The Hangman's Ropemaker: The Homes in Butcher's Run and Wood's Run

*This blog post is one in a series of blogs on my famous ancestor, Jacob Bupp, the Hangman's Ropemaker- click the page tab above labeled "The Hangman's Ropemaker" for more information and the blog series*

On 1 May 1866, Jacob Bupp purchased land from Henry and Dorothea Rosenfelder in a new subdivision that was laid out in Ross Township. The deed was recorded as stating that the land was “lot no eight in a plan of subdivision laid out by John C. Fleiner of the Daniel McKeever farm...containing four acres and ninety one perches and it being part of the same farm which Daniel Morganstern and wife by their deed of Oct 8th, 1863 recorded.” Daniel Morganstern’s farm was on the border of Ross Township along Perrysville Plank Road. It was bought for $2500, which equated to over $41500 in 2016 currency.

The area in which Jacob Bupp owned his land was known as Butcher’s Run, as a creek by the same name ran through the area before heading down towards Allegheny City. The creek, also known as Saw Mill Run, gained notoriety in 1874 when it flooded a part of Allegheny City around what is now known as Spring Garden Avenue.

There was a rope-walk in the area, situated on Butcher’s Run Plank Road, and it is likely that Jacob worked there. However, since he was not living in Allegheny City or what was considered surrounding area at the time, as Ross Township was a distance away, he was not listed in the city directories for the time he lived there.

This is likely the home in which son John was born, though a birth date for the boy is not known.

For the Bupp family, the area was also the place for a sad memory. A local paper ran this news story one summer day:

"Fatal Accident: Saturday afternoon, a little son of Mr. Jacob Bopp, residing on Butcher's Run, near the rope-walk, was killed by pulling over on himself a harrow which was placed on a wheelbarrow standing in front of his father's house. The child was immediately taken from under the harrow, when it was found that one of the teeth had entered his heart. An inquest was held, and a verdict rendered as above."

It is not known which of Jacob and Caroline’s children was the one fatally killed on 15 June 1867, as the boy was not named in the article and no evidence can be found of his name. Family lore and a biography done on one of their sons-in-law list a son named Charles, who likely died young, so it is probable that Charles was the youngster’s name. Unfortunately, coroner's reports from that era are difficult to find.

On 2 November 1867, a few months after the death of their young son, Jacob and Caroline Bupp sold the land in Ross Township to Jacob Baeckert for $3400, or a little more than $59000 in 2016 currency. Where they moved next is a mystery, but the assumption is that they stayed in Allegheny County. By 1867, the Spring Garden Valley area was being absorbed into Allegheny City, so it is possible that the Bupps were wanting to stay out of the city.

The 1870 Federal Census enumerated the family in McClure Township, but listed their post office as being in Dixmont, two townships away. McClure Township was just south of where Jacob Bupp had just sold land, and the area in which Jacob was enumerated was known as Pleasant Valley, which was just outside the city limits of Allegheny City. Other men enumerated around him were rich landowners, so it is possible that Jacob worked for one of them as a gardener, for this is the only time he is listed as having such an occupation. There is also the possibility that he was raising hemp for ropemaking, as he continued to ply his trade as well.

Jacob was enumerated as a male citizen of age 21 or over who had $200 worth of personal estate and no real estate. Caroline was listed as having an occupation of keeping house and born in France. Son William, who was twenty at the time, worked as a laborer, while daughters Emma, Elizabeth, Catherine and Mary attended school in the previous year. Son John was too young to go to school at age 3, and a daughter, Ella, had just been born in April of that year. It appears that Ella was the last of the nine known children born to Jacob and Caroline.

On 14 June 1871, Jacob’s eldest son William bought two lots of land in F. J. Melaney's subdivision of lots in Wood's Run, in what was soon to become the 11th Ward of Allegheny City, as Allegheny City had annexed a great deal of land by the end of the 1870s. According to the deed, the land was comprised of acreage "beginning at a pin on Cliff Street where it intersects with land belonging to John B. Bond, thence along the line of said Bond's land northward by 134 feet more or less to the land owned by John Seiling, thence along said Seiling's land westward by 50 feet 8 inches more of less between lots nos 12 and 13 southward 134 feet and by 43 feet more or less to the place of beginning." It was purchased for $500, or a little over $10300 in 2017 funds.

