Legal History Archives | Casedo

Legal History with Jessica Feature Image

Triflers Need Not Apply

The subject of Erick Lawson’s bestselling book The Devil in the White City, H.H. Holmes, is often regarded as “America’s First Serial Killer,” and he may have been – America’s first MALE serial killer, that is. However, a little over a decade before Holmes built his “Murder Castle” in preparation for the 1893 World’s Fair, lonely men would visit a LaPorte farm, and never leave.

Byrnhild Paulsdatter Storseth was born in Norway on November 11, 1859. She later changed her name to Belle when she immigrated to the United States in 1881. In 1884, she married Mads Sorenson in Chicago. The couple owned a confectionary in the city; however, it burned down under mysterious circumstances about a year after it opened. Mads died in 1900. Ironically, he died on the only day his two life insurance policies overlapped. His death was ultimately determined to be due to an enlarged heart; however, Mads’ family suspected Belle poisoned him. With the Sorenson family asking questions, Belle left Illinois and used the life insurance proceeds to purchase a farm near LaPorte, Indiana.

Belle and three of her children. Jenny is the oldest girl in this picture.

Reports differ whether Belle had children with Mads, however, the 1900 census listed three children, Myrtle, Lucy, and Jenny, as part of Belle’s household. Not long after Mads’ death, Belle married Peter Gunness, a fellow Norwegian immigrant. Belle and Peter lived with the three children and Peter’s infant daughter at the LaPorte farm. Within a week of their wedding ceremony, Peter’s infant daughter died of uncertain causes. Peter died in 1902 from a fatal head injury. In 1906, Belle’s foster daughter, Jenny, disappeared. Belle claimed she had sent Jenny to a finishing school in California - which was later determined to be a lie.

After Peter’s death, Belle began placing personal advertisements in Chicago newspapers as well as others around the Midwest which read:

“Personal – comely widow who owns a large farm in one of the finest districts in La Porte County, Indiana, desires to make the acquaintance of a gentleman equally well provided, with view of joining fortunes. No replies by letter considered unless sender is willing to follow answer with personal visit. Triflers need not apply.”

Between ten and twenty men answered these ads and visited Belle at the LaPorte farm. Only one is known to have returned home after Belle’s behavior made him uncomfortable.

Oddly, not many family members inquired as to what happened to the men who answered Belle’s ad and then mysteriously disappeared. However, Asle Helgelien contacted La Porte police after his brother, Andrew, failed to return home after traveling to Belle’s farm. His call likely prompted the third act of this tale - arson and possible escape.

On April 28, 1908, Belle’s house was destroyed by fire. In the charred ruins, investigators located the bodies of Belle’s remaining children, as well as a body initially identified as Belle’s - though that identification was questionable because the body lacked a head. The investigators began searching the farm for clues about the source of the fire and found something much worse - bodies. Ten bodies were found buried on the farm, and Belle’s farmhand, Ray Lamphere, was found in possession of the personal effects of many other men, presumably those who answered Belle’s personal ad.

Lamphere was tried for arson and murder. He revealed the details of Belle’s crimes in an effort to absolve himself of responsibility, but he was still convicted of arson and sentenced to twenty years. He died the next year in prison. Many have wondered if Belle died in the fire on her farm in LaPorte. Belle emptied her bank accounts days before the fire. Lamphere told investigators that Belle escaped after she killed a woman prior to the fire, dressed her in Belle’s clothes, fitted the body with Belle’s false teeth, and put the body in the fire.

The ruin of Belle's house after the fire.

In 1931, a woman named Esther Carlson was arrested for poisoning her employer in San Francisco. Many believed Esther was a reemerged Belle; there was not time to investigate that claim, as Esther died while on trial. In 2007, a team of forensic anthropologists and graduate students from the University of Indianapolis were granted permission by Belle’s niece to exhume the body believed to be Belle’s to conduct DNA testing. Using an envelope they believed Belle sealed, they attempted to match the DNA. However, there did not exist enough DNA available on the envelope to test against the DNA of the body, so the test results were inconclusive.

Esther Carlson and Belle Gunness...or are they both Belle?

Sources:

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/belle-gunness/

https://murderpedia.org/female.G/g/gunness-belle.htm

https://laportecountyhistory.org/exhibits/belle-gunness/

Lawyer by day, amateur historian by night. Casedo’s Historian in Residence has a passion for researching the people behind the cases, notable firsts, and any little tidbit of knowledge with a legal angle. In addition to her historical pursuits, Jessica Barnett also enjoys spending time with her husband, three children, three cats, dog, and toad.

Casedo is used by academic researchers and law students to bring together their research around a single topic in order to make sense of it. It's a simple drag and drop interface which allows the user to treat their electronic documents like a paper record, with annotations and bookmarks while enhancing the user's ability to cross reference documents. Casedo is completely free to try for thirty days. If you want to find more tools and tricks for Academic Research, have a read of Academic Research - Tools and Tricks.

by Jessica Barnett

The Copyright and the Commodore

On March 25, 1745, John Barry was born in Tacumshane, County Wexford, Ireland. He traveled from Ireland to Philadelphia in 1760. He served as a cabin boy on a merchant ship and became a master seaman by the time he was twenty-one years old. For a period of time, Barry was the captain of a merchant ship between Philadelphia and the West Indies, until he lent his seafaring skills to the American Revolution. As the captain of the Lexington, Captain Barry captured the British ship “Edward” on April 7, 1776, the first naval capture of the American Revolution.

Captain Barry continued his service at sea and was injured while aboard the ship Alliance during its battle with the HBMS Atlanta and Trepassy near Newfoundland in 1781. He took a brief sabbatical from sea life starting in 1783. After the Naval Act of 1794, President George Washington asked Captain Barry to return to service and commissioned Captain Barry as the first officer in the newly-formed United States Navy. After that commission, Captain Barry became Commodore Barry.

Captain Barry’s activities during his sabbatical spanning from 1783-1794 are not well-documented. However, it is possible that he turned his talents to another discipline – education. In 1785, Reverend William White founded the Episcopal Academy in Philadelphia. Some sources suggest that Reverend White approached Captain Barry about becoming a teacher at the Episcopal Academy. Despite having no formal education, Captain Barry accepted, drawing upon the knowledge he gained while at sea. Captain Barry had already solidified his place in American history with his naval accomplishments, he may have made his mark in legal history while teaching at the Episcopal Academy.

Philadelphia around the time of the founding of the Episcopal Academy

On May 31, 1790, at the urging of many, including another Friday History Minute subject Noah Webster, Jr., the United States Congress passed the first federal copyright law. At its inception, the law protected only books, maps, and charts, and copyrights lasted fourteen years and were renewable for an additional fourteen years. On June 9, 1790, John Barry received the first federal copyright, signed by President Washington, for Barry’s book, The Philadelphia Spelling Book: Arranged Upon a Plan Entirely New, Adapted to the Capacities of Children, and Designed as an Immediate Improvement in Spelling and Reading the English Language; the Whole Being Recommended by Several Eminent Teachers, as the Most Useful Performance to Expedite the Instruction of Youth.

The Title Page of the Philadelphia Spelling Book, as it is more commonly called

There are no sources definitively proving Captain John Barry was the same John Barry who registered the first copyright. However, the similarities between the facts about Captain Barry and John Barry are striking – according to historical documents, both were from Ireland, and both settled in the same Philadelphia neighborhood. Reverend White officiated Captain Barry’s marriage to his second wife, Sally, who was Episcopalian. Further, the time that John Barry is listed as a teacher at the Episcopal Academy matches those years Captain Barry was not at sea and living in Philadelphia. Finally, it is reported that three of Commodore Barry’s enlisted men were from the Episcopal Academy; the biography of one of those men, Navy Admiral Charles Stewart, is where most of the information regarding Commodore Barry’s time at the Episcopal Academy seems to originate. Who’s to say?

