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Category Archives: Criminals

Early American Criminals: William Linsey and the Telltale Candle

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Even though William Linsey was orphaned at a young age, this rough start did not appear to have any negative impact on him. Linsey was originally born in Palmer, MA in 1746, but at the age of two he went to live with Phinehas Mixture in Dudley, MA. By Linsey’s own account, Mixture raised him […]

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Early American Criminals: Joseph Cooper and Philadelphia’s Lime and Onion Burglar

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

In May 1744, Elizabeth Robinson was sentenced at the Old Bailey in London to transportation to the American colonies for her involvement in the theft of 104 China oranges from a warehouse. She was loaded onto the Justitia that same month and eventually landed in Virginia. She ended up in Maryland, where she reportedly continued […]

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Early American Criminals: Matthew Cushing, the First Celebrity Burglar

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

All of you who read these Lines may see The sad and dire Effects of Sin: Therefore if Sinners still you’l be, Leave off to read ere you begin. (from A Few Lines) These lines form the opening of A Few Lines upon the Awful Execution of John Ormesby & Matthew Cushing, one of two […]

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Early American Criminals: Arthur Nottool’s Escape

Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Sometime around midnight on June 10, 1664, Arthur Nottool, a tailor by trade and a servant living in Abington Cliffs, broke into the house of John Hunt of Eltonhead Manor in Calvert County, Maryland. Poking around in the dark, Nottool spotted an open trunk and removed a shirt from it. He also spied a gun, […]

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Early American Criminals: Punishment of the Harvard-Educated Burglars

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Note: This post is the conclusion of the story of the “Harvard-Educated Burglars.” In his History of New England, John Winthrop notes on June 5, 1644, Two of our ministers’ sons, being students in the college, robbed two dwelling houses in the night of some 15 pounds. Being found out, they were ordered by the […]

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