Jacob and family occupied one of the lots, as William and his family later occupied the second lot. The lot, which was in the vicinity of Shady Avenue in the soon to be created Eleventh Ward of Allegheny City, changed street names a couple of times over the next eight years, as the area came to be built up and street names were created and then changed as more and more areas of Allegheny City came to be populated. The lot however, remained in the same place, though its address changed from Cliff Street to McClure Avenue and then back to Shady Avenue. When the city of Allegheny was annexed by Pittsburgh in 1906, the street was again changed to Shadeland Avenue.

Sources Referenced and Used

"1870 United States Federal Census," database online, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 14 August 2016), Entry for Jacob Bupp and family, Year: 1870, Census Place: McClure Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Roll: M593_1294, Page: 131A, Image: 337018, and Family History Library Film: 552793.

Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Deed Book 197: 339-340, Deed of indenture from Grantor Henry Rosenfelder and wife Dorothea to Grantee Jacob Bupp, recorded 1 May 1866; FHL microfilm 1498045.

Allegheny, Pennsylvania, Deed book 223: 599-600, Deed of Indenture from Grantors Jacob and Caroline Bupp to Grantee Jacob Beckert, dated 2 Nov 1867; FHL microfilm 15095329.

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Deed Book 273: 505-506, Deed of indenture from Grantor Fred J Melaney and wife Sarah to Grantee William H. Bupp, dated 14 June 1871; FHL microfilm 1509878.

Beers, F. W. and Beers, S. N. Map of Allegheny Co., Pennsylvania : from actual surveys (Philadelphia: Smith, Gallupp and Hewitt, 1862); digital image, Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division (https://www.loc.gov/item/2012592151/ : accessed 20 February 2018), viewed the farm of D. Morganstern, which would become eventually the subdivison in which Bupp bought a lot.

"Fatal Accident," Pittsburgh Daily Post (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 17 June 1867, 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 25 September 2017).

“The Gazette says Pleasant Valley is a nice place. Was the writer ever there?," opinion, Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 1 December 1868, page 8; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 26 February 2018).

Mellon, Steve. "Butcher’s Run Flood devastates O’Hara Street in 1874," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Digs, 11 March 2013 (https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/thedigs/ : accessed 20 February 2018), information on Butcher's Run.

Miles, Lisa. Resurrecting Allegheny City: The Land, Structures & People of Pittsburgh's North Side. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: L. A. Miles, 2007.

The Hangman's Ropemaker: The Paul-Munday Murders

" Mr. Bopp is the same gentleman who manufactured the ropes with which Buser and Howser were hanged in 1866."

~ "Shorts," The Indiana Democrat (Indiana, Pennsylvania), 28 November 1872, page 7

*This blog post is one in a series of blogs on my famous ancestor, Jacob Bupp, the Hangman's Ropemaker- click the page tab above labeled "The Hangman's Ropemaker" for more information and the blog series*

Polly Paul was a spinster of 70 years old who owned her own farm in which she tilled the land and sold firewood and cattle from her farmstead in Croyle Township, Cambria County, Pennsylvania. She was known as a hard-working woman, having toiled from sunup to sundown.  She also was well known for the craft of weaving. She was economical, according to some newspaper accounts, and had amassed a great deal of money, though the sum was unknown.  It was speculated by friends and family that she had hoped to leave her small fortune as an endowment to a college or seminary school when she passed away.

Catherine "Cassie" Munday was 17 years old and was the eldest daughter of Martin and Catherine Potter Munday. She had been apprenticed to Paul as a weaver's assistant for a year and had one more week left in her apprenticeship before she was anticipated to return to her father’s home in Cambria Township and take up weaving as her own profession.  Her father was the original settler of an area outside Ebensburg that was named Munday's Corner.  It was reported in newspaper accounts that Martin Munday had purchased a brand new loom for his daughter in anticipation of her return to start a business of her own.

On the morning of 8 June 1865, the two women were found clubbed to death on the Paul farm after neighbor girl named Mary Stilbolski raised the alarm while hunting cattle lost from her parents' farm.

Polly Paul was found in a pool of her own blood in her cowshed, her head bashed in, while Cassie Munday was found in the orchard, dead and badly bruised. It was apparent she had tried to flee when Polly Paul had been murdered, but the assailants had caught her. The house had been ransacked and furnishing destroyed.  It was soon determined that the motive for the murders was robbery of the supposed fortune of Miss Paul.

Police soon apprehended two men, John Ream and his relative Daniel Riddle for the murder. John Ream was a local shady character who had previously made remarks about the supposed fortunes of Polly Paul and how he'd kill to get his hands on it.  Daniel Riddle was remembered as having vowed to go in on the crime as well for half the fortune.  These two were put on trial for murder in September 1865, but it was concluded there was not enough evidence to convict them, plus both men had solid alibis for the night of the murder, so they were found not guilty.

