Search results

Title: Desperate conflict in a barn
Description: Engraving depicts an incident that is said to have occurred in a barn in Terrytown, Maryland in 1853. In search of freedom, four Virginia slaves, Robert Jackson, Craven Matterson, and the latter's two brothers escaped and travelled north. In Maryland, they were discovered by a man who saw them hiding in a thicket. According to the accompanying narrative, the man, who "talked like a Quaker," urged them to go to his barn for protection. The man, however, betrayed them, and a group of authorities arrived soon thereafter. A struggle ensued, during the course of which Jackson and Craven were shot, as well as the man who betrayed them., Illustration in William Still's Underground Rail Road: a record of facts, authentic narratives, letters, &c. (Philadelphia: Porter & Coates, 1872), p. 50., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Still 19214.O p 50, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2821

Title: The desperation of a mother
Description: With an axe in one hand and a candle in the other, a slave woman kneels in the cramped attic space where her two young sons sleep on the floor. Hovering above the boys, she shines her light upon them before killing them. According to an accompanying text, she then kills herself., Caption title vignette in the Anti-Slavery Record (New York: Published by R.G. Williams, for the American Anti-Slavery Society, 1835-1837), vol. I, no. 9, p. 97., Small caption underneath the image reads: "Why do you narrate the extraordinary cases of cruelty? These stories will not convert the cruel, and the wound the feelings of masters who are not son." REPLY. Cruelty is the fruit of the system., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Anti-Slavery Movement Imagery.
Date: [September 1835]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per A 245 16998.D v 1 n 9 cover page, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2858

Title: [The rebel pirate's fatal prize]
Description: Image depicts a scene on board the schooner S.J. Waring. The ship's steward William Tillman [i.e., Billy Tilghman], "the brave and daring negro," armed with a hatchet, defends himself and his wife from three men identified as the "Pirate Prize Master, Lieutenant, and Mate," who stand in his doorway. Having learned of their secret plot to sell him and his wife into slavery, Tillman murders them., Vignette on the broadside advertisement for The Rebel Pirate's Fatal Prize (Philadelphia: Reichner & Co., 1862)., Accompanied by the caption: "Back sirs! She is my wife, she is no slave! Seize her at your peril.", Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Resistance.
Date: [1862]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1862 Und (2) 5786.F 46e broadside vignette, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2809

Title: The horrible murder of the Dearing Family The above picture is a correct representation of the interior of the the barn and appearance of the murdered family as sketched by the artist shortly after the discovery of the murder, the murderer is in the act of dragging the bodies of Mrs. Dearing and the children into the adjoining corn crib, seen through the window to the right of the picture. Names of the murdered family: Christopher Dearing, aged 38 years; his wife, Julia Dearing, aged 45 years; their son, John Dearing, aged 8 years; their son, Thomas Dearing, aged 6 years; their daughter, Anna Dearing, aged 4 years; their daughter, Emily Dearing, aged 2 years; his niece [sic], Elizabeth Dolan, aged 25 years; and Cornelius Cary, aged 17 years
Description: News print showing the Philadelphia family murdered by their farmhand Anton Probst at their farm at Jones Lane in South Philadelphia on April 7, 1866. Probst, his face partially covered by the wall above the passageway, drags the body of one of the boys through it to the crib. The goateed murderer drags the boy by his feet, face up, from the pile of corpses laying on the hay covered floor. To the left of the image, Mrs. Dearing lays face down and covered by the bodies of her older children, who lay face up and with slit throats. Her hand is outstretched and resting on the baby, whose throat is also slit. To the right, in front of a barrel below a window, Mr. Dearing lays face up, a slit in his throat, his face covered by hay, and next to family friend Miss Dolan. She lays face down, her arms outstretched and her cross visible from beneath her body. Also shows, a pitchfork and ax propped against the wall in the background across from an opening to another section of the barn where cows stand in stalls. The murdered farmhand, Cary, is not depicted. Probst, a German immigrant and swindler, was a disgruntled former farmhand of the Dearings who murdered the family by hammer and ax for revenge and money. He was convicted in May 1866 and executed the following month at Moyamensing Prison for the largest murder in Philadelphia at that time., Not in Wainwright., Philadelphia on Stone, POS 361, Historical Society of Pennsylvania: Bb 892 D 285
Date: [1866]
Location: Historical Society of Pennsylvania HSP Bb 892 D 285

