The last days of Francis Tumblety

[mklhawley]

Hello, Jeff

Many thanks for fleshing out the Stanford White - Harry Thaw saga which is only very superficially touched upon in the Littlechild Letter. And of course that's one of the major problems that I have with Littlechild, Anderson, and MacNaughton. Here we have all these guys, years later, pontificating about the case, as if they knew what they were talking about. But did they? It appears to me each one of their very certain declarations is very similar, and akin to good old boys convening over cigars and brandy before a roaring fire. But, in truth, not really knowing what they were on about. Sounds good to an extent, but, on closer examination, a quite different narrative emerges. Thus the glaring factual errors that each of the three of them made. Aaargh. Sorry, boys, not nearly good enough!

Best regards

Chris

Good point, Chris. For me, the importance of Littlechild with respect to Tumblety is that he recalled he was "amongst the suspects".

Sincerely,

Mike

[Mayerling]

Hello, Jeff

Many thanks for fleshing out the Stanford White - Harry Thaw saga which is only very superficially touched upon in the Littlechild Letter. And of course that's one of the major problems that I have with Littlechild, Anderson, and MacNaughton. Here we have all these guys, years later, pontificating about the case, as if they knew what they were talking about. But did they? It appears to me each one of their very certain declarations is very similar, and akin to good old boys convening over cigars and brandy before a roaring fire. But, in truth, not really knowing what they were on about. Sounds good to an extent, but, on closer examination, a quite different narrative emerges. Thus the glaring factual errors that each of the three of them made. Aaargh. Sorry, boys, not nearly good enough!

Best regards

Chris

My own feeling is that every one of the more vocal police officials (i.e., those who put down their ideas on paper) had some concepts that facts that they concentrated on brought out. Given the humongous situation of unfettered information intake that occurred in that autumn of fear of 1888 (at Scotland Yard), it was nearly impossible to seperate fact, fiction, and fancy - one should congratulate Abberline and his associates for managing to get some kind of coherent if incomplete description of events down.

Of the three you mentioned Macnaughten concentrated on who were the three chief suspects he knew of (and he stressed Druitt), Anderson stressed a "Jewish" suspect who seems to be Aaron Kosminski, and Littlechild had Tumblety. I'm sure somebody must have fingered Ostrog, and someone "Leather Apron", etc. Problem was the same that still bedevils us: writers on the case with "solutions" pick and choose the clues that support their solutions, and to hell with the rest. As a result, somewhere "From Hell" somebody is laughing at us all.

Jeff

[Columbo]

So I wonder whatever happened to his personal affects the nun's took off him? Didn't he have two imitation brass rings or someting supposedly from Chapman?

Columbo

[GUT]

So I wonder whatever happened to his personal affects the nun's took off him? Didn't he have two imitation brass rings or someting supposedly from Chapman?

Columbo

I expect that whatever he had was distributed according to his will.

[mklhawley]

So I wonder whatever happened to his personal affects the nun's took off him? Didn't he have two imitation brass rings or someting supposedly from Chapman?

Columbo

Some character wrote an article on this subject in Rip 128: http://www.searchingfortruthwithabro...etys_Rings.pdf

Sincerely,
Mike

[Mayerling]

Some character wrote an article on this subject in Rip 128: http://www.searchingfortruthwithabro...etys_Rings.pdf

Sincerely,
Mike

Hi Mike,

Thanks for reprinting the article (which was informative, as I never knew of having that second ring as part of a set to protect the wedding ring).

Funny about that name of "Frank Townsend". It sounds familiar. When I saw it was used by Tumblety in checking himself into the hospital before his death, I assumed that as his name "Francis Tumblety" had the same pair of initials as "Frank Townsend" he just used them as a convenient pseudomym, but the name keeps ringing a bell -perhaps some forgotten murder case in Canada from decades earlier. I have to check into it.

Jeff

[mklhawley]

Hi Jeff,

Joe Chetcuti passes this along:

Jeff is one of the good ones, so let's try to help him out here. Roger Palmer told me years ago that "Dr. Townsend's Syrup of Sarsaparilla" was advertised widely in the 1840s and 1850s. Townsend was a well-known patent-medicine dealer based out of Albany, New York.

Tumblety lived in Rochester, New York during his late teenage years and he was known as Frank in those days of the late 1840s.

Dr. Townsend's ads may have inspired Tumblety to use the Frank Townsend alias later in his life. By clicking into this web link below and then scrolling down to number 13, we could see the manner in which Dr. Townsend advertised his product.

http://www.antiquebottles.com/companies.html

[dantheman]

"..., and the Catholic priest whom he called to administer to his spiritual welfare, a promise of secrecy."

Obviously, he wanted to take some secrets to the grave. I wonder what they could have been?

Sincerely,

Mike

Maybe his homosexuality?

P.S. Plan on picking up your book soon.

Thanks,

Dan

[Steadmund Brand]

Oh I believe Tumblety tried to buy absolution for sure....however, there is no "Rest In Peace" on his grave hahahaha (look for the video made by Mike Hawley and some putz named Brian).. then again, Dr. T was an Irish catholic...probably gave money to the church his whole life....as they so often do... giving money to the church is like breathing to Irish Catholics....

Steadmund Brand

[ChrisGeorge]

Oh I believe Tumblety tried to buy absolution for sure....however, there is no "Rest In Peace" on his grave hahahaha (look for the video made by Mike Hawley and some putz named Brian).. then again, Dr. T was an Irish catholic...probably gave money to the church his whole life....as they so often do... giving money to the church is like breathing to Irish Catholics....

Steadmund Brand

Under Dr. Tumblety's St. Louis will, finally proved by the Missouri Supreme Court in 1908, James Cardinal Gibbons of Baltimore got $10,000 and Archbishop Ireland of St. Paul also got $10,000 -- a small fortune each in that day. So yes he probably thought he could purchase absolution.

The rest of the money ($130,000 with the banking firm of Henry Clews & Co. of New York) was divided between his sister Bridget in Widnes, near Liverpool, England, various other relatives, and his coachman Mark Blackburn.

My question when I wrote my 1997 for Ripperologist on "The Cardinal and the Ripper Suspect" was whether Tumblety and Cardinal Gibbons actually knew each other. They were both Irish American and around the same age, born in the 1830's. They lived within a half mile of each other -- Gibbons in the Cardinal's residence on N. Charles Street, adjacent to the Basilica of the Assumption and Tumblety in the lodging house in Baltimore on N. Liberty Street. I went to the Episcopal Archives on Cathedral Street, again within easy walking distance of both those residences, and while it mentioned the money, it called Dr T "Mr. Tumblety" which made me think that the two men did not know each other and had not met.

Best regards

Chris




Cardinal James Gibbons (1834-1921) by the Bachrach Studio of Baltimore




Basilica of the Assumption, Cathedral Street, Baltimore, Cardinal's Residence at rear on Charles Street.




Early 20th Century postcard view of Cardinal's Residence, N. Charles Street, Baltimore

[mklhawley]

Hi all,

It is interesting Dr. T selected the Archbishop of Boston as opposed to New York City (Cardinal John Murphy Farley). Although, Tumblety considered himself a New Yorker in 1888, maybe he became a Red Socks fan (I think they were called Boston Americans in 1903) by the turn of the century.

Sincerely,

Mike

[Steadmund Brand]

Well....if he did indeed become a red sox fan then......HE IS GUILTY!!!!
GO YANKEES (ok so there was no Yankees at the time, I know....but damnit as a life long Yankee fan I have to hate Boston!!!!)

Steadmund Brand