Meanwhile, Polly Paul was buried in Ford Cemetery and Cassie Munday was buried in  St. Paul's Cemetery, both in Cambria County, Pennsylvania

A reward of $500 dollars was offered leading to information and an arrest.

A few weeks later, two men were arrested in an Allegheny City boarding house by Detective David McKelvey an Detective Hague. The men were Daniel Booser (also spelled Buser) and John B. Houser.

The men had been incarcerated at Western Penitentiary for robbing a clothing store in Allegheny County.  They were cellmates with an inmate by the name of Philip Folger (or Fulgert), who had once lived in the neighborhood of Polly Paul and whose wife had lived with Polly Paul before her marriage. Folger had told Buser and Houser that the old woman had a great deal of money.   It was here in prison, it was later determined, that Booser and Houser made plans to murder and rob her once they were released from prison.  In return for his telling them about how easy a mark Polly Paul would be, the men promised Folger that they would procur a pardon for him with some of the fortune.

After a six day trial in the Cambria County courthouse in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania, the two men were found guilty of the murders. Several witness were called.  A number of prisoners from the Western Penitentiary testified as to overhearing the plot for murder and robbery.  A few women from the neighborhood testified that Houser had been asking around for a Widow Paul (Polly Paul was a spinster, not a widow).  A few boarders and neighbors from the Allegheny City boarding house even made the trek to Ebensburg to testify that the two men were suddenly flush with cash after being gone from the house for a few days.  Neither man had an alibi for the night of the murders either, which helped to clinch the sentences.

 The men were sentenced to death by hanging the same day that they were found guilty of murder. The lawyers for the men appealed the decision by a writ of error made to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on several grounds, the largest of which was that two of the jurors actually testified as witnesses in the trial, but that appeal was rejected when the Supreme Court refused to accept the writ.

After the writ was rejected, it was reported that Buser started a letter writing campaign, sending out letters to anyone and everyone whom he thought could help him, as he declared his innocence over and over again.  He even had a letter published in the newspapers contesting his innocence and refuting the evidence and testimony against him.  Having exhausted all options, Daniel Buser then attempted suicide on 10 April 1866 in his jail cell by slicing open an artery in his arm with a sharpened piece of tin.  He fainted from the loss of blood and a guard noticed the noise and staunched the flow of blood.  When Buser regained consciousness, it was reported that he finally confessed to both of the murders, though witnesses didn't know if this was truth or delirium, as he had professed his innocence for so long some were wondering if he actually believed it.   

On 20 April 1866, the two men were hanged in the city jail yard at Ebensburg, Pennsylvania as the first men ever executed in Cambria County. Both men went to the gallows proclaiming their innocence in murder, stating that the only crimes they had ever committed were robbery and burglary.

The only mention made of the ropes stated that they were made in Reserve Township, Allegheny County, and were made for $25, although later a newspaper account for another hanging did say that Bupp was the one who made them.

Sources Used and Referenced

Burkhart, Betty, "Annals of Jackson Township," website, Jackson Township Historical Committee, Jackson Township: Cambria County, Pennsylvania (http://www.jacksontwppa.com: accessed 9 February 2018), "Communities And Their First Settlers", August 27, 1942

"The First Execution," Democrat and Sentinel (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 26 April 1866, page 2; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 October 2017).

"The Gallows: Execution of Daniel Buser and John B. Houser," The Ebensburg Alleghenian (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 26 April 1866, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 October 2017).

"John B. Hauser and Daniel Buser v The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," The American Law Register, 5 (November 1865-November 1866), online images, 668-675, Google Books (https://books.google.com/ : accessed 9 February 2018).

“The Paul-Munday Murder," The Ebensburg Alleghenian (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 15 February 1866, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 February 2018).

"The Paul-Munday Murders," The Ebensburg Alleghenian (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 21 September 1865, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 February 2018).

"Shorts," The Indiana Democrat (Indiana, Pennsylvania), 28 November 1872, page 7; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 25 September 2017).

"Untitled," Brookville Republican (Brookville, Pennsylvania), 20 December 1865, page 3; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 7 February 2018).

The Hangman's Ropemaker : The Boyd's Hill Murders and The Modern Day Borgia

"I made three at one time for Allegheny County, two for Marshall and Frecke, who murdered a jeweler on Boyd's Hill, and one for Mrs. Grinder."

~ Jacob Bupp, in a newspaper interview that was syndicated; "Wants that Honor," The Wichita Daily Eagle (Wichita, Kansas), 1 October 1887, page 5 

Pittsburgh and Allegheny City were rocked by the scandal of a couple of murders in August 1865.

