"The Meanest Sort of Snake": The Gold Street Murder, Part One

It was early in the morning of June 19, 1867. In a cell in the Brooklyn city jail, an ex-police officer named William Thomas Skidmore committed suicide by slashing his throat with his shaving razor. Norman King, his cellmate, was partly deaf and asleep, so did not hear him for some time. By the time King summoned help, Skidmore was dead.

He was in jail awaiting trial for the murder of an erstwhile friend of his named William Bishop Carr. Rumor had it that they were rivals for a woman, though Carr was a married man. Skidmore had waited for Carr to come out of a saloon, then chased him down and shot him with a contraption called an air gun, that was so unusual that the New York Times devoted almost an entire article to explaining to their readers just what it was (I'll be explaining what it is too, later on).

The murder case received a huge amount of press both in the Times and in the Brooklyn papers. Skidmore was aware of this and had written two letters to be read out after his death: one to his mother, and one to “My Friends and the Public.”

It is in the second of these that I first became aware of the family connection I have to what was known in 1867 as the Air Gun Murder, the Gold Street Assassination, or most commonly the Gold Street Murder.

The letter to the public is dated June 19th, from “Brooklyn Jail Cell No. 12.” He admits in it that he did kill William Bishop Carr but not for money, and that it was the only crime he had ever done “unless it is a crime for being fond of women and liquor.” He writes about the crime, about the police officer who chased and captured him (he was ignoring someone else suspicious, said Skidmore). He mentioned the keys that he had with him when captured, and explains what they were for (I am not sure why).

And then he writes “Now I will answer Mr. Lemuel Hicks.”

Now readers of this blog will know that Lemuel Hicks was my great great great uncle, a photographer in the Eastern District of Brooklyn, whose exploits in court have been detailed here and here. He was a man not unafraid to - let us say - delve into matters of controversy and conflict.

Which was possibly for the best since William T. Skidmore, the Gold Street Murderer, was very angry with him.

Skidmore writes:

[Lemuel Hicks] stated in the Williamsburgh Times of the 23rd of May, that I was born in New York. That is true. That I was of Irish parents - that is not true for they were both born here - and that I was brought up with a low class of loafers. That is not true, unless belonging to the Fire Department makes a man one. He also says that I became acquainted with his sisters about ten years ago. I can’t see any truth in that, for my oldest boy was going on 15 years, and I have two others over 12 years. He still says that he has a suspicion that I poisoned my wife. Now if he has it is very strange, for when his brother Dan and his wife first started that report, I went as soon as I heard it to see what they meant by it, and they told me they thought there had been foul play, and wanted to know if I was willing that the body be taken up [i.e. exhumed]. I told them yes. But when I pressed it, he would not go and make the proper oath, but wanted me to do it myself, as he was some of my own folks.

I then went to see Coroner Lynch, and stated the whole thing to him, and begged him to have the body taken up, to clear him [sic] of that most foul slander, but it was never done. As soon as I am placed where I can’t defend myself, they come out on me like a snake. After I saw Mr. Lynch, I went over to see Mr. Hicks, and he denied saying any such thing; but as soon as I am in jail, he bites at it like the meanest sort of snake.

“Dan and his wife” were my great great grandparents, Daniel Losee and Mary Ann (Barnett) Hicks. And the reason that the Hickses were so involved in trying to find out whether Skidmore had poisoned his wife or not was that she was Susannah Hicks, youngest sister of Daniel, Lemuel and Andrew.

This Hicks connection was confirmed by the New York Times, who identified Skidmore’s late wife as “a sister of ex-Supervisor A.J. Hicks” - Daniel and Lemuel’s brother Andrew Jackson Hicks.

Herbert Furman Seversmith, author of the well-regarded Colonial Families of Long Island, New York and Connecticut, traces the Hicks family into the mid-19th century. His primary source is the Hicks records compiled by Brooklyn genealogist Benjamin D. Hicks (who probably knew a lot of the Brooklyn Hickses anyway). Seversmith writes that Benjamin “collected material for a genealogy from the early 1860s until about 1887.” [p. 1,368]

And he also omitted material. For example, Lemuel’s first wife, the incomparable Lydia, is left out entirely - only his second, more sedate wife Susan Jane Anderson is mentioned. And Susannah (Hicks) Skidmore - for indeed in the 1860 census, William T. Skidmore’s wife is named Susan - is said to have died unmarried in 1868 (she actually died about 1866).

In tomorrow’s post we will look at the events leading up to the William Bishop Carr murder of May 1867.

Image of Gold Street at Johnson near Myrtle (precisely where the murder took place), courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery. For a great look at the Fort Greene area where the murder took place, see here at Forgotten New York.

More on the Gold Street Murder:

Part 2: http://thevirtualdimemuseum.blogspot.com/2008/03/extraordinary-disclosure-of-vice-gold.html

Part 3: http://thevirtualdimemuseum.blogspot.com/2008/03/like-shadow-along-air-gold-street.html

Sources

Seversmith, Herbert Furman. Colonial Families of Long Island, New York and Connecticut, Being the Ancestry and Kindred of Herbert Furman Seversmith; Volume 3, Furman to Howell. Fellow, American Society of Genealogists. (Washington, DC, 1948) See especially p.1,365 (Hicks section). Susannah Hicks, daughter of Stephen and Elizabeth (Losee) Hicks said to be born Sept. 21, 1829, died “unmarried” 8 Nov. 1868 [sic - in 1867 she is described as having died “about a year ago.”]

1860 US Census, 11th Ward Brooklyn, Kings, NY: M653, T10, p. 398:

William T. Skidmore 27y Police Officer $500 pers. NY
Susan Skidmore 30y NY
William Skidmore 7y NY [also known as Charley, prob. William Charles]
Kate Skidmore 6y NY
George Skidmore 4y NY
Edwin Skidmore 1y NY

“The Air Gun Murder: Suicide of Skidmore,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, June 19, 1867, p. 2.

“Probable Murder in Brooklyn,” New York Times, May 22, 1867, p. 8: “[Skidmore’s] wife, who died one year since, was the sister of ex-Supervisor A.J. Hicks, of the Eleventh Ward. Several stories are current as to he cause of his wife’s death, but they do not appear to be reliable in any particular.”