Sources:

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-06-09-0106090160-story.html

http://www.famousdaily.com/history/philadelphia-spelling-book-first-copyrighted.html

by Jessica Barnett

In Defense of Mobsters

On July 20, 1921, newly-minted attorney Jessie Levy took the bench in Marion County, Indiana, as the first female judge pro tem. The event seemed mostly ceremonial, as she was on the bench for a mere thirty minutes and heard one case involving the theft of Mr. Rage Ajamie’s pants by Mr. Bennett Cook. While Cook denied he had stolen the pants, Judge Pro Tem Levy found him guilty because he wore the stolen pants to court on the day of his trial. Judge Pro Tem Levy fined Cook $1 and sentenced him to thirty days in jail. This is one of the first of many noteworthy events in the extraordinary life of Jessie Levy.

Jessie Levy was born on July 6, 1898, in Senjy, Poland, which was occupied by Russia at the time. She and her family were Orthodox Jews and were persecuted under the Russian occupation, so they immigrated to the United States in 1904, eventually ending up in South Bend, Indiana. Levy did well in school, but had to leave high school at sixteen so that she could get a job to support her family. She began working as a typist for a local lawyer, which is likely when her love for the law was born.

Jessie Levey, around the time of her law school graduation

Levy attended Indiana University Law School, then still in its relative infancy, and graduated on June 30, 1921, with an L.L.B. Admission to practice law in the State of Indiana was going through a transition at the time. As I noted in my piece about Bessie Eaglesfield (include link), the practice of admitting someone to the bar had been handled at the county level, with some counties being more amenable to admitting women than others. These bar admissions did not require formal education, and instead were based on the good character of the applicant as attested by a practicing attorney, often someone the applicant had worked for in a type of legal apprenticeship. When Levy was admitted to the Bar, the State had just started to require a degree to practice as an attorney. This change in policy led to a sharply worded exchange in the Opinions section of the South Bend Tribune between Levy and another woman, Maxine Ryer, both of whom claimed to be the youngest female attorney in Indiana. (Ryer was the younger of the two, but had not finished law school)

Soon after her graduation from law school, Levy partnered with John J. Shusler to form the firm of Levy & Shusler, a firm that would endure for the remainder of Levy and Shusler’s lives. The firm concentrated on estate work and divorces, though Levy soon realized that criminal defense work was much more lucrative. In the late 1920s, Levy defended Earl “The Kid” Northern, a bank robber. She was not successful in getting Northern acquitted, but she was able to spare him a sentence of life imprisonment by arguing the majority of his criminal history occurred while he was still a juvenile. Northern introduced Levy to his younger sister, Mary Kinder, whom Levy would later defend against charges of what amounted to aiding and abetting a criminal based on evidence that Kinder drove the getaway car after a bank robbery involving her boyfriend, “Handsome” Harry Pierpont.

In 1934, Levy made headlines when she appeared as lead defense counsel for Pierpont, a member of John Dillinger’s gang, during his trial for the murder of Sheriff Jesse Sarber of Lima, Ohio, who was shot when Pierpont and two others broke Dillinger out of jail in late 1933. Levy was hired the night before the trial began because Pierpont’s previous lawyer quit when he learned that he could not be both a defense attorney and a city solicitor. Levy, along with another legal female trailblazer, Bess Robbins, defended not only Pierpont, but also two other men accused of the murder, Charles Makley and Russell Clark. Court transcripts reveal Levy’s wit and legal acumen; they also reveal that the prosecutor in the case was fairly misogynist, implying in statements that women didn’t know the law like men did. He also insinuated to the jury that Levy was there to seduce them or the judge.

Multiple eyewitnesses identified Pierpont as the triggerman in Sheriff Sarber’s murder. He was convicted and sentenced to the electric chair. Makley and Clark were also convicted and sentenced to the electric chair and life imprisonment, respectively. Levy appealed Pierpont’s conviction, arguing (1) that he was unduly prejudiced when he was required to appear before the jury in shackles and (2) he was denied a public trial because anyone wishing to enter the courtroom had to first secure a pass “signed by either the judge or the Brigadier General in command of the militia, or both.” Pierpont v. State, 49 Ohio App. 77, 86 (1934). The Ohio Court of Appeals rejected the arguments and affirmed Pierpont’s conviction for murder. Id. at 87. Levy sought transfer to the Ohio Supreme Court, which was denied on September 26, 1934. Pierpont v. State, 128 Ohio St. 572 (1934).

Jessie Levy arguing in the Pierpont trial

Levy was prepared to take the case to the United States Supreme Court, as she had been granted permission to appear before it in preparation for Pierpont’s appeal on May 28, 1934, making her the first woman from Indiana to do so. However, Pierpont requested that she cease further legal action, and allow him to accept his fate. Four days prior to the Ohio Supreme Court decision, Pierpont and Makley attempted to escape the Ohio State Penitentiary using fake guns carved from soap and painted black with shoe polish. They were unsuccessful in their endeavor; Makley was killed and Pierpont was severely wounded in the ensuing gunfire. Pierpont had to be carried to the electric chair on October 17, 1934, as some of the bullets from the escape attempt had struck his spine, rendering him unable to walk. It is reported that the Ohio court actually moved up his execution date so he could be executed in the electric chair before he died of his other injuries.

Levy at work during the Pierpont trial. Note the man with the gun in the background providing security.

Levy returned to practice in Indianapolis and continued criminal defense work until 1940, when she developed a brain tumor. Treatment was successful, but she decided to step back from the stressful world of criminal court and focus again on family and estate law. A few years later, she married her law partner, Shusler, but she kept her maiden name professionally. On December 19, 1969, Indianapolis Mayor Richard Lugar declared that day “Jessie Levy Shusler Day” to honor not only the achievements mentioned above, but also Levy’s accomplishments as the first female librarian of the Indiana Supreme Court Library and the first President of the Indiana Women Lawyers Association. Levy died on October 31, 1977, less than two years after the passing of her husband and lifelong law partner, and she is reported to have worked until the day she died.

Sources

https://dmtesta.com/jessie-levy

https://blog.history.in.gov/tag/jesse-levy/

https://crimereads.com/crime-fighting-broad-jessie-levy-defender-of-the-dillinger-gang/

by Jessica Barnett

In Defense of a Monster

On January 25, 1971, Charles Manson, Patricia Krenwinkel, Susan Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Leslie Van Houten were convicted of multiple counts of first-degree murder for their parts in the Tate-LaBianca murders which occurred in August 1969. The prosecutor was Vincent Bugliosi, who would go on to write a best-selling book about the trial called Helter Skelter. Less well-known in legal lore is Manson’s defense counsel, Irving Kanarak, who has an interesting story of his own.

Kanarak was born on May 12, 1920, in Seattle, Washington. He earned a degree in chemistry from the University of Washington and began his career as an aerospace engineer for North American Aviation, a position which required high security clearance because employees were responsible for designing aircraft for the United States government. In 1953, Kanarak and a colleague filed a patent for stabilized fuming nitric acid, a fuel additive with a low freezing point used in liquid propellants in rockets. However, before the patent could be issued, the United States government removed Kanarak’s security clearance because it was rumored Kanarak was a communist sympathizer. While he was reinstated a little over a year later, Kanarak successfully sued the United States government for lost wages in Kanarak v. U.S., 314 F.2d 802 (3rd Cir. 1963).

In the time his case was pending, Kanarak began and completed law school at Loyola University and was admitted to the California Bar in 1957. Kanarak soon developed a reputation as a tough criminal defense attorney, though many prosecutors would contend his constant objections were abusive. In 1970, Charles Manson hired Kanarak as his defense attorney after Manson’s first defense attorney, Ronald Hughes, disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Kanarak (second from left) with Manson's defense team before Hughes' mysterious disappearance (Hughes is on the far right with the beard).