*This blog post is one in a series of blogs on my famous ancestor, Jacob Bupp, the Hangman's Ropemaker- click the page tab above labeled "The Hangman's Ropemaker" for more information and the blog series*

Untitled article in The Ebensburg Alleghenian (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 11 January 1866, page 2, found online at Newspapers.com

The Boyd's Hill Murder

Early in the morning on the morning of 24 August 1865, the body of a man was found horribly mutilated in a vacant lot on Boyd's Hill in the Eighth Ward of Pittsburgh.  His throat and face had been slashed by a knife and the ground where his body was left showed signs of a struggle. His clothes had been shredded, and his pockets and belongings were empty of anything of value.  No vestiges of any kind were left by which the man could be identified. The motive of the murder was soon determined to be robbery.

Several men from the area were immediately rounded up on suspicion of murder, but many were released after no evidence could be found.  The murder caused a mild panic in the area, as the area was then a neighborhood populated predominantly by recent immigrants from Wales, Ireland and the German states, and the area was relatively low crime.  In late September, a man by the name of Benjamin Bernhardt Marchall (also Marshall) was arrested being caught breaking into in a home after a series of burglaries.  When police searched his home for stolen goods, they found bloody clothing and evidence that was linked back to the murdered man.  The police also discovered that Marchall was a German immigrant who had recently moved the previous year from New York to Pittsburgh and had been sending his stolen goods from Pittsburgh to New York City by train to his brother, who fenced them.

Upon further investigation, officials determined that the unidentified victim was a German immigrant who had traveled with Marchall and another man, August Frecke, an acquaintance of Marchall’s.  Frecke and Marchall discovered that the victim had a large sum of money while fencing their stolen goods in New York and had persuaded the unfortunate man to travel back to Pittsburgh with them by train. The two burglars had made a pact to kill the man for his money, and never even bothered to learn his name before they killed him, having lured him near Marchall’s home under the guise of providing him lodging.

The two men were tried separately for the crime.  Marchall was tried first and was found guilty of murder by a jury of his peers on 6 October 1865.  Frecke was tried almost a week later, on the 12th of October, and was also found guilty, though he protested he was innocent.  It was at their trials that the unfortunate victim finally had a surname of Foerster, as it was engraved on a moulder’s tool that was found in one of his trunks.  An article later gave his name as John Henry Foerster, a German mechanic.

On 12 January 1866, the pair was hanged in the Allegheny County Jail yard in Pittsburgh.  Frecke protested his innocence to the last, and when he was hung, the rope slipped on his neck so that it did not snap his neck, but rather suffocated him in a slow, agonizing death.  

While no mention of Jacob Bupp was made in the newspapers of the day, the ropemaker proudly boasted later that he had made the ropes to hang both men.

A Modern Day Borgia

Around the same time as the Boyd’s Hill murder, another scandalous crime wave was taking place. This one was likely even more scandalous than the Boyd’s HIll murder given that the perpetrator of this crime wave was a married mother.

Mrs. Mary Caroline Phillips Caruthers lived with her husband James as newlyweds in a house on Grey's Alley in the Fourth Ward of Allegheny City.  On about the 27th of June 1865, she had gone to the neighboring house of Martha Grinder to have tea and peaches and cream.  By nine that night, according to newspaper accounts, she was very ill and a physician was called. The next day, Mrs. Grinder came to check on her at the request of Mrs. Caruthers’ husband and left some food, which made Mary Cauthers sick again.  

The physician, having been called out again, found the illness suspicious and suggested that the Caruthers travel away for a while to get better.  The couple went on a short trip and Mary Caruthers recovered. However, after they had come home in July, she fell ill again and again Martha Grinder tended to her.  After seventeen days of suffering, she died on 1 August 1865, and it was determined she had been poisoned by a mixture of morphine, antimony and arsenic.

Suspicion in the murder soon fell upon Martha Grinder, as James Caruthers pointed the finger to her at the urging of his wife’s doctor. Papers began to call her a modern-day Borgia. This was an allusion to Lucrezia Borgia, a rumored femme fatale who lived during the Renaissance period. Soon, in accusations that echoed the Salem witch hunts of the late 1600s, Mrs. Grinder soon found herself accused of being the culprit of every illness and mysterious death in the neighborhood.

