Sibling Westley Allen was one of the dishonorable profiles in Thomas Byrnes’s book, Professional Criminals of America. On the other side, the criminal antics and depredations of “The.” Allen and his brothers, and the marital discord between his parents, is a subject I’ve explored in an earlier blog project. Moreover, he descended from a Dutch family that had been in New York since the 1600s, and included a Congressman and a namesake who surveyed much of the city of Albany.
Allen in The Gangs of New York, but he is guilty of doing so in his sequel, All Around the Town.Ĭonflating the two families would be entirely detrimental to the Van Allens: Evert Ellis Van Allen, though fully immersed in vice, had a father and four brothers who were ministers. Asbury doesn’t explicitly confuse this “John Allen” with the family of The. Herbert Asbury devoted several pages in Chapter III of The Gangs of New York to a sketch of John Allen and the circumstances of the staged 1868 Water Street revivalist meetings that Allen participated in. Van Allen’s pedigree has been erroneously confused with the family of dive owner Theodore “The.” Allen proprietor of the infamous American Mabille. He could even be found under his real name in city directories.
Wilson reviewing the long tradition of heroic Irish outlaws and revealing the Massachusetts legends and relics about Martin.Īt launch, Thunderbolt and Lightfoot: Exploring an American Folk Legend only has a few pages and posts, but much more is to come!Įven during his lifetime, it was common knowledge in New York City that the real name of dive owner John Allen (“The Wickedest Man in New York”) was E. In this blog project, I attempt to get to the truth of the matter by deconstructing Michael Martin’s confession looking at how the story took on a life of its own in popular culture analyzing the evidence against Relhan and Dr. John Wilson) asserting that they were none other than “Captain Thunderbolt.”
In the decades following his death, Martin’s narrative inspired embellished, fictionalized retellings of the exploits of the highwaymen but also generated separate hysterical accusations against two New Englanders (Richard Relhan and Dr. In that pamphlet, he detailed the story of his life and the robberies he committed with his mentor, John Doherty–aka Captain Thunderbolt–in Ireland and Scotland. He was captured, tried, and executed in Massachusetts in 1821, leaving behind a long confession that became an instant best-seller. The lore surrounding these two has more elements of myth than fact, although Michael Martin–aka “Captain Lightfoot”–was real enough. In this case I’m going back further in time and concentrating on two specific individuals: the highwaymen Captain Thunderbolt and Captain Lightfoot. I’ve kicked off a new (third) blog project that once again looks at the traditions of infamous criminals in America.
0 kommentar(er)
