November 22, 2025 • 49 mins
Seven Dead at Taliesin
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In Episode 46, we relive a somewhat famous crime involving the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the night that his apparently crazed butler -- yes, the butler did it! -- slaughtered seven people at Wright’s Wisconsin rural home he named Taliesen after the ancient Welsh poet, and built as a hide-away for himself and the love of his life, Mamah Borthwick, who was among the dead.
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Jump to the AD-FREE Safe House Edition
In Episode 46, we relive a somewhat famous crime involving the noted architect Frank Lloyd Wright and the night that his apparently crazed butler -- yes, the butler did it! -- slaughtered seven people at Wright’s Wisconsin rural home he named Taliesen after the ancient Welsh poet, and built as a hide-away for himself and the love of his life, Mamah Borthwick, who was among the dead.
Hear More Stories About MASS MURDERERS.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/true-crime-historian--2909311/support.
You can pay more if you want to, but rent at the Safe House is still just a buck a week, and you can get access to over 400 ad-free episodes from the dusty vault, Safe House Exclusives, direct access to the Boss, and whatever personal services you require.
We invite you to our other PULPULAR MEDIA podcasts:
If disaster is more your jam, check out CATASTROPHIC CALAMITIES, telling the stories of famous and forgotten tragedies of the 19th and 20th centuries. What could go wrong? Everything!
For brand-new tales in the old clothes from the golden era of popular literature, give your ears a treat with PULP MAGAZINES with two new stories every week.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Spring, Green, Wisconsin, August sixteenth, nineteen fourteen. Fitful flashes of
lightning tonight revealed the dejected figure of a man kneeling
beside an open grave on a pine clad slope of
hillside valley. Frank Lloyd Wright, bare headed and coatless, wept
(00:25):
alone over the final haven of his soulmate. A low
wind stirred the pine needles, and an occasional drop of
cold rain sprayed the flowers heaped on a plain white
box at the bottom of the grave. The murmur of
the restless Wisconsin River, slipping smoothly through the wood fringes,
accentuated the permanent grief of a heartbroken man. There was
(00:48):
no funeral cortege, no services, no prayers, no casket. It
was dark when the pine box containing the body was
removed from the drawing room of the country home of
Andrew T. Porter, a brother in law of the architect.
Four men carried the box down the hill to the road,
where it was placed on a spring wagon at the
(01:11):
right private burial plot, about a mile from the Love Castle.
The four men carried the box to the edge of
a freshly dug grave and lowered it. Wright took an
armful of flowers from the wagon and sprinkled them over
the grave. He had plucked them during the day from
the dead woman's garden at the Love Castle. Earlier in
(01:36):
the day, two men stood beside two plain, unpainted boxes.
One box contained the body of the woman who bore
two children for one of the men and faced social
exile for the other. The other box contained the bodies
of two children. Neither man spoke. Both were looking across
(01:57):
the valley at the black scar at the top of
the distant Bill, the wrecked monument of the blasted hopes
of four persons, a man and a wife, a husband
and a woman. As four men approached and lifted one
of the boxes, Cheney and Wright broke their dry eyed
reverie and looked at each other. Without saying a word.
(02:19):
They extended their hands in a mutual clasp. Cheney, lowering
his gaze, released the hand and followed the man with
the box down the hill. It contained the bodies of
his two children, and he was taking them home for cremation.
(02:43):
Spring Green, Wisconsin, August fifteenth, nineteen fourteen. A Barbados negro
with a hand axe. Yesterday added the final Crimson chapter
to the free love romance of Frank Lloyd Wright, the
architect and his soul mate, Missus Edwin H. Cheney, who,
since her divorce from mister Cheney, had adopted her maiden
(03:06):
name Mama Borthwick. The negro, maddened perhaps by the discharge
of himself and his wife as house servants, locked the
doors of the beautiful right bungalow, which overlooks the Wisconsin
River at Spring Green, while Mama Borthwick, her two children,
and her husband's six employees were at luncheon mister Wright
(03:28):
was in Chicago. The negro then poured a flood of
gasoline about the place and tossed a match to the stream.
As the fire raced through the house, the man stood
at the point of outrage, guarding a door in a window.
With his hand axe, he cut his victims down one
by one as they leaped from the burning structure. Mama
(03:50):
Borthwick was the first to die, Her two innocent little
children followed. In all, the man killed six and inflicted
injuries on three others. His wife was permitted to run
away unharmed. He himself then ran into the basement of
the burning building and climbed into the unlighted furnace, which
(04:10):
was protected by the fire from iron and brick and asbestos.
It is believed he hoped to crawl through after the
search had been abandoned during the night, and seek safety. However,
after the roused countryside had conducted a three hour search
of the neighborhood with bloodhounds, someone thought to look into
the furnace. They pulled the man forth. He feigning unconsciousness.
