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