The witch of New York : the trials of Polly Bodine and the cursed birth of tabloid justice

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Title:

The witch of New York : the trials of Polly Bodine and the cursed birth of tabloid justice

Author:

Hortis, C. Alexander, 1972- author.

ISBN:

9781639363919

Edition:

First Pegasus Books cloth edition.

Physical Description:

xx, 315 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm

Contents:

Prologue: Christmas night 1843 -- A fallen woman. Islands in the stream ; Sex and the 1840s city ; Incendiaries ; Low-speed chase ; They would hang her without judge or jury ; Confessions of the sun ; The living jury of the nation ; Dream teams -- The Staten Island trial. Poe cracks the case ; The people v. Mary Bodine ; Ghosts of Granite Village ; Trial by water ; Breaking news ; Consciousness of guilt ; Playing the Jew card ; Sisters ; The man in the Spanish cloak ; The runaway juror ; Undue prejudice -- The Manhattan trial. Barnum's witch ; Eldridge Street jail ; Trial by fire ; Mayor Harper ; The weight of the baskets ; Gala night at the Park Theatre ; To conceal the circumstances of her pregnancy ; The opposite counsel ; Cruel and unbecoming curiosity ; Judge Edmond's charge ; April thunderstorms ; The hanging of Polly Bodine ; Witch trial interlude ; The appeal ; Six thousand jurors -- The Newburgh trial. National police gazette ; Whitman's sympathy ; George Washington camped here ; Fragment of the mother's dress ; Orange County House v. United States Hotel ; The gangs that infest New York ; Judgment night ; Polly Bodine in the popular imagination -- Epilogue: Another prison -- Afterword: Lawyers will not save us.

Personal Subject:

Bodine, Polly-Trials, litigation, etc.

Subject Term:

Trials (Murder) -- New York (State) -- History -- 19th century.

Tabloid newspapers -- New York (State) -- New York -- 19th century.

Murder -- New York (State) -- New York -- 19th century.

Infanticide -- New York (State) -- New York -- 19th century.

Trials (Murder) -- New York (State) -- New York -- 19th century.

Trials (Arson) -- New York (State) -- 19th century.

Genre:

True crime stories.

Added Author:

Green, Tim,

Summary:

"Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony--before even Lizzie Borden--there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation's debut media circus. On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home--and then covered up the crime with hellfire. When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin's sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new "penny press" explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she's a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials--in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh--for the "Christmas murders." After Polly's legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper's last novel was inspired by her trials"--

Holds:

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Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Hardwood Creek Library (Forest Lake)	364.1523 HOR	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Park Grove Library (Cottage Grove)	364.1523 HOR	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

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Summary

Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony--before even Lizzie Borden--there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation's debut media circus.

On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home--and then covered up the crime with hellfire.

When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin's sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new "penny press" explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she's a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials--in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh--for the "Christmas murders."

After Polly's legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper's last novel was inspired by her trials.

The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America's formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York--and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today.

Author Notes

Alex Hortis , author of The Mob and the City, is a constitutional lawyer and crime historian. He has been interviewed on national television for AMC's The Making of the Mob and has been a featured speaker at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, the New York Public Library, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library. He is a former federal law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and is a graduate of New York University School of Law. Alex lives in Washington, DC. Please visit Alex at www.alexhortis.com

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

In this excellent work of true crime, historian Hortis (The Mob and the City) examines the case of Polly Bodine (1810--1892), who became infamous after she was accused of murdering her sister-in-law and infant niece. In December 1843, someone killed 24-year-old Emeline Houseman and her daughter, Eliza, in their Staten Island home before setting it on fire. Emeline's father pointed the finger at Bodine, the last person seen with his daughter, theorizing that she'd killed the pair while trying to steal their silver. After Bodine gave conflicting alibis to authorities, she was charged with the murders. Her first trial ended in a hung jury, and the case was moved to Manhattan for a second trial. That jury convicted Bodine, but the conviction was overturned on appeal. A third and final trial held upstate ended in Bodine's acquittal. Newspapers including the New York World seized on the story, stirring up public interest in the crimes and villainizing Bodine for her supposed avoidance of justice during her multiple trials. Hortis's fastidious historical detail makes the episode come to life, and he successfully evokes contemporary tabloid scandals like the Amanda Knox trial without stretching the point too far. Fans of Daniel Stashower will love this. Agent: Scott Mendel, Mendel Media. (Mar.)