(04:36):
He was bundled into an automobile and whisked to Dodgeville,
eighteen miles away. Sheriff J. T. Williams and his deputies,
with drawn weapons, stood off a crowd bearing ropes, who
pursued in three automobiles and vowed they would rest away
the prisoner and lynch him forthwith. On November seventh, nineteen
(04:58):
o nine, the The Tribune first gave to the public
the story of the spiritual hygira of Frank Lloyd Wright
to Mema Borthwick, the home of the eccentric architect in
the right fashioned bungalow of Edwin H. Cheney, electrical engineer,
adjoined each other in Oak Park. Mister Wright left his
wife and two sons. Missus Cheney deserted her husband, a son,
(05:23):
and daughter. After a year in Germany and Japan, the
Elopers startled everybody by returning to Chicago, and Wright chose
the wild Beautiful Place overlooking the Wisconsin River as the
home for himself and his spiritual mate. Mister Cheney divorced
his wife. She took her maiden name, Mema Borthwick. She
(05:46):
also took custody of their children, John who is nine,
and Martha, eleven years old. Missus Wright declined to grant
the architect a divorce, maintaining she loved him and sooner
or later he would return to his right mind. So
it was a peculiar establishment that the architect and Mama
(06:07):
Borthwick set up in Wisconsin. The children retained the name
of Cheney, although they referred to their mother as she
wished them to call her Borthwick. Three months ago, Wright,
who was building the Midway Gardens, told John Vogelsang, the restauranteur,
that he needed a cook and butler. Vogelsang recommended Julian Carlton,
(06:30):
thirty years old, and his wife Gertrude. They had been
employed by Vogelsang at his restaurant at five twenty three
Deming Place, and were considered excellent servants. Mister Wright had
undertaken to install an extensive exhibit at the San Francisco Exhibition.
For this reason, he had taken a number of his
(06:51):
employees to the Spring Green Bungalow, where they could put
in extra time undisturbed by the excitement of city life.
Mama Borthwick, who took a great interest in Wright's work,
divided her time between making suggestions to the men and
writing a book. On Tuesday, Wright kissed Mama Borthwick goodbye
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and ran into Chicago to oversee his office. There. In
the interim, something caused Mama Borthwick to dislike Carlton. Whatever
it was may never be known. Visitors to the place
say mister Wright and Missus Borthwick had called them ideal servants.
Missus Borthwick is said to have used the expression they're
(07:33):
really too good to be true. One of the survivors
of the tragedy said whatever happened had led Mama Borthwick
to tell the negro and his wife their time would
be up on Saturday night. Matters appeared to have progressed
as usual, however, until a little before noon yesterday, Mama
Borthwick had requested the butler to serve luncheon for herself
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and the children in an enclosed, screened porch which overlooks
a little pond and the river beyond. It is separated
from the main dining room of the low Rambling house
by a passageway at least twenty five feet long. Carlton
announced the luncheon into the main dining room at the
west side of the house. Went the two draftsmen, Fritz
(08:16):
who lives in Chicago, Emil Bordell's who lives in Milwaukee,
Tom Bronker, the foreman, David Lyndbloom, the gardener William Weston,
the carpenter, and Ernest, his thirteen year old son. Carlton
saw them seated, then he slipped quietly without and fastened
(08:37):
all the doors and windows. He then drew some buckets
of gasoline from a barrel right kept for his automobile
and splashed it about the front part of the house.
Apparently he warned his wife to run. The servant threw
a match into the flood, and is then believed to
have seized his hatchet and dashed to the porch where
(08:58):
Missus Borthwick and her two cho children were sitting, He
cleft the woman's skull with a clean blow. He turned
and hit little John. The child died in his chair,
where his charred body was found later. Martha, who was
a year older than her brother, apparently was running when
the man struck her. She was found lying in the
(09:21):
broad open court that is part of the interior of
the house. The blow from the hatchet had killed her.
The butler then opened the door to the main dining room,
threw a bucket of gasoline over the floor, tossed a
lighted match within, closed and locked the door from the outside.
Then he took a stand at the northeast corner of
(09:43):
the house, overlooking doors and windows. William Weston broke down
the door just as Fritz hurled himself through a window
of the living room and rolled down the hill to
the creek. The man dashed at Weston and chopped at
his head as the carpenter thrust it out the door.
The butler then pulled the carpenter out of the way
(10:03):
and brained Tom Brunker as he followed Weston. Ernest Weston,
the carpenter's thirteen year old son, who was being taught
draftsmanship by right, was the next one the man cut
him on the head three times. He then dashed around
to the living room window in time to catch David
lynd Bloom, who was burned and cut. I was eating
(10:26):
in the small dining room off the kitchen with the
other men, said Fritz. The room, I should say, was
about twelve by twelve feet in size. There were two doors,
one leading to the kitchen and the other opening into
the court. We had just been served by Carlton, and
he had left the room when we noticed something flowing
under the screen door from the court. We thought it
(10:48):
was nothing but soap SuDS spilled outside. The liquid ran
under my chair, and I noticed the odor of gasoline.
Just as I was about to remark the fact, a
streak of flame shot under my chair, and it looked
like the whole side of the room was on fire.
All of us jumped up, and I first noticed that
(11:08):
my clothing was on fire. The window was nearer to
me than the other door, and so I jumped through it,
intending to run down the hill to the creek and
roll in it. It may be that the other door
was locked. I don't know. I didn't think to try it.
My first thought was to save myself The window was
only about half a foot from the floor and three
(11:28):
feet wide, and it was the quickest way out. I
plunged through and landed on the rocks outside. My arm
was broken by the fall, and the flames had eaten
through my clothing and were burning me. I rolled over
and over down the hill toward the creek, but stopped
about half way. The fire in my clothes was out
by that time, and I scrambled to my feet and
(11:51):
was about to start back up the hill when I
saw Carlton come running around the house with a hatchet
in his hand and strike Brodell, who had followed me
through the winds. Then I saw Carlton run back around
the house, and I followed him in time to see
him striking at the others as they came through the
door into the court. He evidently had expected us to
come out that way first and was waiting there, but
(12:13):
ran around to the side in which the window was
located when he saw me and brodel jump out. I
didn't see which way Carlton went. My arm was painting me,
and I was suffering terribly from the burns, and I
suppose I must have lost consciousness for a few moments.
