Republican Compiler
(Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
June 9 1824
Baltimore, June 3
Daring Robbery
Between one and two o’clock P.M. yesterday while the clerk was absent
for a few moments in the interior of the warehouse, a person entered the counting room of Messrs. Brune & Danneman,
S. Gaystreet, and stole from the desk the bank book containing Two Thousand Dollars, in U.S. Bank bills of $100
each, all payable at the Branch Bank in this city, from which they had been but a short time before drawn. It is
believed that the theft was committed by a person of middle size, rather shabbily dressed, supposed to be 15 or
16 years of age. Should any notes of this description be offered by a suspicious person, it is the duty of every
good citizen to stop them, in order that these worthy gentlemen may be aided in recovering their money, and that
the daring felon may be brought to punishment. – Amer. [Submitted
by Nancy Piper]
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
July 21, 1824
Baltimore, July 9
Counterfeiter
Yesterday in the City Court, James M’Cullough, who had been tried a few days ago for passing counterfeit half dollars, was arraigned at the bar
and received sentence of punishment – to be confined ten years in the Penintentiary. – Amer. [Submitted by Nancy Piper]
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
July 28, 1824
From the Baltimore Patriot, July 19
Last night between 10 and 11 o’clock, an attempt was made to take the
life of one of our most respectable and worthy physicians. The facts in the case, as far as we have learned them,
are these: A person called on the Doctor, complaining that he, the Doctor had deceived him as to the actual state
of his nephew’s disease, whom the Doctor was attending, to which the doctor replied he had not – that if his nephew
was worse than he had represented, an unfavourable change must have occurred since he saw him. To this the complainant
objected and insisted on the doctor’s immediately going with him to see his nephew. The was engaged and could not
go then, but would go as soon as possible. The person very abruptly told him that he should or he would force him
to go. The doctor again excused himself; and the enraged man drew out a pistol and fired at the doctor, who, as
the pistol was presented, knocked it up, and the contents, large buck shot, were lodged in the cheek of the door
a few inches above the doctor’s head. The first attempt having failed, another pistol was produced and presented,
but before it was discharged it was wrested from him and he secured by some men in the street, and taken to the
watch house. He this morning gave bail for his appearance at court. We forebear mentioning the offender’s name
or making further remarks on this affair, as it is presumed that a higher tribunal than the press will sit in judgement
upon it. When we mention the doctor’s name, it will surprise every one that such a man should have such an enemy;
or indeed any enemy at all. There are few more inoffensive or more useful men in the city or country, than Dr. William B. Clendinen. Yet he it was
who so narrowly escaped losing his life. [Submitted by Nancy Piper]
Republican Compiler (Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)
November 10, 1824
Baltimore, Oct. 30
The awful sentence of justice was carried into execution yesterday, about 12 o’clock upon the persons of Negroes
George and Henry, who had been convicted at a recent session of Baltimore County Court of one of the most atrocious
crimes, committed under circumstances of horrible aggravation. The execution, by hanging, took place publicly,
in the jail yard, in the view of a large number of spectators. – American.
[Submitted by Nancy Piper]
June 1874 -- From the Louisville Courier-Journal
A Life Tragedy - The Story of Sam McDonald, the millionaire murderer
In the Courier-Journal of a few days since the following telegram from Baltimore was published: "During a
drunken brawl in the Sherwood House early this morning, Berry Amoe, aged 35, a well-known gambler, was fatally
stabbed, as he alleged, by Sam McDonald, who was arrested. McDonald is supposed to be here on a visit from Indiana.
He formerly resided near Baltimore, and is the son of Wm. McDonald, the millionaire, former owner of Flora Temple.
