Critiquing arguments against Tumblety, or Francis the Ripper

[mklhawley]

So, in view of the December Western Druggist article (commenting upon Tumblety being a woman-hater) predating the Dunham interview plus the connotation of woman-hater meaning just that (Littlechild letter), it seems clear to me that Scotland Yard certainly did consider Tumblety as a woman hater.

Mike

[Stewart P Evans]

Surely

Hi All,
There's a small problem with the "I remember Tumblety peddling porn on canal boats in 1848" story.
Captain WC Streeter didn't move to Rochester until 1870.
Regards,
Simon

But, surely, Streeter's recollection related to when he was 'plying a canal boat' between Rochester and Buffalo around 1848, and does not state that he lived there at that time. He probably liked the place that he visited on his boat so much that he later moved there. The fact that he didn't move there until 1870 is irrelevant in this context and certainly does not disprove his story. And in the article provided by Chris it states that in his youth he lived in Rochester. I guess that the naysayers will have us believe that all those providing these stories were making them up - or, better still, they were all pseudonyms of Dunham.

[Stewart P Evans]

Researching

...
One also has to consider the fact that despite the painstaking research carried out, over many years, by all the researchers and writers who have specialised in Tumblety, they without exception missed the manslaughter charge that Tumblety faced in England some ten years before the Whitechapel Murders. It was left to a bumbling old drunk to find.

As I have pointed out, I did not spend many years researching Tumblety. Did the 'bumbling old drunk' travel up to Colindale or Liverpool to find the manslaughter reference in the old newspaper of then unknown date? Or did he simply sit at his computer and do a word search on a digital archive? If the latter this staggering find does not sound so impressive.

[Simon Wood]

Hi All,

There's a small problem with the "I remember Tumblety peddling porn on canal boats in 1848" story.

Captain WC Streeter didn't move to Rochester until 1870.

Regards,

Simon

[ChrisGeorge]

It has been said that Tumblety, as a child, sold pornography to riverboat men.
Don't remember the source, off hand though.

Best Wishes,
Hunter

From "The Missing Tumblety" in the Rochester Democrat and Republican, 3 December 1888:

AS A BOY IN ROCHESTER.

Captain W.C. Streeter, an old resident of Rochester, N.Y., is quite sure that Tumblety is a native of that city. Captain Streeter is now the owner of a fine canal-boat that plies between this city and Buffalo, but in his youth lived in Rochester. A World reporter boarded his boat at pier 5, East River, yesterday, and found the Captain in his snug cabin surrounded by his wife, daughter, and son.

"The first recollection I have of him," said the Captain, "is along about 1848. I should judge he was then something like 15 years old and his name was Frank Tumblety. I don't know when he changed it to Twomblety. He was selling books and papers on the packets and was in the habit of boarding my boat a short distance from the town. The books he sold were largely of the kind Anthony Comstock surpresses (sic) now. His father was an Irishman an lived on the common south of the city on what was then known as Sophia street, but is now Plymouth Avenue and is about a mile from the center of the city. There were but few houses there then and the Tumblety's had no near neighbors. I don't remember what the father did. There were two boys older than Frank and one of them worked as a steward for Dr. Fitzhugh, then a prominent physician.

Note that this is the same article in the Rochester Democrat and Republican of 3 December 1888 that contains the now questioned story about Tumblety in Washington, D.C., in the summer of 1861 told by "Colonel C. A. Dunham [aka Sandford Conover], a well-known lawyer who lives near Fairview, N.J., [who] was intimately acquainted with Twomblety for many years, and [who], in his own mind, had long connected him with the Whitechapel horrors."

The Dunham story, at the least, seems opportunistic, and one wonders if the shady Dunham or Conover received something from the journalist for telling the tale.

Chris

[Stewart P Evans]

Trouble Is

...
In that they attempt to make it 'them' and 'us', just so in this issue where the deliberate attempt has been made to pit my knowledge and erudation against that of SPE's, and SPE himself is guilty on that score, as he always takes such an issue personally, even when the effort to empower the subject is made in a factual and impersonal manner.
I want to get to the devil in the detail, and to the devil with reputation, repute and friendship, that time is past, the time is now to devil the detail, and if your ego or emotion is not fit for purpose, then go and subject yourself to a long walk with your peers, for there are no peers, just folks with vested and egoistic interest, people who would protect what they perceive they own.
That time is past.
And I would rather choke on dirt then jump on some bandwagon that perceives a letter as having Irish influence because some deranged halfwit can't tell a sore from a sire.

The trouble is AP, you always reduce it to a personal and insulting level, no wonder I take it personally. I can accept the fact that when we wrote our book in 1994/5 there was much relevant information on Tumblety still to be found. But the omission of this material was not deliberate as it was not found in Ripper related researches until years later and we simply did not have it. As I said, hindsight is a fine thing.

[Stewart P Evans]

Dunham

...