I remember staggering around the corner of the house and
seeing Carlton strike at the other men as they came
(12:34):
through the door, And when I looked again, the negro
had gone. Fritz and Line Bloom dragged the bodies of
the dead and injured from the burning structure. By this time,
the flames were rising high in the air, and bells
and whistles summoned the neighbors from the countryside. Within an
hour after the murders, more than seven hundred farmers, their
(12:56):
wives and children were gathered about the burning bungalow. While
some fought the fire, the others were beating the cornfields
for several miles in every direction for a trace of
the murderer. A short distance away is the private school
conducted by the Missus Jones, sisters of the Reverend Jenkin
Lloyd Jones of Chicago, at Tower Hill. The wounded were
(13:19):
carried there as fast as possible, under the direction of
the reverend mister Jones, who is an uncle of mister
Wright and at present on a vacation there. The dead
were taken to the home of Andrew Porter, mister Wright's
brother in law, a half a mile from the Bungalow.
The Weston Boy and Brunker were taken there and died
shortly afterward. A statement was obtained from Bunker before he died.
(13:44):
The chief of police of Hillside obtained a description of
the man and wired it immediately to all points along
the railroad lines within a radius of fifty miles. The
whole countryside was informed of the tragedy by telephone. All
the farmers and their families for miles around were acquainted
with the story of the right spiritual Hijira and the love.
(14:07):
Bungalow was a showplace. This notoriety aided in the search,
and with an hour Carlton's wife was found hiding in
a clump of bushes by the roadside, three miles from Taliessen.
Mister Wright's name for his Wisconsin retreat, Doctor Jones, personally
headed one of the posses. One of his sisters telephoned
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Missus Jane Lloyd Porter, mister Wright's sister, who was spending
the day in Madison, to hurry to Spring Green with
nurses and medical supplies. Missus Porter was able to obtain
the services of two trained nurses, and they left for
the temporary hospital at Tower Hill On a seven o'clock
train from Madison. It was about dosk when men searching
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the ruins heard a noise in the furnace in a
portion of the house far away from the burned rooms.
Sheriff J. T. Williams was notified there seemed to be
somebody in the furnace. He pulled open the door. The
man had crawled in feet first. He emitted a moan
when discovered. The sheriff and his helpers roughly dragged the
(15:09):
butler forth. He moaned the one word acid, then tried
to feign unconsciousness. The sheriff bundled him off to Dodgeville
to prevent a lynching. The three automobile loads of farmers,
who at one time stormed the Love bungalow because of
their outraged feelings over the elopement, were ready in a
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moment now to string him up. The guns of the
sheriff and his posse stood them off. Enus Lloyd Jones
and uncle of Wright, who was a Justice of the Peace,
impaneled a coroner's jury immediately, and depositions of the various
witnesses to the crime were taken. Justice Jones was assisted
by District Attorney Thomas O'Neill, who was summoned from his
(15:53):
home in Dodgeville. The jury returned a verdict stating the
six victims had met their deaths at the hand Julian Carlton.
Mister Wright was notified of the tragedy at his office
in the Orchestra Building by long distance telephone. Mister Wright
almost collapsed when the news first reached him. He got
(16:13):
the tragic long distance telephone message while at Midway Gardens,
the new south Side amusement park which he designed. This
is Frank Roth at Madison, came a voice over the wire.
Be prepared for a shock. Your wife, that is missus Cheney,
and the two children, and the one of your draftsmen
has been killed by Carlton. Carlton set fire to the
(16:35):
bungalow and got away. He must have gone crazy. A
posse is chasing him. You better get to spring Green
right away. Roth, from whom the message came, is a
friend of the architect. Subsequently, Wright received a telegram from
spring Lake, signed with the initials of Missus Cheney or
Mamon Borthwick, as she now calls herself, Come as fast
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as possible. Serious trouble was her message. Efforts made by
right to get a telephone wire to spring Green were unsuccessful.
Fearing the telegram from Missus Borthwick might have been sent
before the tragedy, he got into communication with the telegraph office.
The message, signed M B B was filed at two
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o'clock was the reply. Mister Wright called up Sherman Booth,
his lawyer and a personal friend, and the two started
for spring Green together on a Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint
Paul train, leaving Chicago early in the evening. The Bungalow
is four miles from the village and remote in the
southern Wisconsin Hills. On the same train with him was
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Edwin H. Cheney, husband of Mama Borthwick and father of
the two children who were killed. The architect was so
distraught he could not tell a coherent story to the detectives.
The Carltons, Julian and his wife were the best servants
I have ever seen, he said. The wife cooked and
Julian was a general handyman. They were Cuban negroes, and
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Julian especially seemed to have an education above the average.
They had not been engaged permanently and were to have
quit our employ to day. Julian was to have started
for Chicago on the seven forty five train this morning.
The train would have reached the city shortly after one o'clock,
and he was to have visited my office to get
(18:26):
his wages three days ago. When I last saw him,
he seemed perfectly normal. He must have lost his mind.
Yet I cannot believe that the news is true. The
fact that the telegram signed M. B B was received
after the alleged murders buoys all my hopes. Mister Wright
has gained an international reputation as a founder of a
(18:49):
new school of design. His bungalows, built on low broad
lines are known the world over. He designed the Abraham
Lincoln Center. His latest work was the design for the
new Midway Gardens at Cottage Grove Avenue in the Midway,
on part of the side of the old Sansusi Park.
(19:09):
There is not a curved line in the whole structure,
even the statues and carvings possessing a cubist angular effect.