The young man who stands charged with this atrocious crime was well know in the West, and has many friends in this
city. Never did a career open more brightly than his, and never was the inevitable end of unbridled dissipation
more clearly fulfilled than in the brief paragraph we have given above. His fall from a high estate, far beyond
the common, has been so headlong and rapid, that a brief recital of its incidents will be of interest to the general
reader, and will serve to point a sad mortal that cannot be too often inculcated, and will not come amiss to some
of our own jeunnesse doree. The Baltimore papers, in chronicling the incidents of the crime, have but briefly alluded
to the previous career of the alleged murderer. Some acquaintance with its salient features enables the writer
to present the facts as given below. The murder seems to have been the natural sequence of four years of the most
extraordinary dissipation. Three men were drinking together in a Baltimore bar room in the early hours of the morning,
and alter a night spent in ?. One of them was a noted gambler of that city - Berry Amos, whom a local paper describes
as a fine lookingman, at least, so far as the animal part if concerned; tall, erect, broad chested, and muscular,
with sturdy lower limbs, and brawny arms, and all well rounded he presented to the eye the very personification
of physical strength and manly vigor. Another was a boon companion and the third was Sam McDonald. The two first
were at the bar taking a drink together, and the third arose from his chair and stabbed the gambler to the heart.
The murder is said to have been done out of mere wantonness. The murderer was besotted with liquor, and had a bowie
knife in his pocket. Rising from his seat in alcoholic delirium, he singled his victim out simply because he was
the taller man in the crowd before him. There is said to have been no cause for quarrel between the two, and that
it is not probable the drunken man cherished any malice whatever toward his victim or any other person in the party.
Such are the circumstances of one scene in the life drama of which we write; the next must be left to the record
of the courts to tell, and of that which preceded the bloody tragedy in its course, we may briefly allude to here.
Samuel McDonald was the son of a very wealthy man in Baltimore, whose family occupied the highest social position
in that city. He himself was sent abroad to be educated, and spent several years at one of the schools in England.
While still abroad his father died, leaving his immense fortune to be divided between his son and a daughter, his
only children. Young McDonald's portion was something over $500,00, and, with proper management would soon have
advanced very greatly in value. Shortly after his father's death the young man attained his majority. The family
residence, just out of Baltimore, was one of the most elegant in the country. Here on the night of his 21st birthday
he gave a grand dinner to various friends in the city and the celebration is said to have been carried out in a
style of almost unparalleled magnificence. The spacious grounds were ablaze with light, and a fountain ran champagne
in the yard. The night closed with an orgie of wine-drinking in which an amassing quantity was consumed. Thus he
started out upon a career of dissipation which has hurried him in four years - he is now but 25 - to the horrible
tragedy of last Wednesday night. Young McDonald at this age was an extraordinary
specimen of manly beauty. He was over six feet tall, straight as an arrow, broad chested, and muscular; yet as
graceful and agile as an athlete. A wealth of flaxen hair, and a broad, fair forehead; deep blue eyes, and a noble
mouth, with features perfectly classic in their outline - he was a perfect type of the Anglo Saxon. Add to this
the exuberant spirits which always attend good health, and that nameless magnetism which so few men possess, and
the possession of which may be the best or the worst of God's gifts, he was a most enjoyable companion, the life
of the social circle, and as much admired by men as he was adored by woman. Shortly after he attained his
majority he came out to Terre Haute, Ind. on a visit. He returned to that pleasant city a few months afterward,
bought him a farm in the vicinity, stocked it with the finest horses and cattle, and there inaugurated a series
of ? which shocked the goodly little city to its center. He was soon ostracized from the society of the town, and
direful stories are told of the excesses into which he then plunged. There were two gamblers from the East whom
he had brought West with him, and it is said that there were still more disreputable companions of another sex
who lived in the same house with him. From this rendezvous he would take frequent hunting excursions
into the neighboring prairies of Indiana and Illinois, the return to be always celebrated by a debauch. Wines flowed
like water in his hunting lodge, as he called it, and cards followed the wine on the table. It was said by those
who professed to know that young McDonald spent over $150,000 the first year he lived in Terre Haute. Here he has
since lived, and war are told that most, if not all, of his original patrimony has been squandered. It was on a
visit back to Baltimore that his last fatal tragedy was enacted. [Submitted by Dena Whitesell]
ALLEGED POISONER ARRESTED
Ex-Husband of Cincinnati Woman Held in Baltimre
Baltimore, April 10, 1900 - Charles O. Winold
was arrested today and is held for the Cincinnati authorities on the charge of attempting to poison his wife and
children in the latter city on March 30, (1900) Winold, when arested gave an assumed name, but when questioned
by the detectives recited a partial history of the troubles between himself and his wife. He said that his wife
had obtained a divorce from him in Minneapolis; that, "under disguise he had kidnapped his four children,
and took them to Marietta, Ohio. After a long legal battle in Hoboken New Jersey, last year the children were
returned to the custody of their mother.