The other thing I wanted to talk about is Dunham’s article in the New York World. I have noticed that although Dunham’s character is sometimes mentioned, i.e. that he was a conman, liar and convicted perjurer, there seems, for some reason, to be an unwillingness to state that the article was, in fact, a pack of lies. The suggestion seems to be that although he was a liar that doesn’t necessarily mean he was lying here and therefore the information given by Dunham – that Tumblety owned a collection of uteri, or was married to a woman who turned out to be a prostitute – might still be correct.
Totally ignored, however, is the fact that Dunham’s recollections are absolutely wrong:
Tumblety was still in New York at the time Dunham says he first met him in Washington (July, 1861) and didn’t move to the city until November, 1861. Meanwhile Dunham wasn’t in Washington at this time but in Baltimore attempting to gain a commission in the Mexican Army. This was because Dunham wasn’t a Colonel in the Union Army and his talk about hanging around Washington with his Lieutenant-colonel on “official business” was a lie.
Tumblety didn’t live and have his office in a boarding house on H Street (where Dunham claims he was shown the uteri collection). He stayed in the Willard Hotel, the grandest hotel Washington had to offer, and his office was, and always had been, in Washington Buildings some blocks away.
...
Wolf.

A few points I should like to make.

At the time of writing the book about Tumblety, 1994-1995, all the information we had on Dunham was the quoted article on Tumblety. Had we known of his 'Sanford Conover' alter ego we would have been aware that this cast considerable doubt on his story, and we would have mentioned his character and left readers to decide for themselves as to the story he told.

As it happens I did not personally become aware of Dunham's aliases and his involvement as regards the Lincoln conspirators etc., until 1999. Even Lincoln conspiracy historians who had assisted Paul Gainey had failed, prior to then, to pick up on this. The full story of Conover's perjury was forwarded to me in February 2000. This, despite the fact that I had, for some four years at that time, been no longer researching Tumblety. But, I again state, it is fine to criticise a work that was written all those years ago when no one at all in Ripperworld had even heard of Tumblety or Dunham and there were no easy research facilities such as there are today.

As regards the comments in the post above about Dunham's article, I see that Carman Cumming has made comments that do not totally agree with it, and this despite the fact that he does expose Dunham's true character. He states, "So is his description of Dr. Tumblety a total fabrication? Not necessarily. Dunham often used a base of reality for his best inventions, and in the Tumblety case there are indeed elements of truth. For instance, Dunham claimed he was a very young army colonel when Tumblety entertained him at his 'tasteful' quarters in Washington and showed off his cases of female body parts. The fact is that Dunham was indeed in Washington at the time he mentioned, shortly after the 1861 First Battle of Bull Run, as self-proclaimed 'colonel' of a New York regiment. Dunham's 'Cameron Legion' eventually collapsed and was probably a fraud from the start."

[Cap'n Jack]

'Thank you everyone for participating in this thread. I truly appreciated it.

Sincerely,

Banana'

I warned you not to leave the skin at the end of the peer.

[Stewart P Evans]

Feelings Towards Women

...
The term “woman hater” means a homosexual; it does not mean that Tumblety, or anyone else described with the term, actually, literally, hated women and wanted to kill them. The term is fairly old. For example there is a broadsheet ballad dated 1707 titled “The Women-Hater’s Lamentation” which tells of the arrest in London of a group of gay men (three or four of whom killed themselves in prison over the disgrace of being caught). The term lasted into the twentieth century as exampled by a report in the Washington Post dated 1 July, 1906, describing the murder of Archibald Wakely in London. Wakely was a wealthy artist and homosexual who was described as “…about forty, and unmarried. In fact, he was known as a woman hater, and preferred the society of young men.”
...
Wolf.

Fine, but we still have Littlechild's statement regarding Tumblety's feelings towards women - "...but his feelings towards women were remarkable and bitter in the extreme, a fact on record."

[mklhawley]

Thank you everyone for participating in this thread. I truly appreciated it.

Sincerely,

Banana

[corey123]

Mike,

I am deffenently younger than most. Though not still in grade school. I assume it is because of my spelling and grammer. Never was my strong spot.

But thanks for the comment.

I truly appriciat them.

[mklhawley]

Hi Corey,

Just for reference, what school grade are you?

Regards,

Simon

Simon,

Corey certainly thinks like a person with a lifetime of experience. I wish I had him on my debate team.

Mike

[corey123]

Deleted

Yours truly.

Ps. I also need to know his relationship with family,how he acted in school,ect. Pornography does'nt signal Narcissism.

By the way Simon, Why would you need to know this?

[Simon Wood]

Hi Corey,

Just for reference, what school grade are you?

Regards,

Simon

[Hunter]

Writing of Tumbelty- I know nothing of his childhood so that,well doesn't cross out, but postpones senerio two.

It has been said that Tumblety, as a child, sold pornography to riverboat men.
Don't remember the source, off hand though.

Best Wishes,
Hunter