Right is at work on a design for the Imperial
Hotel to be built in Tokyo, Japan. He designed the
Hillside Home School at Tower Hill, near his Spring Green bungalow,
which is conducted by his aunts, Miss Jane Jones and
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Miss Allen C. Lloyd Jones. He also designed the bank
at Spring Green. He is an enthusiastic connoisseur of Japanese
prints and has a collection of them, valued at thousands
of dollars. Many of them are kept in a safe
at the Bungalow. MAE. M. Borthwick was a graduate of
the University of Michigan. Mister Cheney graduated from the same university,
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and the two first met during their college days. The
courtship did not begin, however, until mister Cheney came to
Chicago and Miss Borthwick was then in charge of the
public library at Port Huron, Michigan. Their courtship, it is said,
was unusual, as mister Cheney was an impetuous suitor and
made many trips to Port Huron, despite the fact that
(20:19):
he received just as many rebuffs. Missus Cheney saw little
of her children, it was said when she was at
home with them, employing a governess who had almost entire
charge of them. Her sister, Miss Lizzie Borthwick, resided with
them for years. The Rights and Cheneys were neighbors and
intimate friends in Oak Park, Missus Wright and missus Cheney
(20:42):
were both members of the Oak Park Women's Club. They
moved in the same social circles. The two fathers were friends.
It was the old old story of temperament. Wright thinks
this was the cause of the divergence. Missus Wright was
devoting herself off to her children, he was devoting himself
(21:03):
to architecture. Missus Cheney and Wright were thrown together constantly
when the latter was commissioned by mister Cheney to design
the bungalow in which he now resides at five twenty
eight Northeast Avenue, Oak Park. The house was to be
built along lines suggested by missus Cheney, and she and
Wright had frequent conferences. Then, Wright says he discovered missus
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Cheney was more nearly on his plane of thought, and
that she sympathized with him, shared his ideals, appreciated his efforts,
and gave him the inspiration for work which he complained
he could not draw from the companionship at his own fireside.
Missus Wright had her life in her children, said the architect,
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and I in my work. So we grew apart. She
did not understand my going away, and she does not
understand it now. I went because I found my life
confused in my situation and discordant. I hope always to
be able to provide for Missus Right and my children,
and I mean to be something helpful and suggestive of
better things for them, even if I am only in
(22:10):
the shadow behind them. When they get a little older,
I hope they will see me in a different light.
The time is coming when people will understand what it
means to say a wife is not the property of
her husband, and that a husband is not the property
of his wife. I am not any woman's property. I
never happen to belong to any woman in that way,
(22:31):
any more than Mama Borthwick ever belonged to any man
in that way. The family in which the old patriarchal
ideal that the head of the house owns this wife
and children, body and soul, is still common, but it
will die. Marriage ought to be put on an economic basis.
I have no reason to expect Missus Wright will sue
(22:52):
for divorce. Most of this happened long before Wright and
Maema Borthwick began to dream of a spiritual hijira. It
was after the European trip and the Cheney divorce that
they began to plan a flight into the wilderness. Mama
Borthwick had not been so frank as to say what
was going on in her mind during the year or
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two before the break up in the Right and Cheney families,
but the subsequent events suggested she was in full sympathy
with the right notions as to the limitations of one's
duty to wife, to children, and to society. Then came
the disclosure that disturbed Oak Park Society for weeks. News
was brought from Europe that mister Wright and the then
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missus Cheney were touring the continent together. That was in
late nineteen o nine. The two did not go to
Europe together. The architect led the way. Missus Cheney, at
that time, was in Bolder, Colorado with her children. One
day she wrote to mister Cheney asking him to come
and get the children. When mister Cheney reached his destination,
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his wife had already gone. At about the same time time,
mister Wright left for Berlin with the intention of having
some books on architectural subjects published. It is believed that
the two met in New York and took the same
steamer across the Atlantic. On November seventh, nineteen o nine,
the Tribune published the first news of the flight of
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the soulmates. Even the closest friends of the two families
had been unaware of the European hijira. Until that time.
Missus Wright had been left to care for her six
children in the Oak Park bungalow, which her husband had designed.
She sent her oldest son, Frank Lloyd Wright Junior, to
Germany to induce her husband to return to her. The
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Sun's mission failed, and he returned to his work in
the office of a New York architectural publishing firm. Later,
the Sun made another trip abroad, with no better results.
In September nineteen ten, word was received by Missus Wright
that her husband was coming back. Shortly afterward, mister Right
(25:01):
and missus Cheney arrived in New York. While there, the
architect visited the publishing firm, and missus Cheney accompanied him.
The son saw his father but did not greet him
at once. He waited until missus Cheney had walked out
into the corridor, and then, approaching his father, said I've
waited for just such a chance to pay you back
(25:22):
for the way you have treated mother. The boy then
struck mister Wright knocked him down and blackened both eyes.
In August nineteen ten, after Missus Right had learned that
her husband and Missus Cheney had been together in various cities,
she said, I still love my husband and cherished no
hard feelings against him on account of anything that has happened.
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I feel no resentment towards Missus Cheney, but I believe
she has queer ideas. During his European tour, mister Wright
was much faded by architects and artists. His reception in
Germany was particularly cordial. It was believed that there he
had something really new and worth while in his profession
to offer the world. He had cut himself loose from
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the Greek, Roman and Gothic influences. Missus Cheney spent part
of her time taking a course of study in Leipzig.