Kanarak upheld his reputation, and then some. By the third day of the trial, Kanarak had reportedly objected over two hundred times. He was jailed twice during the trial for contempt of court. He insisted Manson was not guilty of the murders and instead was being put on trial because of his lifestyle. Kanarak’s closing argument in the Manson case lasted seven days, which the judge in the case characterized as “less of an argument and more of a filibuster.” In Prosecutor Bugliosi’s closing argument, he called Kanarak the “Toscanini of Tedium.”

Kanarak continued to practice law until health problems led to his resignation from the California Bar in 1990. He passed away in 2020, outliving his famous client Manson by three years. A staunch believer in the constitutional right to counsel, Kanarak said, when asked to reflect on his work on the Manson case, “I would defend a client I knew was guilty of horrific crimes. They have to be proved guilty. I’ve had cases where people were guilty as hell but they couldn’t prove it. And if they can’t prove it, he’s not guilty. That’s American justice.”

Kanarak at a press conference during the Manson trial

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/03/us/irving-kanarek-dead.html

https://www.charlesmanson.com/defense/irving-kanarek/

https://www.grunge.com/1100500/what-happened-to-irving-kanarek-from-the-charles-manson-case/

by Jessica Barnett

Before Rosa

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, tired from a long day at work, stepped on a bus that would change history. Her refusal to move to the rear of the bus to accommodate boarding white passengers is generally considered the spark that lit the flame of the civil rights movement. However, Rosa’s civil disobedience likely stoked a fire that had already been lit fifteen years earlier by Pauli Murray.

Pauli's family in 1912 or 1913. She is the toddler on the upper left. Pauli's mother died when Pauli was three years old, and she was sent to live with relatives in North Carolina after her father was institutionalized.

Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on November 20, 1910, a child of various ancestry, including white slave owners and enslaved people. After graduating from high school in 1926, Pauli attended Hunter College and received a degree in English Literature in 1933. Pauli worked various jobs with the National Urban League and other organizations supporting civil rights. It was during this time that Pauli met Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom she became a lifelong friend.

In March 1940, Pauli and a friend boarded a bus in Richmond, Virginia, that was bound for North Carolina. The seats in the back of the bus were broken, so Pauli and her friend sat closer to the front. The bus driver asked them to move, and they politely refused and remained seated. The bus driver called the police and the two were arrested. The NAACP, hoping to use Pauli’s arrest as a vehicle to legally challenge the constitutionality of segregated interstate travel, took interest in Pauli’s case. The prosecutor, likely realizing the implications of a constitutional challenge to the police action, did not prosecute Pauli for refusing to vacate her seat on the bus. Rather, the prosecutor charged Pauli with disorderly conduct for alleged conduct that occurred after she was taken off of the bus. This seemingly took the case out of the purview of the NAACP’s challenge.

Excerpt from a North Carolina newspaper reporting Pauli's arrest.

In 1941, Pauli began attending Howard University School of Law, where she was the only female student. Based on her struggles with classmates and professors, Pauli coined the term “Jane Crow,” an allusion to “Jim Crow,” to describe not only the racism but the sexism she experienced throughout her lifetime. Upon graduating at top of her class at Howard, Pauli was eligible to finish her law studies at Harvard University. However, Pauli was denied admission to Harvard, despite multiple letters of support from influential political figures including President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Pauli therefore finished her law degree at the University of California-Berkley School of Law and was admitted to the California Bar in 1945.

Pauli's graduating class at Howard University School of Law. Pauli is circled.

In 1946, Pauli was hired as California’s first African-American deputy attorney general. In 1950, Pauli wrote “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” a collection and critique of state segregation laws across the United States. NAACP chief counsel (and later U.S. Supreme Court Justice) Thurgood Marshall called the book the “bible of the civil rights movement.” Pauli’s work formed the basis for Marshall’s argument before the United States Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a decision which fulfilled the terms of a bet Pauli made with her law professor during her years at Howard Law - that Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), would be overturned within twenty-five years.

In 1956, Pauli published her biography, “Proud Shoes: The Story of an American Family.” Soon thereafter, she began working for the firm Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton, and Garrison, where she met Office Manager Irene “Rene” Barlow, who would become her lifelong partner. During her time with Paul, Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton and Garrison, Pauli crossed paths with another future U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who interned for the firm. In 1960, Pauli briefly left the United States to teach law in Ghana. Upon her return, Pauli enrolled in Yale Law School, where she became the first African-American to earn a Doctor of Juridical Sciences degree.

Pauli at the release of her book, "Proud Shoes"

In 1965, Pauli co-authored “Jane Crow and the Law: Sex Discrimination and Title VII,” 34 Geo. L. Rev. 232 (1965) with Mary Eastwood. The article drew comparisons between Jim Crow laws and laws that discriminated against women and formed the basis for Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s argument in Reed v. Reed, 404 U.S. 71 (1971), the first case in which the United States Supreme Court recognized that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause applied to gender, striking down an Idaho law prohibiting women from serving as administrators of an estate.

In 1966, Pauli was part of a group of forty-nine women who founded the National Organization for Women (NOW), a feminist organization which was, at the time, focused on the enforcement of anti-discrimination laws. From 1968-1973, Pauli taught various courses on African-American studies and women’s studies at Brandeis University. In 1973, Pauli’s partner, Rene, died of a brain tumor and Pauli stepped back from her academic career.

Pauli resurfaced as a student at the General Theological Seminary, where she received a Master of Divinity in 1976. In 1977, Pauli became the first African-American woman to be ordained as an Episcopal priest. Her first Eucharist was celebrated in the church where her grandmother, a child of an enslaved woman and a slave owner, was baptized. Pauli served in the Episcopal church until her death in 1985. Pauli and Rene are buried together in Brooklyn, New York.

Sources:

https://www.paulimurraycenter.com/

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/the-many-lives-of-pauli-murray

by Jessica Barnett

The Printer's Legal Woes

Many alive today, when they hear the name “Gutenberg,” automatically think of the printing press or the Gutenberg Bible. However, when Johannes Gensfleisch zur Laden zum Gutenberg was indebted and penniless when he died on February 3, 1468. He never profited from his printing efforts and lived on a church-appointed stipend given in appreciation of his printing efforts. But let’s unpack all of that and start at the beginning.

An illustrated depiction of Johannes Gutenberg

The exact date of Gutenberg’s birth is unknown. Most historians place it sometime between 1394 and 1404. The city of Mainz, Germany, where he was born and spent most of his life, declared the symbolic date of his birth to be June 24, 1400. His family was well-placed in German society. They were part of the merchant class and Gutenberg studied the trade of goldsmithing from his father, who worked at the local church’s mint. Around 1411, the family moved to Eltville am Rhein or Strasbourg. Little is known of Gutenberg’s life during this approximately fifteen-year period. Gutenberg resurfaces in the annals of history in 1436, through a legal record indicating Ennel zur eiernen Tür sued Gutenberg for “breach of promise of marriage.” The verdict in that proceeding is unknown, though there is no record of Gutenberg being married.

An example of the Chinese movable type process invented in 1040 by Bi Sheng

After an unsuccessful venture selling polished mirrors advertised to capture the holy light from religious relics, Gutenberg turned his entrepreneurial efforts towards printing and the development of a movable printing press. Gutenberg was likely unaware of the movable printing press that had been in use in China since 1040, though there are historical references to European explorers returning from China with materials printed on such a printing press. During the development of his printing press, Gutenberg sought to keep his “invention” secret. In 1438, as part of a legal proceeding in which the heirs of Gutenberg’s business partner at the time sought to be named partners in the business venture in which the deceased had entered, court papers indicated Gutenberg and his business partners advanced money to a carpenter to build a printing press and to a goldsmith for printing materials. Gutenberg won the lawsuit, but his “secret” was out.

