Critiquing arguments against Tumblety, or Francis the Ripper

[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

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[Simon Wood]

Hi Stewart,

Captain WC Streeter wasn't a bargee [for want of a better word]. There was a famous Ben Streeter who was a Rochester bargee, but he's another story altogether. WC Streeter's captaincy came from his service in the army; it had nothing to do with matters nautical. He was living in Vermont in the 1840s, where his stock in trade was locksmithing. There was a brief episode of boatwork when he first arrived in 1870 Rochester, but he soon went to work for a famous lock company.

I am in the process of assembling Streeter's origins, marriage, children, army service and later years, and will report back when it's done and dusted.

It's a mystery. I certainly don't pretend to understand it

Regards,

Simon

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris G,

Your latest post seems to have disappeared.

Regards,

Simon

[timothy]

Western Druggist

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

Mike,

Before you read too much into this reference please note that the same issue that has the Tumblety item also has letters dated December 6 and December 12, welll after the publication of Dunham's story.

Best,

Tim

[mklhawley]

Point well taken Tim.

[ChrisGeorge]

Hi Chris G,

Your latest post seems to have disappeared.

Regards,

Simon

Yes it did. I deleted the post rather than appear foolish but I can rephrase it. Evidently there was a barge known as the "W. C. Streeter" -- it's shown on this pdf from the Buffalo Evening Courier & Republic from July 7 1865 -- see list at bottom of page of barges coming through the city in "the 24 hours hours ending last evening." Maybe "W. C. Streeter" was the name of Ben Streeter's barge, or else possibly W. C. Streeter really was a bargeman and not a locksmith?

Chris

[Cap'n Jack]

'it seems clear to me that Scotland Yard certainly did consider Tumblety as a woman hater.'

Your deductive powers leave me agape in awe.
It was Littlechild who claimed Tumblety was a 'woman hater'; Scotland Yard don't appear to have ever heard of the moustachiod one.
Please take into account that Littlechild also related - in the same letter - the completely unfounded claim that Harry Thaw had whipped a boy in a London Hotel room.
He propagated the fantasy because Pinkerton told him to.
Where does that leave you Miss Marple?

[mklhawley]

'it seems clear to me that Scotland Yard certainly did consider Tumblety as a woman hater.'

Your deductive powers leave me agape in awe.
It was Littlechild who claimed Tumblety was a 'woman hater'; Scotland Yard don't appear to have ever heard of the moustachiod one.
Please take into account that Littlechild also related - in the same letter - the completely unfounded claim that Harry Thaw had whipped a boy in a London Hotel room.
He propagated the fantasy because Pinkerton told him to.
Where does that leave you Miss Marple?

Hey, Miss Marple was old and wise, but I still prefer banana. I don't think it was confirmed the Dunham interview predated the letter, just that there still is a chance. Before I fall off the peer, I'm sticking to my guns.

Mike

[Cap'n Jack]

No Stewart, the bumbling old drunk did not go to Liverpool, for he travels not well across borders.
Without let, argument or common hindrance, I am in perfect agreement with your view of the sources available to you when you researched and wrote the Tumblety volume. I was writing the Myth at about the same time period, so I am acutely aware of the situation regarding sources then, and now.
However, it has been the somewhat acrimonious situation that has developed in very recent years that concerns me, where others who have read your volume regard what is written there as the final word on Tumblety; and resist any attempts to digest or progress the wealth of new information that we have been flooded with in these recent years.
Would it be unfair to suggest that you have also battled your corner in this regard? That you have resisted new information in favour of old?
Yes, perhaps that would be unfair, so I won't ask you.
Regardless of your own attititudes to this sad little affair - which are always fair and laudable - what seems to happen, or be happening, is that ardent followers of your very original work see any criticism of your Tumblety work as a direct criticism against you, rather than the volume itself.
This is a parlous situation that can only get worse unless these people begin to react and register to the new information that is now available, as one would expect in such a situation.
But they don't... they hammer away at the old myths and legends surrounding Tumblety, and they wave your book as justification for their strange and totally illogical behaviour.
I'm just glad I don't have groupies... man, they can drag you down.

[Simon Wood]

Hi Chris,

A barge named WC Streeter, eh? Nice find. Thank you.

All I can tell you for sure at the moment is—

The Captain WC Streeter buried in Rochester was a locksmith with Sargent & Greenleaf and member of the city's Microscopical Society, although in the early 1870s he was briefly listed in the city directory as a boatman.

WC Streeter's daughter Sarah died in the early 1880s, and his wife Mary died in 1885. So if we are talking about the same person then the NY World reporter finding "the Captain in his snug cabin surrounded by his wife, daughter, and son" cannot be true.

If WC Streeter was in truth Ben Streeter, one of Rochester's most infamous sons, then he would have been 76 years old at the time of the NY World interview, but after a few arrests had given up the canal barge business in the mid 1860s and become a relic of the past. He died in 1904 at the age of 92 with two wives and eleven children, the youngest of whom was 10 years old.

The plot thickens.

Regards,

Simon

[Chadwick]

No mike, you are in dire need of a peer, and when you find one, do me a favour, jump off the end. I can't stand snobs.

Not to get in the middle of this happy discussion, but I have been reading along on these interesting posts.

Cap'n Jack, you keep spelling "peer", which either means an equal or a member of the realm. However, you actually mean the word "Pier", which is a wooden extention into a body of water.

Just to help you out...

Best
~Chadwick