141
weariness of limbs, insomuch that t is tiresome to
stand erect, or almost to sit. Levison is sick
of dropsy said to be dangerously so. He has scarcely
ventured abroad since his child s death. Mrs L
seems quite impassive as to that event, and but
for her black dress one would not surmise her recent
loss. Cahill has taken up joint-abose with
Sol Eytinge in the basement. He has employ at the
Picayune Ofice. New York is just now en-
veloped in a murder-atmosphere, in consequence
of the peculiarly atrocious butchery of a certain Bond
Street dentist, who on last Friday night was assasina-
ted in his office. The papers are overfull of it,
and nothing else is talked about high or low.
So on Thursday noon comes that little low Londoner
Watson to me, at the European Office requesting
me to go to that of the Sunday Courier to confer
about getting a portrait of the (presumed) murderess.
I comply, see Smith, go to the City Hall, have
an interview with Marsell, the Chief of Police and
got telegraphed up to the 15th Ward Station House,
there obtaining an order of admission to the house at
which the Inquest is in progress. A rabblement as-
sembled outside hailing visitors by the names of the
supposed accomplices and setting up shouts of envy and
execration as they are admitted. Policemen in the
hall, policemen on the staircase, and policemen
and a crowd of others in the lower rooms. The
| Page |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight: page one hundred and forty-nine |
| Description: | Describes visiting the scene of the Burdell murder to do a sketch of Mrs. Cunningham for the ''Courier.'' |
| Date: | 1857-02-07 |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Burdell, Harvey; Cahill, Frank; Cunningham, Emma Augusta; Dentists; Diseases; Eytinge, Solomon; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Levison, Ellen; Levison, William; Levison, William, Mrs.; Murder; Police; Smith, James L.; Sunday courier.; Watson, Frederick |
| Coverage (City/State): | [New York, New York] |
| Coverage (Street): | Bond Street |
| Scan Date: | 2011-02-02 |
| Volume |
| Title: | Thomas Butler Gunn Diaries, Volume Eight |
| Description: | Includes descriptions of the process of publishing his book, ''The Physiology of New-York Boarding Houses;'' his poor mental state upon returning to New York from England; meeting Walt Whitman; visits with Fanny Fern, James Parton, and Harriet Jacobs' daughter Louisa who is living with them; a visit to the Catskill Mountains with the Edwards family; moving into the boarding house at 132 Bleecker Street; working on the publication ''European'' with Colonel Hugh Forbes; the death of publisher William Levison and his daughter Ellen in his boarding house; visiting the scene of the murder of a dentist to get a sketch of the suspect; visiting Newport, Rhode Island, on assignment to sketch for Frank Leslie; and the death of his brother-in-law, Joseph Greatbatch. |
| Subject: | Boardinghouses; Bohemians; Gunn, Thomas Butler; Journalism; Medical care; Mental illness; Publishers and publishing; Travel; Women |
| Coverage (City/State): | New York, New York; Newport, Rhode Island |
| Note: | Thomas Butler Gunn was born February 15, 1826, in Banbury, England, and came to New York in 1849. During the Civil War he worked as a correspondent for the New York Tribune and the New York Evening Post. He returned to England in 1863, and died in Birmingham in April 1903. The collection includes twenty-one volumes of his diaries, including newspaper clippings, letters, photographs, sketches, and various other items inserted by Gunn. Diary entries date from July 7, 1849, to April 7, 1863, and include his experiences with the New York publishing and literary world, his descriptions of boarding houses, his travels throughout the United States, and his experiences traveling with the Federal army as a Civil War correspondent. |
| Publisher: | Missouri History Museum |
| Rights: | Copyright 2011 Missouri History Museum. |
| Source: | Page images, transcriptions, and metadata of the Thomas Butler Gunn diaries have been provided by the Missouri History Museum. |