Gutenberg resurfaced in Mainz in October 1448, borrowing money for his enterprise from his brother-in-law. By 1450, Gutenberg’s reputation had grown, and he partnered with wealthy financier Joannes Faustus. Faustus loaned Gutenberg around 1600 guilders (approximately $96,000 in today’s money) to complete his project. Gutenberg hired Peter Schöffer as a printing assistant; Schöffer is believed to have designed early typefaces. Around the same time, the movable type printing press churned out its first product, a poem. Early works printed also included the 31-line Indulgence granted by Pope Nicholas V and issued in Erfurt, Germany, on October 22, 1454, and a Latin grammar book. Realizing the profit to be made, Gutenberg moved on to a printed item that was very popular at the time – the Bible.

Gutenberg set out to print the Bible not only for profit, but to address the issues prevalent at the time with handwritten versions of the work; these handwritten versions would often have the individual writer’s commentary on the subjects therein weaved into the text, which is likely part of the reason there are so many versions of the same verses of the Bible today. Gutenberg and Schöffer worked from 1453-55 to create approximately 180 copies of the “42-line Bible,” known today as the Gutenberg Bible.

A contemporary portrait of Joannes Faustus with "his" Bible

But it wasn’t known as the Gutenberg Bible upon its initial release – instead, shortly after the completion of the Bible’s printing, Faustus decided he needed his investment back immediately, plus 6% interest. He sued Gutenberg in the Mainz Archbishop’s court, alleging Gutenberg misused the funds Faustus had advanced for the “project of the books.” The court ruled in favor of Faustus. The court granted control over Gutenberg’s printing shop and half of the printed Bibles as payment. When the Bibles were released, Faustus and Schöffer’s names were listed as printers; Gutenberg’s legacy would not be realized and publicized until approximately three hundred years after his death, when historian Johann David Kohler began researching documents from Gutenberg’s time to prove Gutenberg’s relationship to the famous Bible. It would seem there was some recognition of Gutenberg’s accomplishments at the time he was alive – on January 18, 1465, Mainz’s Archbishop Adolph von Nassau named Gutenberg a “gentleman of the court,” a title which provided a monetary stipend, an annual court outfit, 2180 liters of grain and 2000 liters of wine tax-free.

One of the remaining copies of the Gutenberg Bible, housed at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas

Of the original 180 copies of the Gutenberg Bible, only 49 still exist, some in various stages of completion. The Library of Congress, Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the Morgan Library and Museum in New York City all have complete copies of the work. The closest copy is housed by the Lilly Library on IU’s Bloomington campus; it is the other half of a copy on display in Mons, Belgium, and was donated by George Amos Poole, who was a founding member of Rand McNally and Company.

Sources:

https://www.thoughtco.com/johannes-gutenberg-and-the-printing-press-1991865

https://www.printmuseum.org/gutenberg-press

https://lithub.com/so-gutenberg-didnt-actually-invent-the-printing-press/

by Jessica Barnett

How Bad Was It Really?

On March 1, 1914, the town of Berlin, New Hampshire fell victim to a very serious thunderstorm. As a result of the storm, the primitive electrical wires outside the home of ten-year-old George Hawkins’ home became crossed, sending a strong electrical current into the house. The next morning, George’s father, Charles, told him to start a fire in the fireplace located in the main room of the family’s home. Before doing so, George reached up to turn on the electric light above the wood-burning stove, and an electric spark from the light badly burned his right hand.

The severity of the burn is disputed. Some sources indicate it left a scar that ran across George’s palm, had a raised ridge about the size of “half a lead pencil,” and caused him minimal discomfort. Other sources reported the hand was grossly disfigured, with deep scar tissue from an injury that extended into the ligaments of the hand, making the hand, as George aged and grew, to become contracted and dysfunctional. Regardless of the actual state of George’s hand, the burn was severe enough for his father Charles to file suit against Cascade Light & Power Co., the local utility company. It was also significant enough to warrant further inspection by multiple physicians, including Dr. Edward R. B. McGee.

Dr. McGee graduated from medical school in 1904 and opened a practice in Berlin, New Hampshire shortly thereafter. He was likely the Hawkins’ family doctor around the time of George’s injury, but left to join the WWI effort shortly thereafter. Dr. McGee served as a surgeon at Camp Merritt, New Jersey during the war, and returned to Berlin in 1919. In 1921, Charles took George to see Dr. McGee, though the primary reason for the appointment is not known. However, it was during that appointment that Dr. McGee likely proposed that he be allowed to graft skin onto George’s palm to improve the condition and functionality of the hand.

The first of three operations on George Hawkins’ hand began in January 1922. The first removed some of the existing scar tissue to create a palette for the graft. During the second, Dr. McGee attached George’s hand to his chest, which was the location of the skin to be grafted to his palm. The third and final operation detached George’s hand from his chest and assured the new skin and corresponding blood vessels had properly attached to George’s hand.

The procedure caused further disfigurement of George’s hand. Besides the scarring and “surplus tissue,” George now had hair on the palm of his hand. He was also unable to perform many common tasks, including shooting a gun and working at the local mill. George sued Dr. McGee for breach of contract.

The rest of the story is likely familiar to every lawyer. A jury (the second to hear the case; the first trial ended in a hung jury) awarded George damages on his breach of contract claim against Dr. McGee, based, in part, on Dr. McGee’s alleged statement that he would “guarantee to make the hand a hundred per cent perfect hand” or a “hundred per cent good hand.” The New Hampshire Supreme Court ultimately reversed the jury’s decision and returned the case for a third trial in Hawkins v. McGee, 146 A. 641, 643 (N.H. 1929). The third trial resulted in a jury award of $1400 in damages to George, a claim Dr. McGee pursued with his insurance company that resulted in the litigation in McGee v. U.S. Fidelity & Guarantee Co., 53 F.2d 953 (1st Cir. 1931).

George went on to live a relatively uneventful life. He married late in life and did not have children. He passed away of a heart attack at fifty-four. Dr. McGee went on to be mayor of Berlin, New Hampshire for one term, and directed McGee’s Symphony Orchestra, which toured portions of New Hampshire. The Hawkins family did not become aware of the notoriety of George’s case until his niece was a law student in the 1960s and encountered Hawkins v. McGee in her Intro to Contracts class.

Sources

https://info.cooley.edu/blog/another-perspective-on-dr-mcgee

https://www.nhmagazine.com/the-case-of-the-hairy-hand/

by Jessica Barnett

The Seventh

On October 6, 1949, a federal court sentenced Iva Toguri D’Aquino to ten years imprisonment for treason. The court also ordered her to pay a fine of $10,000 and stripped her of her American citizenship. At the time, she was only the seventh person to have ever been convicted and sentenced for treason in the history of the United States. Her trial lasted twelve weeks and included approximately forty prosecution witnesses. Originally indicted on eight charges of treason, the jury found D’Aquino guilty of treason based on the accusation that she “on a day during October 1944, . . . defendant, at Tokyo, Japan, in a broadcasting studio of the Broadcasting Corporation of Japan, did speak into a microphone concerning the loss of ships.”

D'Aquino during a "Tokyo Rose" broadcast

D’Aquino is more widely known as “Tokyo Rose,” the moniker given to female broadcasters in Japan during World War II. D’Aquino traveled to Japan in early 1941 to care for her aunt and, after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, was denied return to the United States. She began working with Radio Tokyo in 1943 and was placed as an announcer on a radio program called “Zero Hour” in November 1943. The program was part of an increased effort to disseminate Japanese propaganda to American GIs.

