February 18, 1820 was the execution date of South Carolina crime Hall of Famers John and Lavinia Fisher.

By legendary repute the first serial killer in America, Fisher and her husband John were said to lure travelers to their Six Mile Wayfarer House near Ashley Ferry outside Charleston where they’d be poisoned, stabbed, and robbed.

Alas, the Fishers were actually a more conventional sort of brigand.

National Advocate for the Country (New York, N.Y.), January 28, 1820.

Quite incredible legends have been embroidered for this purported Bates Motel of the early Republic: for instance, that their cover was blown by a man named John Peoples/Peeples who grew suspicious enough to avoid drinking the poisoned tea and then sat up all night like young Felix Platter until he caught wind of the imminent attack, sprang out a window, and fled to safety. If so, it was a woeful failure of the period’s journalists merely to report that he had been savagely beaten and robbed.

Instead, these two seemed to be part of a gang of bandits who occupied not only their Six Mile House but also the Five Mile House, and Lavinia wasn’t the only woman in the lot: one Jane Howard was among the half-dozen arrested when the Six Mile lair was raided by a vigilante posse in February 1819, along with William Heyward, James M’Elwray, and Seth Young, along with others uncaptured. (Names via National Advocate, March 3, 1819) Papers of the time slate them with offenses like stealing livestock and highway robbery, and it’s the latter crime — not murder — that brought the Fishers to their gallows.

Either way, Charleston tour guides will tell you that she haunts the old city jail to this day. She’s also famous for her purported last words, “If you have a message you want to send to Hell, give it to me; I’ll carry it,” which might even be a real quote.

On this day..

• 1935: Benita von Falkenhayn and Renate von Natzmer, Germany's last beheadings by axe
• 1974: Khosrow Golsorkhi and Keramat Daneshian, Iranian revolutionaries
• 1836: Felipe Santiago Salaverry, President of Peru
• 1719: Collmore, Hang'd, Quarter'd and his Intrals burn'd
• Corpses Strewn: Collmore and his gang
• 1813: W. Clements, War of 1812 deserter
• 1478: The Duke of Clarence, in a butt of malmsey
• 1862: Margaret Coghlan, the last woman hanged in Tasmania
• 1799: Constantine Hangerli, tax man
• 1957: Walter James Bolton, the last hanged in New Zealand
• 1960: Oliviu Beldeanu, for the Berne incident
• 1957: Dedan Kimathi, Mau Mau commander
• 1873: Vasil Levski, for Bulgarian independence