontas to Chief Powhatan to demand the rest of the ransom.  Along the way a number of villages were burned and a skirmish occurred, but Pocahontas was able to secure peace when she announced to Chief Powhatan that she wished to marry one of the colonists, one John Rolfe, a tobacco planter.  The Chief agreed and on April 5, 1614 the marriage took place, cementing the so-called “Peace of Pocahontas.”

   In 1616, Sir Thomas Dale sailed for England to raise money and to demonstrate that the goal of converting Native Americans to Christianity was being met.  John Rolfe, Pocahontas, their baby son Thomas (born in 1615) and twelve Powhatan tribe members made the trip.  In London, Pocahontas was hailed as a princess and was presented to King James I.  The Virginia Company commissioned a portrait of Pocahontas in European dress.  The painting’s identifying plaque reads, “Matoaka, alias Rebecca, daughter of the most powerful prince of the Powhatan Empire of Virginia.”

   In 1617, Pocahontas and her family set sail for Virginia, but had hardly launched when she was overcome by a grave illness.  The party disembarked at Gravesend, England, where she died.  On her deathbed she said, “All must die. But ‘tis enough that my child liveth.”

Virginia Legends and Lore

The Strange Death of Edgar Allan Poe

 Edgar Allan Poe

   Each spring, the Mystery Writers of America present the Edgar Awards, the most prestigious award a mystery writer can receive.  This award is, fittingly, named after Edgar Allan Poe, the father of the modern detective story (The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Gold Bug).  It is even more fitting that Poe’s untimely death remains one of history’s great unsolved mysteries.

   Poe was born in Boston in 1809 but was orphaned at an early age.  A Richmond couple became his foster parents and Poe spent his youth in Richmond, finally going off to college at the University of Virginia.  Young Poe, now eighteen, incurred gambling debts and quarreled with his foster father. He dropped out of the University of Virginia and joined the United States Army under an assumed name.  This didn’t work out either.  In 1829, Edgar Allan Poe announced that he would make his way in the world by becoming a poet and writer.  Poe became the first American writer to earn a living (a very modest living) through writing alone.

  On September 27, 1849 Edgar Allan Poe left Richmond bound for Philadelphia where he had been commissioned to edit a collection of poems. Poe may never have made it to Philadelphia, and he definitely did not make it to New York to escort his aunt back to Richmond for his impending wedding.  On October 3, 1849 one Joseph Walker, an employee of the Baltimore Sun, found Poe lying in a Baltimore gutter.  Poe was never to leave Baltimore.  The Poe Museum in Richmond, the repository of many of Poe’s greatest literary works, tells us that the writer was found, “semiconscious and dressed in cheap, ill-fitting clothes so unlike Poe’s usual mode of dress that many believe that Poe’s own clothing had been stolen.”  Edgar Allan Poe remained incoherent, gripped by delirium and hallucinations, unable to explain how he had come to be found in Baltimore,  senseless on the streets, in dirty clothes not his own.  Poe died on the night of October 7, 1849, calling out for “Reynolds”.  The identity of the mysterious Reynolds remains unknown.

   For over one hundred and fifty years people have speculated on the cause of Poe’s death.  Numerous theories have been put forward, including: he died of a beating (1857), he died of epilepsy (1875), he drank himself to death (1921), he died of heart disease (1926), he died of toxic poisoning (1970), he died of hypoglycemia (1979),  he died of diabetes (1977), he died of rabies (1996),  he was murdered (1998).  Other theories proclaim he died of a brain tumor, or from heavy metal poisoning, or from the flu.    

   The most popular theory is that Poe died as a result of a practice called “cooping.”  Cooping was a form of voter fraud practiced in the 19^th century.  Innocent people were snatched off the streets and imprisoned in a room called “the coop”, where they were fed drugs and alcohol, to gain their silence and complicity in a scheme whereby they would vote multiple times in the same election.  The uncooperative would be beaten into submission.  Sometimes they were killed.  Election fraud is a high stakes game.  The now compliant victims were forced to change clothes between casting votes and were often forced to wear wigs and fake beards so that election officials would not recognize them at the polls.

   There is circumstantial evidence that indicates that Poe may have run afoul of such a scheme.  Baltimore elections were notoriously violent and corrupt in 1840.  An election for sheriff was going on at the time.  Poe was found on the street on Election Day near Ryan’s Fourth Ward Polls which was both a bar and a place where votes were cast.  Is it possible that Edgar Allan Poe was kidnapped, drugged and beaten to death in a voter fraud conspiracy?  Perhaps, but the theory still doesn’t explain how Poe got the one hundred miles from Philadelphia to Baltimore.  Surely, it would have been easier for the conspirators to pluck someone off the streets of Baltimore itself.

   Another theory, put forth by writer John E. Walsh in 2000, suggests a more personal reason for Poe’s predicament, one that involved a lady.  Sarah Royster was the teenage sweetheart of Edgar Allan Poe.  Sarah’s father did not approve of Poe and put an end to the relationship while Poe was at the University of Virginia.  Sarah married a very wealthy man named Alexander Shelton and enjoyed a happy marriage until Shelton’s death in 1844.  In 1848, Edgar Allan Poe came back into Sarah’s life.  Sarah attended Poe's lectures in Richmond, and by September 1849 the couple are thought to have had an understanding and were on the verge of marriage.  Once again, Sarah’s family did not approve, perhaps thinking that Poe was a fortune hunter.  John Walsh argues that Poe was in Philadelphia when he was confronted by Sarah’s three brothers who roughly warned him against trying to marry their sister.  A frightened Poe, wanting no further encounters with the brothers, disguised himself (this accounts for the shoddy wardrobe in which Poe was found) and headed back to Richmond to marry Sarah.  The brothers intercepted Poe in Baltimore, savagely beat him, and left him in the gutter.  He subsequently died.  Possible?  Perhaps, but we may never know the truth.