"I understand my former wife is going to be married again. I would rather kill my children than that they
should be placed under the care of a stepfather," he is quoted as saying to the officers. Winold is a traveling
salesman, and was arrested today on information received from the Cincinnati police yesterday. [The New York Times - Published 11 April 1900 - Submitted by Chris Walters]
November
24, 1924, Monday
Time Magazine
"Not Guilty"
John Philip Hill of Baltimore, Republican Congressman from the third District of
Maryland, indicted for violating the Volstead Act (TIME, Oct. 6), was tried last week. And John Philip Hill was
acquitted.
John Philip is a character. Hear about him in the sparkling words of Correspondent Clinton
W. Gilbert:
"He lives by headlines. If newspapers were abolished, he would curl up and die. I
know he will read this with delight and paste it away in his scrapbook. That's why I am writing it.
"A man who devotes all his energies to being a good story should receive some encouragement.
And he is a lusty, vigorous fellow, full of animal spirits, and where one of this sort sometimes loves food, sometimes
loves women, sometimes loves adventure, John Philip loves publicity . . .
"He has imagination as well as energy. Farmers could make cider and no one went around
to find out how much alcohol it contained. Well, why not have a farm in a Baltimore backyard? He had two windows
painted on his front fence with painted cows' heads looking out of them. Then he had apple trees with apples carefully
tied on them moved into his backyard. Then he set up a cider press ..."
Yes. He set up a cider press and allowed his cider to ferment a bit, just as he had done
previously with some grapes, and he gave his neighbors to drink.
He was indicted on six counts for illegal manufacture and possession of the forbidden,
and for constituting a public nuisance. But it is notorious that six counts does not constitute a knockout. John
Philip took his six counts, then he took a reelection, and then he took his trial.
The decision does not greatly alter the force of the Volstead Act. That Act forbids the
manufacture, etc., for sale, of intoxicating beverages and defines such beverages as those containing more than
½% of alcohol. But tucked away in the Act is a sentence which says:
"The penalties provided in this act against the manufacture of liquor without permit
shall not apply to a person for manufacturing non-intoxicating cider and fruit juices exclusively for use in his
home. . ."
Federal Judge Morris A. Soper interpreted this to mean that the home juicemaker was exempt
from the arbitrary definition that ½% alcoholic content makes a beverage "intoxicating." For beverages
on sale, he held that the ½% criterion was legal and unassailable, but within the walls of a man's home
what he made exclusively for his own use was not to be so strictly governed.
Judge Soper therefore charged the jury that, for the purposes of this case, "the
question for you to determine is whether these articles were intoxicating in fact. . . . Intoxicating liquor is
liquor which contains such a proportion of alcohol that it will produce intoxication when imbibed in such quantities
as it is practically possible for a man to drink. . . . Perhaps I might interpolate here that the intoxication
in this law means what you and I ordinarily understand as average human beings by the word 'drunkenness' . . ."
As far as regards the two counts charging John Philip with maintaining a public nuisance,
the Judge instructed the jury to return a verdict of not guilty, since none of the questionable beverages was sold.
Then the jury went out to determine whether wine containing from 3.34% to 11.64% of alcohol
and cider containing 2.7% alcohol was intoxicating in the ordinary meaning of the word. For 17 hours the jurymen
were closeted. Two of them held out for a verdict of guilty. At last they gave in. "Not guilty."
John Philip, shaking hands vigorously, exclaimed: "Well, boys, you can make all the
cider and wine you want now."
Then he added more formally:
"Independent of the verdict, the opinion of Judge Soper to the effect that fruit
juices and cider made in the home for use there must be intoxicating in fact and are not limited to ½% alcoholic
content, fixed by other sections of the act to regulate other beverages, is of the utmost importance.