D’Aquino was known by the pseudonym “Orphan Ann,” a reference to either a term used to describe American GIs in the Pacific theater (“Orphans of the Pacific”) or the comic strip “Little Orphan Annie.” She read scripts written at first by Japanese propogandists and later by three Allied POWs employed by the Japanese government. After the war, two American reporters, Harry Brundidge and Clark Lee, offered a reward for an interview with “Tokyo Rose,” a female broadcaster who had become famous for her allegedly morale-killing broadcasts.

The reward was equivalent to roughly a year’s wages in Japan, so D’Aquino accepted the journalists’ offer and gave an interview. Brundidge refused to pay D’Aquino and turned on her, asserting her interview with him was a confession. Authorities arrested her on September 5, 1945. She was held in jail for a year until she was released because American authorities could not find evidence that she worked to assist the Japanese propaganda effort. However, she was arrested in 1948 and extradited to the United States on charges that she committed treason by “adhering to, and giving aid and comfort to, the Imperial Government of Japan during World War II.”

D’Aquino served six years of her ten-year sentence and was released in 1956. When she was released, she moved to Chicago to work with her family. Twenty years later, investigative journalist Ron Yates discovered two witnesses in D’Aquino’s trial committed perjury because they had been threatened with treason charges if they did not lie about D’Aquino’s activities during World War II. On January 19, 1977, on his last day as President, Jimmy Carter granted D’Aquino a full and unconditional pardon and restored her American citizenship. D’Aquino died in 2006.

Sources:

https://www.history.com/news/how-tokyo-rose-became-wwiis-most-notorious-propagandist

https://www.fbi.gov/history/famous-cases/iva-toguri-daquino-and-tokyo-rose

https://www.courthousenews.com/tokyo-rose-the-woman-wrongfully-convicted-of-treason/

Casedo is used by Academic Researchers and Students to bring together their research around a single topic in order to make sense of it. It's simple drag and drop interface makes teasing out the threads of meaning brainwork rather than and exercise in document management. Casedo is completely free to try for thirty days. If you want to find more tools and tricks for Academic Research, have a read of Academic Research - Tools and Tricks.

by Jessica Barnett

Webster's World of Words

On October 16, 1758, Noah Webster, Jr. was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Webster graduated from Yale College in 1778, and passed the bar soon thereafter. After he was unsuccessful in finding work as a lawyer, he turned his focus to education – specifically, lexicography.

In 1783, Webster published the first of three volumes of his first work “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language.” The work sold many copies, as it became a standard textbook in most schools. However, Webster saw little money from those sales. This lack of profit was due in part to the absence of a federal copyright law – as the volumes could be reproduced by any printer, few people actually purchased them from Webster.

In an effort to profit from possible future works, Webster lobbied the new United States Congress to pass a federal copyright law. Congress passed the First Copyright Act on May 31, 1790. The Act amended Section 8 of Article 1 of the United States Constitution, reserved for the Powers of Congress, adding the responsibility to “promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The first copyrights could only be issued to books, maps, and charts and lasted fourteen years. Works were registered in the U.S. District Court of the state where the author or creator lived.

Early Handwritten Drafts of Webster's Dictionary

Webster published his first dictionary, “A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language” in 1806. This dictionary is probably best known for separating the traditional British ways of spelling from the preferred American spellings. The Compendious Dictionary changed the British “-our” to the American “-or” in words such as “humour” and “colour.” It also reflected the change from “-ce” to “-se” in words such as “defence” and “offence” and dropped the “-k” in words such as “publick” and “musick.” In addition, the Compendious Dictionary recorded words used in “American English” speech that had not been added to a dictionary, such as “appellate,” “advocate,” “vaccine,” “census,” and “whiskey.”

Webster published his magnum opus, “An American Dictionary of the English Language” in two volumes in 1828. The work included 70,000 words, including curse words. Some were critical of Webster’s inclusion of vulgar words such as “buggery,” but he noted that he took out other similar words such as “bum” and “fart.”

The Title Page of the Compendious Dictionary of the English Language by Noah Webster

In an effort to further protect his works, Webster lobbied for a longer copyright term. In 1831, Congress extended the copyright term from fourteen to twenty-eight years.

Webster died in 1843, while working on the second version of his “An American Dictionary of the English Language.” George and Charles Merriam, who operated a printing and bookselling business in Springfield, Massachusetts, obtained the rights to created revised versions of Webster’s first and second versions of the dictionary, creating the Merriam-Webster name we know today.

Sources:

https://noahwebsterhouse.org/noahwebsterhistory/

https://www.notablebiographies.com/Tu-We/Webster-Noah.html

https://thegreatestbooks.org/authors/6937

by Jessica Barnett

The Bequest

On June 27, 1829, British mineralogist and chemist James Smithson died. Smithson was a British mineralogist and chemist who studied natural phenomena including the mineral calamine, early electricity, and the chemical constitution of a lady’s tear. He left his sizable estate to his nephew, Henry Hungerford. On June 5, 1835, Hungerford died, leaving no heirs. Smithson’s estate, comprised of approximately $500,000 (this would equal about $15 million in 2021) and various minerals and scientific papers, was bequeathed to the United States upon Hungerford’s death to form, as Smithson noted in his will, “the Smithsonian Institution, an Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.”

James Smithson, whose bequest funded the Smithsonian Institute in the United States.

In 1836, upon learning of Smithson’s bequest, President Andrew Jackson sent former Treasury Secretary Robert Rush to retrieve the donation. After selling some of Smithson’s investments, Rush returned to the United States with 104,960 gold coins, 8 shillings, 7 pence, which, after being melted and reminted as United States currency, totaled $508,318.46. Rush also brought with him Smithson’s personal effects, which would be the first donations to the new institution.

However, this bequest did not swiftly lead to the formation of the Smithsonian Institution as we know it today. Congress debated for almost a decade about what Smithson meant by “the increase and diffusion of knowledge” and how the endowment should be used for those purposes. Some argued Smithson intended the money to be used to form a university, while others interpreted the language to support the formation of a scientific research institute, a national library, or a museum. Congress also argued about where the Smithsonian Institute should be located and finally settled on Washington, DC.

On August 10, 1846, President James K. Polk signed legislation to form the Smithsonian Institution to be governed by a Board of Regents and the Secretary of the Smithsonian. On February 24, 1847, the Board of Regents approved the seal for the Smithsonian Institution, which was designed by Congressman Robert Dale Owen of Indiana. Construction on the Smithsonian Institution Building, now known as the “Castle” began in 1849 and opened to the public in 1855. From there, the Smithsonian Institution, and its collection, grew to what it is today.

Unfortunately, in 1865, there was a fire at the Castle, and all of Smithson’s original donations were destroyed. In 1881, the Arts and Industries Building opened; the first event held there was President James Garfield’s inaugural ball. In 1889, the National Zoological Park, or the National Zoo, opened with 185 animals including a buffalo, wood chucks, a bald eagle, and black snakes. The Museum of Natural History followed in 1911, and the National Air Museum in 1946. In 1964, the National Museum of American History opened, and in 1968, the National Museum of American Art, which includes the National Portrait Gallery, opened in the former Patent Office Building. The Smithsonian Institution’s most recent museum, the Museum of African American History, opened in 2016. The Smithsonian Institution encompasses 19 museums and galleries housing 155 million works of art and specimens as well as research facilities and collection affiliates in every state, Puerto Rico, and Panama.

Smithson's Crypt, located inside The Castle

But what became of James Smithson, the English scientist whose fortune funded the Smithsonian Institute? In 1900, then-Secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, Samuel Langley, discovered that the cemetery in Genoa, Italy, where Smithson was buried in 1829, was scheduled to be destroyed to make way for the expansion of a nearby quarry. Shortly thereafter, Smithsonian Regent Alexander Graham Bell rallied to inter Smithson within the institution he had helped create. Bell traveled to Italy and retrieved Smithson’s body. Bell returned in early 1904 with Smithson’s remains, and, after a number of ceremonies celebrating Smithson, he was entombed in a crypt within the Castle.

