On this date in 1791, two Rhode Island thiefs named Thomas Mount and James Williams were publicly hanged in Little Rest (present-day Kingston).
A lifelong thief who plundered up and down the Atlantic coast and had the floggings to show for it, Thomas Mount told all about it — and not only his picaresque career but also, once he was knocked down upon the crap and ready to be topped on his way to the crimson ken, I say also the organization and underworld cant of his gang, the Flash Company.
Swells and fine blowens, kick off your crabs and leg-bags, grab a suck, and viddy (okay, that one’s from A Clockwork Orange) … but not here. Friend of the site Anthony Vaver (author of Bound with an Iron Chain and Early American Criminals) has Thomas mounted in a fascinating three-part series on his site, Early American Crime:
Alternatively, peruse the source material, here:
On this day..
- 1780: Johann Heinrich Waser, persecuted whistleblower
- 1919: Frank Willis, but not by Bill Fisk
- 1661: Archibald Campbell
- 2013: Orelesitse Thokamolelo, bad in-law
- 1925: The Sveta Nedelya bombers
- 1994: Charles Rodman Campbell, hanged in Washington
- 1541: Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury
- 1776: Benjamin Harley and Thomas Henman, Smugglerius?
- 1941: Mirjam Sara P., T4 victim
- 1797: Gracchus Babeuf, for the Conspiracy of Equals
- 1525: Thomas Müntzer, prophet of the Peasants' War
- 1610: Francois Ravaillac, because Paris was worth more than a mass