Many of these deaths were founded in some truth.  Martha Grinder was suspected in the deaths of Mrs. Amanda Johnson, her brothers-in-law Jeremiah and Samuel Grinder, and at least one of her own children.  Several other deaths were also blamed on her, though whether or not there was truth to those accusations remains a mystery.  Several others who had eaten food and drink that had been prepared by her over the years had gotten sick, but many of them recovered. No reason was given into why she decided to poison so many people, though it was gossiped that she enjoyed the mania of poisoning.  Some might say she was an angel of death.

One other death was attributed to her, and would later be ascribed rightly so.  Sometime before Mary Caruthers’ death, a Irish immigrant by the name of Jane (also written in newspaper accounts as Jennie or Mary) Buchanan had taken a job as the servant for the Grinder family. Two days into her job, she became ill and a few days after that, she had died from antimony poisoning.

The trial, which caused a sensation in local and national papers at the time, lasted for several days.  Much of the trial focused on whether or not Grinder was insane, as many people could not understand why a sane person would commit such atrocities.  On 29 October 1865, she was found guilty of murder by poisoning in the death of Mary Caruthers.

She was housed in the Allegheny County jail along with the Boyd’s Hill murderers, and when the death warrants for Marchall and Frecke were signed by Governor Andrew G. Curtain and delivered by the Sheriff to the two men, Grinder’s death warrant was also delivered to her.  It was reported that she violently wept upon hearing the death warrant.

On 19 January 1866, exactly one week after Marchall and Frecke were hanged, Martha Grinder was hanged on the same scaffold.  Before her death, she made a confession, acknowledging that she was indeed guilty of the deaths of Mrs. Caruthers and Miss Buchanan, but ascertained that she was not guilty of any other crimes that had been blamed on her.

While not named in any of the articles that reported the hanging, Jacob Bupp supplied the rope that was used, as stated by him in later reported interviews. Also in a later interview (see ""Hanging's the Way" in sources), he had this to say:

"The only hanging I have ever witnessed at which I think the victim suffered was that of an old woman named Mrs. Grinder, who was executed in Pittsburg for poisoning a family of five. She was a terrible creature and had practiced poisoning all the dogs and cats in the neighborhood before murdering human beings. When she went on the platform to be hung I think every spectator prayed that she would suffer. She was given a very short drop and after she fell she kicked minutes. I believe the pain that she endured in that time was sent by God, for heaven knows she deserved it. She was the only person I ever saw hanged that I would sooner have seen electrocuted, because in that way I believe she would have suffered more."

Sources Used and Referenced

"A Borgia!," The Pittsburgh Daily Commercial (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 26 August 1865, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 7 February 2018).

"The Boyd's Hill Murder", Altoona Tribune (Altoona, Pennsylvania), 30 Sept 1865, page 2; online archive, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 2 February 2018)

“The Boyd’s Hill Murder” The Pittsburgh Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 07 October 1865, page 4; online archive, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 1 February 2018)

“The Boyd’s Hill Tragedy” The Pittsburgh Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 12 October 1865, page 4; online archive, Newspapers.com, (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 02 February 2018).

"The Death Penalty," The Pittsburgh Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 6 December 1865, page 4; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 2 February 2018).

"The End," The Pittsburgh Daily Commercial (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 20 January 1866, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 2 February 2018).

"Execution of Mrs. Grinder," Pittsburgh Weekly Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 20 January 1866, page 4; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 October 2017).

"The Gallows: Execution of Daniel Buser and John B. Houser," The Ebensburg Alleghenian (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), 26 April 1866, page 1; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 9 October 2017).

"Hanging's the Way," Pittsburgh Dispatch (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 26 December 1891, page 3; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 12 May 2019).

“Mysterious Murder” The Pittsburgh Daily Commercial (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 25 August 1864, page 4; online archive, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 2 February 2018)

"Poison!," The Pittsburgh Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 16 September 1865, page 4; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 28 October 2017).

"The Poisoning Case," The Pittsburgh Gazette (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 24 October 1865, page 4; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 7 February 2018).

“Retribution,” The Pittsburgh Daily Commercial (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania), 13 Jan 1866, page 1; online archives, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 25 September 2017)

Schneiderman, Laura Malt. "The Pittsburgh Poisoner," Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Notorius Pittsburgh, (https://newsinteractive.post-gazette.com/blog/notorious-pittsburgh/ : accessed 7 February 2017).

“Theft, Burglaries and Murder,” The Brooklyn Daily Eagle (Brooklyn, New York), 26 September 1865, page 2; online archive, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : Accessed 2 February 2018)

White, Thomas. “Murder on Boyd’s Hill”, Forgotten Tales of Pittsburgh (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010), electronic book.