Sources:

https://www.si.edu/about/history

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-james-smithsons-money-build-smithsonian-114828409/

https://siarchives.si.edu/history/james-smithson

by Jessica Barnett

She Did It Her Way

On the afternoon of March 3, 1913, approximately five hundred women from across Indiana marched to the Indiana Statehouse to support a bill recognizing a woman’s right to vote. Well-known suffragist Grace Julian Clarke was one of the organizers of the protest, which proceeded peacefully into the Statehouse, where each woman offered to pin suffrage ribbons on willing lawmakers, but there were few takers. The bill ultimately failed and Hoosier women would not be allowed to vote until 1920. However, the women there that day stood on the shoulders of a woman that is often not mentioned with other Hoosier suffragists such as Clarke and May Wright Sewall. That woman’s name is Amanda Way.

Newspaper Clipping for March 3, 1913, protest at the Indiana Statehouse.

Amanda M. Way was born on July 10, 1828, in Winchester, Indiana. Her family was Quaker and she attended the Union Literary Institute, which is notable for the fact that it was a privately-sponsored school which admitted all students, regardless of race or gender, in a time when Indiana public schools were not required to accept African American students. Way trained as a teacher and worked as such for a period of time. In 1844, she joined the local chapter of the temperance movement, the Winchester Total Abstinence Society. She was very active in anti-liquor efforts, though her activity lessened after the deaths of her father and her fiancé in 1849. Way then worked as a milliner and seamstress to support the remaining members of her family.

The Union Literary Institute in Union City, Indiana

Alcohol prohibition was not the only social cause in which Way was heavily involved. On October 14-15, 1851, Way served as vice president over the first Indiana women’s rights convention held in Dublin, Indiana. In her opening address, Way declared, “unless women demand their rights politically, socially, and financially, they will continue in the future as [they have] in the past.” The convention was well-attended and led to the formal establishment of the Women’s Rights Association of Indiana. Way first served as the treasurer of the Women’s Rights Association of Indiana, and later became its president in 1855.

Indiana Historical Marker at the Site of Indiana's First Woman's Rights Commission in Dublin, Indiana.

While her involvement in the women’s rights movement was prolific, she is also notorious for her actions in support of the temperance movement. In March 1854, former Winchester Sheriff Thorton Alexander died of alcoholism, leaving his widow and five children destitute. Way and other women in the town, including Thorton’s widow, blamed William Page, a Winchester grocer who reportedly sold large quantities of alcohol to Thorton in exchange for the family’s cow and featherbed. Way and the others thus formed the Winchester Temperance Army.

Depiction of Temperance Movement supporters pouring liquor out and destroying a bar.

On March 28, Way and her Army went to each liquor proprietor in Winchester and the surrounding area, demanding that each proprietor sign a pledge to stop selling liquor. Page refused, meeting Way and her Army at the door of his store with a gun. Way had her own firearm, and the group forced its way into Page’s store, causing over $400 worth of damages, most of which was liquor the women poured into the street. Way and the other participants were arrested for malicious trespass but found not guilty. Page filed a civil suit and collected $140 in damages from Way and her Army, which was collected by selling property confiscated from those defendants.

Indiana Historical Markers noting Way's accomplishments. They were destroyed somewhat ironically by an ice truck delivering to the nearby liquor store.

In 1860, when the Civil War began, Way served as a nurse on the battlefield and was awarded a pension. Upon her return to Winchester in 1869, Way restarted the Indiana Women’s Rights Association. Shortly thereafter, the organization affiliated itself with the American Suffrage Association and became the Indiana Women’s Suffrage Association. Way’s early involvement in the women’s rights and suffrage movements earned her the moniker “the mother of ‘The Woman Suffrage Association’ in Indiana,” given to her by well-known suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Authors of the History of Women Suffrage, a series of books released from 1881 to 1922, wrote Way was “a calm, forcible, earnest speaker, and though quiet and reserved in manner, she is genial and warm in her affections.”

In 1873, Way earned her license to preach in the Methodist Episcopal Church. When the Methodist church later revoked the licenses of women pastors, Way returned to her Quaker faith. She earned her license as a Quaker minister in 1885 and began preaching at the Winchester Friends Church. Way moved to Kansas for a while, becoming the first president of the Kansas Woman’s Temperance Union, a group which employed some of the guerilla tactics used in Winchester. One account of a temperance-related incident reported a “whiskey-soaked bum begged in pleading tones, ‘Miss Way, please let me have one more drink.’ Way responded ‘I would rather brain you with this axe, so you could die sober.’” The man was said to have survived the encounter, subsequently drinking whiskey from the street gutter, where it had drained from the barrels destroyed by Way and other participants in the incident.

Sources include:

Amanda Way was Indiana’s hard-core anti-booze baroness

Way, Amanda M. (1828-1914)

“An Act of Tardy Justice”: The Story of Women’s Suffrage in Indiana

by Jessica Barnett

Double Jeopardy in the Wild West

On August 2, 1876, Jack McCall entered the No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood and shot James Butler “Wild Bill” Hickok in the back of the head, killing him instantly. Deadwood was part of the Great Sioux Reservation, which was governed in part by the United States, but was not an official territory. As would be made abundantly clear in the more-recent HBO series “Deadwood,” there was no formal justice system in the town. Therefore, the businessmen of the town decided to appoint three lawyers to serve as judge, defense, and prosecutor. The lawyers had left their law practices and traveled to Deadwood to mine gold. It is likely McCall much preferred trial with three lawyers-turned-miners to the usual way justice was administered in Deadwood – immediate hanging.

McCall’s trial commenced on August 3, 1876, at the McDaniel’s Theater in Deadwood. The prosecution called eyewitnesses to the shooting and the defense presented witnesses who attested to McCall’s good character. McCall also testified and claimed he shot Hickok in retaliation for Hickok’s murder of McCall’s brother in Kansas. A jury of local miners deliberated for two hours and acquitted McCall of Hickok’s murder. The entire process lasted approximately twelve hours.

Despite his acquittal, many in Deadwood suggested McCall leave the area or face vigilante justice. McCall relocated to Wyoming, where he began boasting about killing Hickok, who had an almost mythical reputation in the area, insisting the two had engaged in a fair fight. On August 29, 1876, a deputy U.S. Marshal, accompanied by Colonel George May, who had served as prosecutor in McCall’s Deadwood trial, arrested McCall for Hickok’s murder.

While the Great Sioux Reservation had been established by the United States government, the United States had no jurisdiction in Deadwood and the other areas in the Reservation. Thus, McCall’s first trial was a nullity and his acquittal for Hickok’s murder was void. On October 18, 1876, McCall was arraigned in the Dakota Territory for Hickok’s murder. The court adjourned for six weeks to allow McCall to locate witnesses for his defense. In the interim, McCall attempted to escape from jail. In an effort to escape punishment, McCall claimed he had been hired by John Varnes to murder Hickok. The defense could not locate Varnes.

On December 4, 1876, McCall’s second trial began in Yankton, in the Dakota Territory. On December 6, 1876, a jury returned a guilty verdict against McCall for Hickok’s murder. On January 3, 1877, the trial court sentenced McCall to die by hanging. McCall appealed to the Supreme Court of the Dakota Territory, arguing that the evidence used to prove Deadwood’s location within the Great Sioux Reservation was not the best evidence available, and that McCall had not been formally served with the indictment against him. The Supreme Court of the Dakota Territory rejected both arguments in McCall v. U.S., 1 Dakota 320, 46 NW 608 (1877). McCall was executed by hanging on March 1, 1877.

