Yesterday's Print

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A collection of old photographs, historic newspaper clippings and assorted excerpts highlighting the parallels of past and present. Featuring weird, funny and baffling headlines, articles and advertisements! Visit www.yesterdays-print.com 

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The Day Book, Chicago, Illinois, August 20, 1912 From Wikipedia: In England, statute 22, passed in 1532 by Henry VIII, made boiling a legal form of capital punishment. It began to be used for murderers who used poisons after the Bishop of Rochester’s...   High-res

The Day Book, Chicago, Illinois, August 20, 1912

From Wikipedia: In England, statute 22, passed in 1532 by Henry VIII, made boiling a legal form of capital punishment. It began to be used for murderers who used poisons after the Bishop of Rochester’s cook, Richard Roose, gave several people poisoned porridge, resulting in two deaths in February 1531.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, July 4, 1908 It was originally believed that the person who sent the bottle of poisoned ale to Dr. Wilson was a man named Frederick Geis, Jr. whose wife, Bess, had died following a botched abortion preformed by the...   High-res

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, July 4, 1908

It was originally believed that the person who sent the bottle of poisoned ale to Dr. Wilson was a man named Frederick Geis, Jr. whose wife, Bess, had died following a botched abortion preformed by the doctor. Fred’s family didn’t even know he’d married Bess, but he claimed they had married secretly in another city (using false names) simply to save her position as school teacher, as at the time teachers had to be spinsters or give up their jobs. Presumably that’s at least part of the reason why Bess had to have the abortion as well. 

The doctor received a bottle purported to be sent as an advertisement for a new type of ale which it was hoped, if he enjoyed it, he would recommend to his “patients and friends”. The brewery it was said to have come from told police that they didn’t use typewriters in making their labels, that the letterhead was not their own, and that they didn’t even make ale. Detectives found the shop where the special “S” key for the type was purchased but not the man who purchased it. 

The express clerk who received the package was also sent an anonymous letter telling him to “go slow, indeed, in identifying anybody in the matter. It would be awful to send anyone to the gallows for putting such an infernal rascal as Wilson out of business”.

Frederick was arrested for killing the doctor in revenge for his wife’s death but was released when it came to light that the bottle had been sent to Dr. Wilson before Bess had died (there was a mix up with the dates, confusing the American system with the European, reading the date as the month and vise-versa). Fred’s arrested came a day or two after this article was published and he was released by July 7th.

On the first anniversary of the doctor’s death a package was mailed to the police from the killer, which included the special “S” keys used to type the bottle’s label, as well as a piece of wood bearing the same hammer impression which was used to package the bottle of ale.

 An article in the The Cincinnati Enquirer written July 16, 1916 shows there was still no clue as to who might have sent Dr. Wilson the poisoned ale.