She had interested herself in the old and new philosophies
of living and found what was to her a justification
for the spiritual hijira, which the right Cheney flight came
to be called. She began to talk of the mating
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of souls and the realization of self and the attainment
of the ideal, the higher perception of duty many like
phrases formed themselves in her mind. Mister Wright returned to
Chicago the following month and went back to live with
his family. Missus Cheney returned too, but did not go
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to her husband's residence. Shortly afterward, mister Wright built a
partition in his home. He lived on one side of
it and Missus Wright on the other. The children were
the only ones to whom the freedom of the entire
house was granted. Six months later, the partition was torn
down and it was reported that a full reconciliation had
(27:11):
been effected. On August fifth, nineteen eleven, mister Cheney was
granted an absolute divorce by Judge Theodore Brentano. The only
ground given was desertion. Mister Wright's name did not come
up in connection with the suit. Missus Cheney then applied
to the court to restore her maiden name, and this
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was granted. A short time thereafter, she was dropped from
the rolls of membership of the Oak Park Congregational Church.
Shortly before Christmas of the same year, friends of the
two families were startled to learn that mister Wright had
slipped away on a second hijira. The bungalow at Spring
Green was nearing completion, and the couple had established themselves
(27:56):
there comfortably. Missus Borthwick announced that she was to devote
the rest of her life to literary work. She was
engaged in translating some of ellen Key's commentaries on Free Love.
At that time. Mister Wright made a long statement explaining
their relations to the public, reading, let there be no misunderstanding.
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Missus E. H. Cheney never existed for me and now
is no more in fact, But Mama Borthwick is here,
and I intend to take care of her. To answer
a specific question would be of no value. The solution
of this case will be individual, as it must be
in any case, and worked out by honest living, not
(28:37):
by patching broken conventions, nursing wounded sensibilities, or hiding behind expediences.
No one will suffer owing to my neglect of any
rational obligation, economic or otherwise. Meantime, the public will be
asked for absolutely nothing except opportunity to work exactly as before,
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which is likely to be deny. For that matter touches
the social fabric in a rotten spot. A written contract
does not make a marriage, nor keep it holy. We
depend too much on outward forms and are too careless
of the spirit beneath them. Integrity of life means unity
of thought and feeling and action, and therefore a struggle
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to square one's self with one's life, and failing to
do this, to square one's life with one's self. Every
man with ideals and a work to do. In consequence,
is elevated by the vision in his soul and consumed
by the desire to make it come true. Missus Borthwick
was a woman of unusual education, keenly interested in fiction
(29:43):
and drama as well as in feminism. After she came
to Chicago, she attended lectures at the University of Chicago,
where for a time she was a student under Robert Herrick.
She was ambitious to become a writer, but so diffident
of her talent that she published no original work. However,
she translated two books by Ellen Key, the Swedish feminist.
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One of these was called The Torpedo under the Ark,
and the other was The Woman Movement. A month ago,
mister Wright suggested to her that it would be amusing
to edit The Home News, a weekly newspaper published in
Spring Green. Mister Wright laughingly suggested that if she wanted
to make the Home News as well as William Allen
(30:28):
White's Emporia Gazette. He would buy it and give it
to her. Missus Borthwick, partly through her desire to take
an active part in the community, and partly through her
eagerness to have regular and interesting work of her own,
took this suggestion seriously. Mister Wright thereupon proceeded to make
good his offer until the Tribune assured them their son
(30:51):
was more of a hero than a fit subject for
a hospital. Was anxiety in the home of Ernest Fritz,
father of Herbert Fritz, nineteen Gladys Avenue, despite the fact
that the nineteen year old son had sent the following telegram,
Dear mother, our house burned. Am all right? Don't worry Herbert?
(31:12):
Is he dead? Pleaded the mother to the reporter who
visited their home. The telegram has heartened me. I want
to know the truth. After being assured the Tribune's men
at spring Green could not be mistaken and that her
son was only slightly injured, she was contented enjoy ad
free listening at the safe house. Dubbadubbadubba dot Patreon dot com,
(31:36):
slash true crime historian, spring Green, Wisconsin, August sixteenth, nineteen fourteen.
A man, firm faced, pale, strained with anguish beyond tears,
stood tonight at the head of an open grave in
hillside valley. Cloud rack of a passing storms splattered drops
(32:01):
of cold rain at open spots. Blue moonlight filtered through,
lighting the gravestones against the shadows of the wooded hills.
Fireflies gleamed in the thickets, and the chirps of the
insects rose in chorus. Frank Lloyd Wright was there to
bid farewell to Mama Borthwick, the builder of the love
(32:24):
bungalow in the hills of Spring Green, stood alone at
the end of his spiritual hygia. The woman, slain by
a frenzied axemn and incendiary, was laid to rest in
the hills where she made herself an exile for an
unconventional love. The burial of Missus Borthwick was marked by
(32:46):
the same disregard of the cannons as her life. She
went to the grave under the code she and the
man she loved had made for themselves, with no word
to others and no announcement of plans. Wright called his
nephews Orin and Ralph Lloyd Jones. After sundown, they were
joined by John Lloyd Wright, son of the architect. They
(33:09):
took the body of Missus Borthwick from the home of
Missus Andrew t Porter, sister of mister Wright, and placed
it in a pine box, uncovered and unornamented. The funeral
party of four started for the waiting grave at the
cemetery a half mile away. The nephews led the horses,
while Wright and his sons followed slowly behind. At the grave,
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the body was lowered with gentle hands, then the nephews
and son withdrew at a sign from mister Wright. He
stood long alone at the grave, looking out across the valley.