   Edgar Allan Poe was buried in Baltimore.  An imposing grave monument was dedicated to Poe on November 17, 1875.  Beginning in January 1949 and continuing until January 19, 2009 (the two hundredth anniversary of Poe’s birth) a still unidentified stranger entered the cemetery on the night of January 19 and left a partial bottle of cognac and three roses on Poe’s grave. Who was “the Poe Toaster”?  Yet another unsolved mystery.

Virginia Legends and Lore

Henry "Box" Brown's Spectacular Escape from Slavery

One of the most spectacular escapes from slavery made before the American Civil War was that of Henry Brown.  Henry Brown was born into slavery in Louisa County in 1815.  A clever lad, Henry was leased out to a tobacco factory in Richmond at the age of fifteen.  The life of an urban slave was very different than that of a country slave.  With the expansion of the industrial sector in Richmond changes in slave living conditions occurred.  Separate slave housing was common by the 1840s.  Monitoring slave activities would have required constant supervision, and thus was not done.  Urban slave workers took to “losing time” when no one was watching.  This practice was akin to rural “running away” and was a similar form of resistance.  Many owners offered rewards as incentives not to “lose time” and even gave slaves an opportunity to pursue their own entrepreneurial ventures.  Thus, Henry Brown was able to accumulate some money of his own.

 Unfortunately, human greed continued to plague Henry Brown’s existence.  Henry had fallen in love and married a woman named Nancy who lived on a country plantation near the one on which he was born.  The couple had three children.  Nancy’s owner, aware that Henry was making money in Richmond began to extort money from him in order to guarantee the “well being” of Nancy and the children on his plantation.  In 1848, when Nancy was pregnant with the couples fourth child, Henry got the bad news.  Nancy and the children were to be sold to a plantation in North Carolina.  He would never see them again.  With tears in his eyes, Henry watched as three hundred and fifty chained slaves, including his wife and children, walked by him.  “My agony was now complete, she with whom I had traveled the journey of life in chains ... and the dear little pledges God had given us I could see plainly must now be separated from me forever, and I must continue, desolate and alone, to drag my chains through the world,” Henry Brown later wrote.

After months of despair and desolation, Henry Brown hit on a desperate scheme to win his freedom.  Through his faith in God, Brown later said, he was given the inspiration and courage to put together a creative plan of escape.  I conceived of a plan of “of shutting myself up in a box and getting myself conveyed as dry goods to a free state,” Brown wrote.  Enlisting the help of a free black friend and a white sympathizer, Samuel Smith, Henry Brown set about executing his plan.

Smith contacted James McKim, a white abolitionist and member of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society.  The abolitionists assured Smith that they were ready to receive Henry Brown in Philadelphia.  Smith then procured a box three feet long by two feet eight inches deep by two feet wide, and marked the box as “dry goods.”  The box had only three small air holes.

 On the morning of March 29, 1849, Henry Brown crammed himself into the box carrying only an awl, in case he needed to drill more air holes, and a small flask of water. Brown’s co-conspirators nailed the box shut, marked “This Side Up With Care," and carried the box to the Adams Express Company.  Henry Brown’s journey got off on its rocky way.  Brown traveled by a variety of wagons, railroads, steamboats, and ferries on the way to Philadelphia.  The box was often roughly handled, and at one point the box was turned upside down.  Brown wrote that he, “…was resolved to conquer or die, I felt my eyes swelling as if they would burst from their sockets; and the veins on my temples were dreadfully distended with pressure of blood upon my head.”  At one point, Brown relates, “I felt a cold sweat coming over me that seemed to be warning that death was about to terminate my earthly miseries.”  Fortunately two men needed a place to sit down and, “so perceiving my box, standing on end, one of the men threw it down and the two sat upon it. I was thus relieved from a state of agony which may be more imagined than described.” 

After twenty seven hours, the box arrived at its destination in Philadelphia.  When the box was opened, a very much alive Henry Brown popped out and said to four astonished abolitionists, “How do you do, Gentlemen?”  He then recited a psalm: “I waited patiently on the Lord and He heard my prayer.”  Unable to contain his euphoria, Brown began to sing the psalm, to the delight of the abolitionists, who dubbed him Henry “Box” Brown.

Henry “Box” Brown became a sensation.  He went on tour and thrilled audiences with the story of his daring escape.  In May 1849, he appeared before the New England Anti-Slavery Society Convention in Boston, where he passionately made the case that the enslaved wanted freedom.  He often recited the psalm he uttered when he emerged from his famous box when addressing audiences.  In September 1849, the story of Henry “Box” Brown was published in Boston. Late in 1849 Brown had a moving panorama about slavery made. The panorama consisted of large vertical spools painted with scenes of enslavement and freedom, and was called “Henry Box Brown’s Mirror of Slavery.”

Henry Brown sailed to England in October 1850.  His panorama was exhibited all over England.  At this point, Brown, a natural performer, left the abolitionist circuit and totally embraced show business for the next forty years, performing as an actor, singer and magician in England, the United States, and Canada.  Brown’s last performance took place in Brantford, Ontario, Canada on February 26, 1889.  Henry “Box” Brown died in Toronto on June 15, 1897.

Virginia Legends and Lore