Sources:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=7353500377187054730&hl=en&as_sdt=6&as_vis=1&oi=scholarr

https://www.deadwood.com/history/infamous-deadwood/jack-mccall/

https://blackhillsvisitor.com/learn/jack-mccall-the-murder-of-wild-bill-hickok/2/

https://www.sdstate.edu/south-dakota-agricultural-heritage-museum/national-history-day-south-dakota/murder-wild-bill-hickok

by Jessica Barnett

I Ain't Afraid of No...

In 1989, New York City Stockbroker Jeffrey Stambovsky and his fiancé Patrice wanted to move to a place quieter than their Manhattan apartment. Stambovsky’s real estate broker led him to the town of Nyack, New York, located about an hour north of the city on the upper banks of the Hudson River. He made an offer on the sprawling property at 1 Laveta Place, which had 5 bedrooms, 4.5 bathrooms, over 4000 square feet – a perfect place to raise a family.

One of the many newspaper articles that would later be relevant to the court's decision.

Or maybe it wasn’t. The seller, Helen Ackley, had lived in the house for over twenty years. In 1977, she wrote an article about the house for the popular weekly periodical Reader’s Digest entitled “Our Haunted House on the Hudson” and local newspapers published stories about the ghosts in the Ackley house for a number of years after that. The ghosts were purportedly the lost souls of a Revolutionary War-era naval officer, a young woman, and a man in his 60s. Stambovsky, allegedly having no knowledge of the local Nyack folklore, offered $600,000 for the home, and paid a $32,500 down payment.

A book featuring one of Ackley's ghosts, Sir George. It is unclear when the color of the house changed.

The intervening events are subjects of folklore themselves. According to most accounts, though not in any official record, Ms. Ackley refused to sign the purchase agreement until her real estate agent notified Stambovsky of the possibility of lingering otherworldly residents in the home. Stambovsky initially told Ackley that she should “call the Ghostbusters” and was seemingly unconcerned with Ackley’s claim. However, one week prior to closing, Stambovsky visited the house. He subsequently sought to rescind the purchase agreement and sought damages for fraudulent misrepresentation, indicating that he had become apprehensive about purchasing a property with possible poltergeist presence.

Stambovsky lost at the trial court level. The trial court dismissed the case finding Stambovsky had no remedy at law in the jurisdiction based on the legal doctrine of caveat emptor, also known as “buyer beware.” Stambovsky appealed, telling a local news reporter that he and Patrice were “victims of ectoplasmic fraud.”

Jeff Stambovsky, alleged ectoplasmic fraud victim

While the New York Court of Appeals would not go so far as to hold that Ackley and her real estate agent engaged in fraudulent misrepresentation of the condition of the property, it did allow Stambovsky to rescind the purchase agreement, holding

Where a condition which has been created by the seller materially impairs the value of the contract and is peculiarly within the knowledge of the seller or unlikely to be discovered by a prudent purchaser exercising due care with respect to the subject transaction, nondisclosure constitutes a basis for rescission as a matter of equity. Any other outcome places upon the buyer not merely the obligation to exercise care in his purchase but rather to be omniscient with respect to any fact which may affect the bargain. No practical purpose is served by imposing such a burden upon a purchaser. To the contrary, it encourages predatory business practice and offends the principle that equity will suffer no wrong to be without a remedy.

Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254, 259 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991). Stambovsky went on to purchase another property in nearby West Nyack. He and Patrice later founded Hokanzee Records, a recording company specializing in children’s music. Stambovsky is currently a radio DJ at WDVR-FM, broadcasted in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, with a live stream available online.

Ackley sold the house a few years later, presumably after telling the buyer of the house’s spiritual connection. Ackley moved to Florida and passed away in 2003. The house has changed hands over the years, with owners including songstress Ingrid Michelson and Jewish rapper Matisyahu. None of the recent owners have reported subsequent spiritual synergy.

1 Laveta Place, Nyack, NY, in a recent real estate listing

Sources:

https://casetext.com/case/stambovsky-v-ackley

https://nyacknewsandviews.com/blog/2014/10/nsl_legally_haunted_house/

http://delawareparanormal.blogspot.com/2015/08/helen-ackleys-haunted-house-on-hudson.html

by Jessica Barnett

Trout and Zona's Ghost

On January 23, 1897, an errand boy found Zona Heaster Shue dead in her home in Livesay’s Mill, Greenbrier County, West Virginia. The errand boy had been sent by Zona’s husband, Trout, to inquire if Zona had any errands for the boy to run. Upon hearing of his wife’s death, Trout went to the house and called the coroner. When the coroner arrived approximately one hour later, Trout had moved Zona’s body to an upstairs bedroom and dressed her in a high necked dress adorned with a scarf that did not match the dress, but that Trout insisted was Zona’s favorite.

The coroner could not properly examine the body because Trout would not stop cradling Zona’s head and shoulders, sobbing uncontrollably. The coroner ruled Zona died from “everlasting faint.” At Zona’s wake the next day, Trout spent a lot of time rearranging Zona’s head, propping it up with a pillow and a scarf. Mourners were not able to get too close to Zona’s body, as Trout would not leave its side and put on a spectacular display of grief.

Zona’s mother, Mary Jane Heaster, suspected foul play in her daughter’s death. She reported seeing Zona’s ghost on four consecutive nights and claimed Zona’s ghost gave details of her death during the visits. Zona’s ghost allegedly told Mary Jane that Trout killed Zona by breaking her neck at the “first joint.” Mary Jane went to the prosecutor, John Preston, with the information that Zona’s ghost allegedly gave her. Preston opened an investigation into Zona’s death, perhaps based on Mary Jane’s ghost story, but likely also based on the fact that he discovered the coroner did not fully examine Zona’s body before declaring her cause of death.

Zona’s body was exhumed, and it was discovered that her neck was bruised and had been broken at the base of her skull. Preston interviewed Trout, who was unable to establish an alibi for the time of Zona’s death. Preston charged Trout with Zona’s murder.

Trout’s murder trial began on June 22, 1897. Preston was reluctant to have Mary Jane testify to her conversation with Zona’s ghost and did not call her as a witness. Instead, the prosecution presented a wholly circumstantial case bolstered by the coroner’s second report indicating Zona died from a broken neck. Trout’s defense team felt that Mary Jane’s testimony would demonstrate how ridiculous it was to suggest that he had killed Zona, and so Trout called Mary Jane as a witness for the defense.

Trout’s defense strategy did not work. After an hour and a half of deliberation, the jury returned with a guilty verdict and the trial court sentenced Trout to life imprisonment. While, of course, it is unknown why exactly the jury convicted Trout, it cannot be denied that the prosecutor’s case lacked direct evidence, and the words of Zona’s ghost may have been the link the jury needed to convict Trout of Zona’s murder.

Historical Marker near Zona's grave dubbing her the "Greenbrier Ghost"

Locals now call Zona the “Greenbrier Ghost.”

Sources:

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/30608/elva-zona-heaster-ghost-who-helped-solve-her-own-murder

https://wvexplorer.com/2022/07/25/greenbrier-ghost-zona-heaster-shue-west-virginia-wv/

https://www.gothichorrorstories.com/gothic-travel/the-death-resurrection-and-retribution-of-zona-heaster-shue-the-greenbrier-ghost/

by Jessica Barnett

Monster Copyright

In 1921, Enrico Dieckmann and Albin Grau formed Prana Film, a German film studio which endeavored to create films with occult or supernatural themes. However, by July 1924, Prana Film would be bankrupt and all copies of its only film would be (allegedly) gone. The nail in the coffin for this studio? Copyright law.

In 1897, Bram Stoker released his novel, Dracula, a story about a mythical figure that feeds on human blood which is also open to many interpretations related to gender roles and immigration. At the time, copyright law in most of Europe was governed under the terms of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, which allowed automatic copyright protection for fifty years after the creator’s death for any work of art, including, as is relevant here, books. When Stoker died in 1912, the clock began for the protection of his most famous work.