There was no spoken prayer, no word as he stood
alone in the night. Heaped about the grave were flowers, ruddy,
(33:58):
brilliant zenias, blazing nasturtiums, red and gold, and great purple dahlias,
all taken by Right's own hands from the garden Mama
of the Hills had tended at the Love bungalow far
in the night. The flowers were laid over the pine
coffin and the grave filled. Wright walked ahead and alone
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as the burial party left the cemetery. The turf, thick,
carpeted and strewn with the brown needles of the pines,
gave no sound of footsteps. The mourner moved with slow
but even stride through the gloom of the lanes leading
back to the Hillside Valley Colony. The bodies of the
(34:41):
dead woman's children have been sent back to Chicago for
cremation in the charge of Edwin H. Cheney, the man
she left for right. Mister Cheney departed with a farewell
to mister Wright, made dramatic by its simplicity. He gave
no sign or word of interest in the burial of
the woman who had been his wife for years. Tomorrow,
(35:03):
the funerals of the other two victims of the Bungalow
murder will be held. Insanity remains the only explanation of
the murders committed by Julian Carlton, the Chicago butler at
the right Bungalow. Officials say the case has been moved
to Dodgeville in Iowa County, where Carlton, at the county jail,
is undergoing a third degree fire of questioning his wife, Gertrude.
(35:28):
Removed from Spring Green today, is held in the same jail.
Frightened at the expectation of the death penalty through his
ignorance of the Wisconsin Code, Carlton, when committed to his cell,
blurted out there was a reason for this, and before
I die, I will tell you. Pushed by Sheriff J. T. Williams,
Carlton refused to elaborate his statement. Tonight, he answered his
(35:52):
inquisitors with an attempted story of self defense. They were
picking on me. I had to fight. The man's wife
said she believed him insane, and told of hallucinations of
persecution which drove him to frequent threats of violence. He had,
at times, she said, taken a hatchet to bed with him.
(36:12):
At the Right Bungalow, the sleepy guards of the Right
Rifles greeted the break of day from the still smoking
ruins of the bungalow, overlooking the hillside valley and the
Wisconsin River. A bloodhound brought for a man hunt, which
ended with the discovery of the slayer hidden in the
furnace among the ruins. Lumbered to his feet and shook
(36:33):
the chain that tethered him to the quaint artistry of
the schloss gate. The hound sniffed uneasily at the ground
at his feet, the spot where five lives were taken
the day before and bayed at the dawn. Down across
the valley of Wright's landscaped Eden Kingdom. A farm hand
drove a herd of prize cows to the milking sheds
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to the tinkling accompaniment of the bell cow's music. A
turtle dove set up a melody of doleful tones from
an overhanging pine. A cock sparrow, as vociferous and cosmopolitan
as a city bred brothers set up a row in
the trampled lojia. The routine of the day had begun
in the valley. Hundreds flocked to the borders of the
(37:20):
love Bungalow estate, and automobiles and carriages. Countrymen arrived before
nightfall with heavy rifles and it stood guard, and only
officials or those bearing written permits from Frank Lloyd Wright
were admitted. A great crowd gathered at the big iron
gate in the stone wall, at the main entrance to
(37:40):
the estate, a quarter of a mile away. Frank Lloyd
Wright and Edwin H. Cheney, the soulmate husband and the
husband who was rose from a night of restless naps
and snatches of sleep to meet at breakfast at the
home of mister and missus Andrew T. Porter Wright's sister.
It was a meal of tedious, half hearted attempts at eating,
(38:04):
and few words. Separately. Mister Wright and mister Cheney walked
over the trail to the bungalow and stirred about the ruins.
Here and there, the sight of shattered, burned treasures caught
the eye of Right. He stopped and pulled a broken
piece of porcelain vase from the ashes, Satsuma two hundred
(38:26):
fifty dollars in Japan, he said, as though addressing himself.
A lump of crumbling mortar rattled down, stirring a pile
of crinkly ashes, exposing a pile of burned scraps bright
with color. He fingered them over, then let them flutter
away in the breeze. They were the fragments of what
(38:47):
had been a fortune in rare old Japanese prints. Bare headed,
his long gray sprinkled hair tangled, and in the suit
in which he hurried away from his Chicago office, Right
pursued his inventory of loss. I will rebuild it, all,
every line of it, as it was before she His
(39:10):
voice died, and he stood musing, this is home. He said.
A broken dahlia stem at the edge of a flower
border attracted his attention. He lifted the crushed flower, pinched
the earth about it, and gave it a new lease
of life. He cast a glance at the ugly rust
(39:32):
red stains in the path, and strode away. In the afternoon,
at the Porter home, there was a half whispered conversation
between mister Wright and mister Cheney. The question of the
disposal of the bodies of their dead. The exiled Mama
of the Hills and her children, John and Martha was
(39:53):
to be settled once years ago. Cheney ventured. She said
that if anything ever happened to the children, I want
their bodies cremated. I will take the bodies of the
children to Chicago to fulfill that wish. No word was
spoken between the men concerning Missus Borthwick. Mister Cheney took
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the position that he has assumed through the years of
unconventional romance of his wife and the other man, that
concerning her he had nothing to say. It was not
recalled at this conference that Missus Borthwick had ever expressed
the desire and connection with death or funeral, we will
bury her here, Wright announced and sent out a friend
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with a message to the sexton of the little Nameless
Cemetery of Hillside Valley. In the darkened drawing room of
the Porter residence lay what remained of the bodies of
the five dead. Wright passed through with his face averted
from the outspread sheet that covered the flame scarred body
of missus Borthwick. Late in the afternoon, Cheney and Wright
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drew together on the broad lawn of the Porter home.
Two automobiles were waiting, one for the body of Brodell,
the other for mister Cheney. And is dead. I'm going now, goodbye.