"It strengthens us tremendously in our position in asking Congress to give us light
wines and beer. It proves what I have always maintained that the Volstead act is hypocritical, crooked and marked
by two standards. . .' [Submitted by Dena Whitesell]
April 1, 1929, Monday
Time Magazine
Common-Law Marriage
Six years ago Claire Ulrich, chorus girl met Charles E. Whitehurst, Baltimore. Md., theatreman, in Manhattan. They went to a hotel.
In their room, without witnesses, they read to each other the marriage service from a prayer book, exchanged vows.
On page 449 the girl wrote "Claire" and then "Charles." As man and wife they lived together
briefly.
Less than a year later Whitehurst died,
leaving an estate of $280,000 and no will. Last week the Maryland Court of Appeals decided that this marriage was
valid under the laws of New York, that Claire Ulrich was, by common law, Mrs. Whitehurst. As his widow, and over
the objections of his mother and brothers, she was entitled to administer and share in his estate.
In 1911, Carlton Curtis, 43, a rich bachelor, was standing at the corner of 54th Street
and Broadway, Manhattan, when he saw an automobile bearing down recklessly upon a 17-year-old Negro girl. He snatched
her back to safety, found her lithe and vivacious, befriended her. She said her name was Letitia Ernestine Brown.
For her he bought a small house in Freeport, L. I., where, she said, he solemnly took her hand, declared himself
her husband and her his wife. On her he settled a secret fund of $250,000. About Freeport the two were known as
Mr. and Mrs. Harry Brown. Six months of each year Mr. Curtis traveled alone in Europe. Some of the money which
he gave her she spent upon a Negro man whose wife threatened court action unless much more money was forthcoming.
The triangle crashed and last year Letitia Ernestine Brown sued Mr. Curtis for separation and $250 per week alimony,
claiming she was his common-law wife. A Manhattan judge decided their relationship was purely meretricious and
illicit, dismissed the suit. Mr. Curtis, declaring his "life was ruined," vanished "to get away
from it all."
Between these two cases, as in a twilight zone, lies the treacherous field of common-law
marriage. Only the hairline of intent divides such a legal union from the lover-mistress relationship.
States by statutes have decreed who shall be competent to marry, what persons shall be
competent to perform marriage ceremonies. These laws are generally considered directory, not mandatory, and a marriage
outside the statutory law i.e., under common or unwritten law is by implication a legal exception, quite valid
if the faith and intent behind the contract are good. Common-law marriages are recognized by the courts of most
of the older States east of the Mississippi. Some of the newer States by statute expressly prohibit such unions.
No nonstatutory marriage can be positively stamped as valid until its special circumstances have been reviewed
by a competent court.
A sound common-law marriage is usually composed of: 1) a man and a woman both legally
competent to make the contract (age, absence of other matrimonial obligations, etc.); 2) their actual and mutual
agreement to enter the union faithfully, permanently, to the exclusion of all others; 3) their cohabitation; 4)
the length of time they live together (varying in practice from one to seven years); 5) their public and social
conduct as man and wife. Children by such a union, the existence of a settled home, and the community's recognition,
all tend strongly to confirm the relationship as bona-fide.
Into the courts come infinite circumstantial variations of the common-law marriage, most
of them confused in intent and darkened by deliberate secrecy. Courts generally hold that the good faith of one
party sustains such a union, regardless of the mental reservations of the other. Promiscuity, neglect, cruelty,
etc., open the door to legal separation as in any statutory marriage. The secrecy usual in a lover-mistress relationship
prevents its becoming a common-law marriage unless time dispels the cloak and establishes public and personal acceptance
of the union.
In the Whitehurst case the Maryland court said: "Our conclusion is that they [the
circumstances] more than met the requirements of the law [of New York]."
In the Curtis case the New York court said: "The character of their association was
indicated by the fact that he visited her not in the way that would characterize their relations as those of man
and wife but rather in the way that a lover visits his mistress. . . . That they were known in Freeport as Mr.
and Mrs. Brown simply indicates a convenient cloak for illicit relations." [Submitted by Dena Whitesell]