In 1921, Grau and his newly-minted film studio sought to produce a film allegedly based on a story that Grau was told by a Serbian farmer during his time as a soldier in World War I. Even though the alleged story bore a strong resemblance to Stoker’s novel Dracula, Grau did not ask the Stoker estate, led by Bram’s wife, Florence, for permission. Instead, Grau and screenwriter Henrik Galeen tweaked some of the details of the Dracula story in an effort to make their film, Nosferatu, different enough to pass copyright muster. Besides the obvious character name changes, they made the vampire Count Orlok a less charming and more frightening-looking character, eliminated the character Van Helsing, and added to the trove of ways a vampire could come to their ultimate demise by making sunlight fatal. With the exclusion of Van Helsing, the vampire hunter who kills Dracula with a stake through the heart, Nosferatu came to a different end - death by sunlight.

Directed by F.W. Murnau and starring Max Schreck, the silent film Nosferatu was released on March 5, 1922. Almost immediately, Florence Stoker filed a notice of copyright infringement against Prana Film, arguing that Nosferatu was a unlicensed derivative work of her husband’s novel Dracula. She won, and Prana Film was ordered to pay her 5000 pounds sterling (approximately $424,567.30 in 2021) for the license to use her husband’s story. Prana Film appealed twice, but the studio ultimately went bankrupt before paying the judgment. In July 1925, Prana Film withdrew its second appeal. As Prana Film was unable to pay the judgment, Florence asked the court to require it to destroy all prints and negatives of Nosferatu.

The court granted the request and all copies of the film were reportedly destroyed. However, an original copy of Nosferatu surfaced in the United States in the late 1920s or early 1930s. The United States had yet to sign on to the Berne Convention (it did not do so until 1988), and thus Stoker chose not to pursue an infringement action when Nosferatu was screened in limited release in the United States. There is a question as to whether Stoker could have sued for copyright infringement in the United States at all though.

Florence Stoker eventually granted Universal Studios the license to produce a film based on Dracula, which was released in 1931 and featured Bela Lugosi as Dracula.

According to several sources, including the California Supreme Court’s opinion in Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, 603 P.2d 425 (Cal. 1979), Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula had always been in the public domain in the United States because Stoker did not supply the Copyright Office with the required copy of his work. However, in 2013, a law librarian at the Library of Congress discovered an 1899 copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula which had been deposited as part of the copyright process, suggesting that, while the work had long been in the public domain by 2013, it hadn’t always been.

**Coda: Nosferatu isn’t the only horror film to suffer the death knell of copyright law. In 1968, the zombie film Night of the Living Dead was denied copyright protection because copies of the film were distributed without the required copyright notice. While this meant the movie’s creators, George Romero and John Russo, could not profit from subsequent releases of the film, it actually gave birth to two film libraries. After a series of creative differences surrounding a proposed sequel to Night of the Living Dead, the two men parted ways - Romero retained the right to use “of the Dead” and Russo retained the right to use “Living Dead” in all subsequent projects. Romero’s “sequels” built off of the plot of Night of the Living Dead and included storylines with social commentary, while Russo sought to create a line of zombie movies as far from the original work as possible.

Sources:

https://setthetape.com/2022/03/30/nosferatu-1922-film-review/

https://collider.com/nosferatu-albin-grau-producer-unsung-hero/

https://www.classic-monsters.com/nosferatu-prana-1922/

by Jessica Barnett

Before Jackie

On April 15, 1947, Jackie Robinson made his debut in major league baseball as a first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. While many sports historians consider Robinson the first African-American to play on a major league baseball team, he actually stood on the shoulders of an African-American man who played a season of major league baseball more than fifty years earlier.

Moses Fleetwood "Fleet" Walker, the first African-American to play Major League Baseball.

Moses Fleetwood “Fleet” Walker was born on October 7, 1856, in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. He began playing baseball at an early age and was a catcher at the college level at Oberlin College, where he studied mechanical engineering. Walker transferred from Oberlin to the University of Michigan, where he continued his studies, which included a foray into law, and his baseball career. In the early 1880s, Walker played for both the University of Michigan and the semi-professional baseball team called the Whites, which was owned by the White Sewing Machine Company of Cleveland, Ohio.

Much of Walker’s time playing baseball had been met with a minimal amount of protest, as he played primarily in the Midwest and New England. That changed, however, when the Whites traveled to Louisville, Kentucky, to play the Louisville Eclipse team in 1881. Before the game, the Eclipse warned the Whites that Walker’s presence was not welcome. To appease the Eclipse, the Whites replaced Walker as catcher, but the replacement catcher’s hands became badly bruised after the first inning of the game. The Whites tried to substitute Walker as catcher, but the Eclipse players refused to play until Walker was replaced with a white player.

1884 Toledo Blue Stockings. Fleet is in the center of the back row.

In 1883, Walker left the University of Michigan to play for the Toledo Blue Stockings. During his time with the Blue Stockings, Walker again came up against resistance from another team, but with a different result. During an exhibition game against the Chicago White Stockings, players, especially White Stockings first baseman and manager Cap Anson, again refused to play if Walker was on the field. The manager of the Blue Stockings reminded Anson that refusing to play would mean the White Stockings would have to forfeit their share of the money made from the game. Anson very reluctantly relented, vowing to never again play in Toledo. When the American Association joined the National League of Major League Baseball in 1884, the Toledo Blue Stockings became a major league team.

On May 1, 1884, Walker became the first African-American to play in a major league baseball game. Ironically, this game was against his past foes the Louisville Eclipse. Though there remained a considerable amount of protest surrounding the game, Walker played as catcher. Later in the season, Walker's brother, Weldy played six games in the outfield for the Toledo Blue Stockings, making Weldy the second African-American person to play major league baseball. Unfortunately, after forty-two games, the Toledo Blue Stockings disbanded and Walker moved back to the minor league.

Walker’s baseball career ended in 1889, when an unofficial ban on African-American players was put into place in minor and major league baseball. While Walker received general acceptance during his career, he was often treated poorly by other players, including those on his own team. The pitcher of the Toledo Blue Stockings would ignore Walker’s signals and throw whatever pitch he wanted, which meant Walker was often injured by an errant ball. Players from other teams and spectators would yell racial slurs and spit at Walker, pitchers would intentionally throw pitches at Walker, and he and other African-American players had to wear special shin guards to protect against the cleat spikes of white players.

Fleet, top right, with his final minor league team, the Syracuse Stars.

After leaving baseball, Walker worked for the postal service. In 1891, he applied the mechanical engineering skills he learned at Oberlin and patented a type of artillery shell that would explode upon impact. Walker’s life took a turn for the worse in April 1892, when he was charged with second degree murder after he fatally stabbed a white man who was attacking him. Walker was later acquitted of the charges, and his trial was dramatized in the 2015 stage play “The Trial of Moses Fleetwood Walker.” Following his acquittal, he was charged with mail fraud and served a year incarcerated.

Things turned around in 1902. Walker managed the short-lived African-American issues newspaper called “The Equator” with his brother, Weldy. In 1908, Walker published a pamphlet called “Our Home Colony: A Treatise on the Past, Present and Future of the Negro Race in America.” During his ownership of his third opera house in Cadiz, Ohio, (his two prior opera houses were purchased during his baseball years), Walker invented three film-related items, including one that would alert projectionists when the reel was soon to run out. Walker died on May 11, 1924, and is buried in Steubenville, Ohio, next to Weldy.

Sources:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1147947-moses-fleetwood-walker-the-forgotten-man-who-actually-integrated-baseball

https://www.history.com/news/moses-fleetwood-walker-first-black-mlb-player

https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/walker-moses-fleetwood-1857-1924/

by Jessica Barnett