Ed right clasped Cheney's hand, and they stood looking into
each other's eyes. Goodbye, Frank. There was no trouble in
(41:22):
their voices. At the farewell, they spoke as men with
an understanding. Cheney stepped into his automobile beside the small
wooden box that held the bodies of his children, and
rolled away without a glance back at the place where
the woman who was once his wife lay dead. At
the station in spring Green, mister Cheney personally saw to
(41:45):
the placing of the bodies on the train and read
a pile of messages from condolence from the Oak Park friends.
You were not remaining for the burial of Missus Borthwick,
he was asked. No, he answered slowly, I am only
here to take the bodies of my children home for cremation.
You may say, however, there will be no funeral, either
(42:06):
here or in Chicago. Concerning Missus Borthwick. You must talk
to someone else, he deliberated, and did not utter the
name of right. Will you take any part in the
prosecution of Carlton? I don't know. I do not know
even what happened. Until I do, I shall not know
(42:27):
what I will do. Mister Cheney was eager for news
from the jail at Dodgeville. He was told there was
every evidence of the insanity of Carlton. Do you believe
there could have been any other explanation of the crime.
There are rumors, you know. I am sure that he
was insane and that there was no other reason. Cheney
replied with firmness in his subdued voice. A guard of
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nine deputy sheriffs stand watch over Julian Carlton, the slayer.
Threats of a lynching rising at various settlements in the
surrounding region have influenced Sheriff J. T. Williams to take
special precautions. Gertrude Carlton, wife of the prisoner and witness
of the crime Saturday, was today transferred to the Dodgeville Jail. Carlton,
(43:15):
recovering from the effects of a poison taking in an
attempt at self destruction after the murders, tried to build
a story of self defense as he sat through the
long night ordeal of the third degree. They jumped on
me and I had to fight, he said. The sheriff
is attempting to find a motive for the crime. He
(43:37):
admits he went to Chicago a week ago, said Sheriff Williams,
but he refused to tell why or whom he saw there.
I do not believe the negro is insane. His wife
gave information tending to show that her husband was insane.
Carlton as a black squat man and was once a
pullman porter, besides recently being a servant to John Vogel,
(44:00):
saying Chicago restauranteur. The Carltons were employed by Right two
months ago. We were well treated and we liked the place,
the woman said. But my husband had the notion that
he was being pursued. He recently got to waking me
in the night at our quarters in the bungalow to
listen for noises. They're trying to get me, he kept saying.
(44:23):
Then sometimes he would choke me and threaten to knock
my brains out. He took that hatchet to bed with him.
Two weeks ago he forced me to tell Missus Borthwick
that we were going to quit because I was lonesome.
Then a week ago he kept saying he was going
to Madison to see a dentist. The next day I
got a message from him in Chicago, but he would
not tell me why he went there. Saturday, he served
(44:46):
the lunch and went to the court with a pail
of gasoline. I saw him start to dip a rug
in the gasoline. Then he struck a match and lighted
his pipe. I went into the kitchen and a minute
later the whole place was afire. I saw while Julian
running toward the barn with the hatchet in his hand.
I ran into the basement, tried a door, and then
(45:06):
jumped out a window and ran down the road towards
Spring Green. I didn't see my husband hit anybody, and
I did not know anything until I was arrested on
the road to town. Acquaintances of Julian Carlton, who knew
him when he lived on the south side black Belt,
declared that he possesses all of the attributes of an
insane man. They say he acted queerly, and that his
(45:28):
wife was in mortal terror of him at times, and
that his fury aroused when he played cards and lost
was uncontrollable. He would leap about like a wild man.
At other times he was morose and sullen, avoided other
persons and gave every evidence of being a moron. He
had few friends and told the few he had, but
(45:50):
little of his past life. Hardly anything is known of him.
Before he went to work for the vogel Sangs, he
was employed as a sort of assistant to the janitor
of the France Willard's School for a month early in
the year. He helped to clean up the school building
and grounds, and did what odd jobs he could in
the neighborhood to earn a few dollars. He worried over
(46:11):
financial matters continually. Maurice Dorsey, an employee in Vogelsang's restaurant
said Carlton and his wife visited his house frequently. He
said they had told him they would see him when
they came to Chicago this week. Dorsey's wife said Carlton
was very excitable. He seemed to be nervous and quivering
(46:32):
all the time. She said he'd fly off the handle
at the slightest provocation. I remember one time when I
gave a whist party and he was playing. All of
a sudden he jumped up and let out a yell
that scared us all nearly to death. All of the
women started to run out, thinking he had gone crazy,
but he sat down, trembling and mumbled a few words
(46:53):
of apology. His mind always seemed to be wandering away
from what he was doing, and what little talked thing
he did was about his poor circumstances and how afraid
he was that he wasn't going to get along. After
they left the employee of mister Vogelsang, the Carltons lived
for a while on Evans Avenue. They shunned the neighbors
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and formed few acquaintanceships. Carlton's wife would flee from their
home in terror at her life at times, and usually
sought refuge in the home of missus Harry long as
far as I could learn. They had been married for
two years, said the latter. I didn't like Carlton and
was afraid of him. He always did look queer to me.
I thought he was off all along. His wife was
(47:37):
afraid of him too. She'd come here often, all trembling
and nervous and say he had tried to frighten her.
She said he'd get spells where he was wild eyed,
and do such strange things that she feared for her life. Dodgeville, Wisconsin,
October seventh, nineteen fourteen. Death to Day solved the problem
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of the trial of Julian Carlton, the Chicago man who
killed Mama Borthwick and five other persons at Frank Lloyd
Writ's bungalow at Spring Green on August sixteenth. The man
died in the county jail here from the effects of
poison which he took on the scene of his crime. Carlton,
apparently the victim of a seizure of insanity, served luncheon
(48:26):
to the members of the Right Establishment, then swooped down
upon them at a table with a bucket of blazing gasolene.