Title: View of the farm where the murder of the Deering [sic] Family was committed by the fiend Antoine Probst on April 7th 1866
Description: News print showing the farm at Jones Lane in South Philadelphia of the Philadelphia family murdered by their farmhand Anton Probst on April 7, 1866. The victims included Christopher Dearing, aged 38 years; his wife, Julia Dearing, aged 45 years; their son, John Dearing, aged 8 years; their son, Thomas Dearing, aged 6 years; their daughter, Anna Dearing, aged 4 years; their daughter, Emily Dearing, aged 2 years; family friend Elizabeth Dolan, aged 25 years; and fieldhand Cornelius Cary, aged 17 years. Depicts (left to right) "1. The Haystack" where the headless body of the first murdered, field hand Cary, was hidden; "2. The Dwelling" Probst ransacked for money and in which he shaved, changed, napped, and ate after the murder; "3. The Stable" where Probst fed the animals before his departure; and "4. The Barn" where the family was lured one by one, killed, and discovered by neighbors a few days later. Individuals walk the property, including spectators and police, and a cow stands across from two policemen in a field tilled for planting in the foreground. Also shows barren trees, carts, wagons, and other farm equipment. Probst, a German immigrant and swindler, was a disgruntled former farmhand of the Dearings who murdered the family by hammer and ax for revenge and money. He was convicted in May 1866 and executed the following month at Moyamensing Prison for the largest murder in Philadelphia at that time., Not in Wainwright., pdcp00022, Manuscript note on verso: In the ‘neck’ Philada a farm close to the Delaware River., Key to buildings depicted printed below the image., Philadelphia on Stone, Free Library of Philadelphia: Philadelphiana - Farms
Date: [1866]
Location: Free Library of Philadelphia. | Print and Photograph Collection. FLP Philadelphiana - Farms

Title: An accurate sketch from nature, of the exterior and interior of the house no. 39, Nth. Fourth St. Philadelphia, where the atrocious murder of Mrs. Rademacher was committed on the night of the 23d, March 1848, her wounds, and exact position when discovered
Description: Sensational print containing two views of the murder scene of Catherine Rademacher, sister-in-law of lithographer Augustus Kollner. Her husband, Charles L. Rademacher kept a bookstore and medicinal shop on the first floor of the Fourth Street address, and his residence with the Kollner family on the second and third floors. On March 23, 1848, the Rademachers were awakened by an intruder searching their bedroom who beat Rademacher unconscious and slain his wife. A broken knife, resembling a shoemaker's tool, but not the only instrument used in the slaying, was found at the scene. A recently released inmate from Eastern State Penintentiary and German shoemaker, Charles Langfeldt was convicted, and executed on October 20, 1848 for the crime despite his declaration of innocence. Upper view shows the murderer, dressed in black, including a top hat, on the rear shed roof of the red brick residence and store. He approaches an upper floor window with a shutter half open. The lower windows of the building are shuttered and a partial view of a leafless vine climbing an arbor (neighbor's yard) is visible in the left of the image. Lower view shows the bedroom and scene of the crime. The murdered woman, attired in a night dress, lies on the floor, face up, with blood surrounding her upper body. The victim has cut marks on her face, chest, and arm., Her husband lies face down on the bed. His head is positioned near the foot of the mattress. Blood stains his shoulder and the pillows at the head of the bed. Blood splatter is also visible on the wall above and the knob of a door near a dresser in the left corner of the room. Other furniture includes a chair on one side and a night table with wash bowl and pitcher on the other side of the bed. Near another door to the room, the leg of the murderer is visible as he flees through a window adorned with drapery., Manuscript note on recto: Langfelt, pdcc00017, Philadelphia on Stone, POS 9, Free Library of Philadelphia: Castner 19:11
Date: [1848]
Location: Free Library of Philadelphia. | Print and Picture Collection. FLP FLP Castner 19:11

Title: Location of the Halls-Mills murders crime scene, Somerville, New Jersey
Description: Aerial views of the site of the murders of Eleanor Reinhardt Mills, the wife of a New Brunswick janitor, and Edward Wheeler Hall, a New Brunswick Episcopal priest, known as the Halls-Mills murders. The bodies were found at this site in Somerville near New Brunswick, New Jersey on September 16, 1922. The trial began in Somerville in November, 1926, and lasted 30 days. It garnered huge national attention in the newspapers and on radio but in the end no convictions were made and the case remains unsolved., Negative numbers: 6589, 6590.
Creator: Aero Service Corporation, photographer
Date: 1926
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Print Department Aero Service [P.8990.6589; P.8990.6590]

Main menu