Kirkus Review

The sad, sordid story of the first American woman to face trial for capital murder. Mary Houseman Bodine (c. 1810-1892) was excoriated as "a fallen woman" and murderer before she was even tried in court for the deaths of her sister-in-law and infant niece in 1843. Having moved back to her father's house on Staten Island, after leaving her abusive husband and taking her two children with her, Bodine often stayed over at her brother's cottage, which was adjacent to her father's. On the night of the crime, with only a shaky alibi when the house next door burned down, and perhaps the last to have seen her sister-in-law alive, Bodine was quickly suspected of the murders and also robbery, compounded by her disappearing into Manhattan and apparently pawning items at shops around town. Hortis, a constitutional lawyer, crime historian, and author of The Mob and the City, looks at how the rivaling tabloids and their owners--including James Gordon Bennett of the Herald and Moses Yale Beach of the Sun--tried to outdo each other in sensational coverage of Bodine's story, relying on hearsay and fabrication to sell more papers. The author capably describes the melee of commerce and scandal that bristled in early New York City. The details that emerged--of Bodine's romance with an apothecary in Manhattan, the boss of her teenaged apprentice son, and her advanced pregnancy--added to the prurient interest at the time, as did articles by Edgar Allan Poe and Walt Whitman and a witchlike wax figure in P.T. Barnum's museum. Hortis has combed the archives for material related to Bodine's three explosive trials, and the book ultimately ends in her acquittal in a Newburgh, New York, court in 1846; he makes palpable the shameful character assassination and "slut-shaming" that Bodine endured. A lively history of early New York through one woman's horrendous ordeal. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Crime historian Hortis (The Mob and the City, 2014) revisits the nineteenth-century trials of Staten Island resident Polly Bodine, who was accused of murdering her sister-in-law, Emeline Houseman, and infant niece, Eliza, in 1843. Bodine's ne'er-do-well husband left her with two children and few prospects. Since divorce on the grounds of drunken abandonment wasn't an option, Bodine moved back in with her father and eventually began an affair with a pharmacist named George Waite. Her liaisons with him, which complicated her alibi, made her a prime suspect in the deaths of Emeline and Eliza. Bodine was the last to see them prior to the robbery and arson which took their lives. Bodine's case was seized on by rival newspapers, who capitalized on its sensational flavor. P.T. Barnum weighed in, characterizing Bodine as a witch. After a hung jury, a change of venue, and a third trial, Bodine was eventually acquitted. Hortis' narrative demonstrates the dilemma many women faced, lacking legal recourse, as well as the effect that tabloid journalism could have on a trial by swaying public opinion. A sure hit for true crime fans.

Author's Note on Sources	xiii
The Docket Sheet	xv
Prologue: Christmas Night 1843	xix
Part I A Fallen Woman
1 Islands in the Stream	3
2 Sex and the 1840s City	9
3 Incendiaries	15
4 Low-Speed Chase	21
5 They Would Hang Her Without Judge or Jury	26
6 Confessions of the Sun	34
7 The Living Jury of the Nation	38
8 Dream Teams	43
Part II The Staten Island Trial
9 Poe Cracks the Case	51
10 The People v. Mary Bodine	55
11 Ghosts of Granite Village	60
12 Trial by Water	68
13 Breaking News	76
14 Consciousness of Guilt	81
15 Playing the Jew Card	86
16 Sisters	92
17 The Man in the Spanish Cloak	101
18 The Runaway Juror	108
19 Undue Prejudice	117
Part III The Manhattan Trial
20 Barnum's Witch	123
21 Eldridge Street Jail	128
22 Trial by Fire	131
23 Mayor Harper	138
24 The Weight of the Baskets	146
25 Gala Night at the Park Theatre	152
26 To Conceal the Circumstances of Her Pregnancy	158
27 The Opposite Counsel	162
28 Cruel and Unbecoming Curiosity	167
29 Judge Edmonds's Charge	175
30 April Thunderstorms	181
31 The Hanging of Polly Bodine	185
32 Witch Trial Interlude	191
33 The Appeal	195
34 Six Thousand Jurors	200
Part IV The Newburgh Trial
35 National Police Gazette	209
36 Whitman's Sympathy	215
37 George Washington Camped Here	221
38 Fragment of the Mother's Dress	228
39 Orange County House v. United States Hotel	234
40 The Gangs That Infest New York	238
41 Judgment Night	246
42 Polly Bodine in the Popular Imagination	252
Epilogue: Another Prison	261
Afterword: Lawyers Will Not Save Us	265
Acknowledgments	269
List of Illustrations	271
Select Bibliography	273
Notes	277
Index	305

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Summary

Summary

Author Notes

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Kirkus Review

Booklist Review

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