Because of the fears of lynching, authorities took Carlton to
the adjoining county and locked him up in the Dodgeville Jail.
Carlton remained in the state of semi torpor there until
his death. No coherent statement was gained from him. In
(48:49):
view of Carlton's condition, the officials were unable to establish
a motive, and the question of procedure against him was
never settled.
Spring, Green, Wisconsin, August sixteenth, nineteen fourteen. Fitful flashes of
lightning tonight revealed the dejected figure of a man kneeling
beside an open grave on a pine clad slope of
hillside valley. Frank Lloyd Wright, bare headed and coatless, wept
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alone over the final haven of his soulmate. A low
wind stirred the pine needles, and an occasional drop of
cold rain sprayed the flowers heaped on a plain white
box at the bottom of the grave. The murmur of
the restless Wisconsin River, slipping smoothly through the wood fringes,
accentuated the permanent grief of a heartbroken man. There was
(00:48):
no funeral cortege, no services, no prayers, no casket. It
was dark when the pine box containing the body was
removed from the drawing room of the country home of
Andrew T. Porter, a brother in law of the architect.
Four men carried the box down the hill to the road,
where it was placed on a spring wagon at the
(01:11):
right private burial plot, about a mile from the Love Castle.
The four men carried the box to the edge of
a freshly dug grave and lowered it. Wright took an
armful of flowers from the wagon and sprinkled them over
the grave. He had plucked them during the day from
the dead woman's garden at the Love Castle. Earlier in
(01:36):
the day, two men stood beside two plain, unpainted boxes.
One box contained the body of the woman who bore
two children for one of the men and faced social
exile for the other. The other box contained the bodies
of two children. Neither man spoke. Both were looking across
(01:57):
the valley at the black scar at the top of
the distant Bill, the wrecked monument of the blasted hopes
of four persons, a man and a wife, a husband
and a woman. As four men approached and lifted one
of the boxes, Cheney and Wright broke their dry eyed
reverie and looked at each other. Without saying a word.
(02:19):
They extended their hands in a mutual clasp. Cheney, lowering
his gaze, released the hand and followed the man with
the box down the hill. It contained the bodies of
his two children, and he was taking them home for cremation.
(02:43):
Spring Green, Wisconsin, August fifteenth, nineteen fourteen. A Barbados negro
with a hand axe. Yesterday added the final Crimson chapter
to the free love romance of Frank Lloyd Wright, the
architect and his soul mate, Missus Edwin H. Cheney, who,
since her divorce from mister Cheney, had adopted her maiden
(03:06):
name Mama Borthwick. The negro, maddened perhaps by the discharge
of himself and his wife as house servants, locked the
doors of the beautiful right bungalow, which overlooks the Wisconsin
River at Spring Green, while Mama Borthwick, her two children,
and her husband's six employees were at luncheon mister Wright
(03:28):
was in Chicago. The negro then poured a flood of
gasoline about the place and tossed a match to the stream.
As the fire raced through the house, the man stood
at the point of outrage, guarding a door in a window.
With his hand axe, he cut his victims down one
by one as they leaped from the burning structure. Mama
(03:50):
Borthwick was the first to die, Her two innocent little
children followed. In all, the man killed six and inflicted
injuries on three others. His wife was permitted to run
away unharmed. He himself then ran into the basement of
the burning building and climbed into the unlighted furnace, which
(04:10):
was protected by the fire from iron and brick and asbestos.
It is believed he hoped to crawl through after the
search had been abandoned during the night, and seek safety. However,
after the roused countryside had conducted a three hour search
of the neighborhood with bloodhounds, someone thought to look into
the furnace. They pulled the man forth. He feigning unconsciousness.
(04:36):
He was bundled into an automobile and whisked to Dodgeville,
eighteen miles away. Sheriff J. T. Williams and his deputies,
with drawn weapons, stood off a crowd bearing ropes, who
pursued in three automobiles and vowed they would rest away
the prisoner and lynch him forthwith. On November seventh, nineteen
(04:58):
o nine, the The Tribune first gave to the public
the story of the spiritual hygira of Frank Lloyd Wright
to Mema Borthwick, the home of the eccentric architect in
the right fashioned bungalow of Edwin H. Cheney, electrical engineer,
adjoined each other in Oak Park. Mister Wright left his
wife and two sons. Missus Cheney deserted her husband, a son,
(05:23):
and daughter. After a year in Germany and Japan, the
Elopers startled everybody by returning to Chicago, and Wright chose
the wild Beautiful Place overlooking the Wisconsin River as the
home for himself and his spiritual mate. Mister Cheney divorced
his wife. She took her maiden name, Mema Borthwick. She
(05:46):
also took custody of their children, John who is nine,
and Martha, eleven years old. Missus Wright declined to grant
the architect a divorce, maintaining she loved him and sooner
or later he would return to his right mind. So
it was a peculiar establishment that the architect and Mama
(06:07):
Borthwick set up in Wisconsin. The children retained the name
of Cheney, although they referred to their mother as she
wished them to call her Borthwick. Three months ago, Wright,
who was building the Midway Gardens, told John Vogelsang, the restauranteur,
that he needed a cook and butler. Vogelsang recommended Julian Carlton,
(06:30):
thirty years old, and his wife Gertrude. They had been
employed by Vogelsang at his restaurant at five twenty three
Deming Place, and were considered excellent servants. Mister Wright had
undertaken to install an extensive exhibit at the San Francisco Exhibition.
For this reason, he had taken a number of his
(06:51):
employees to the Spring Green Bungalow, where they could put
in extra time undisturbed by the excitement of city life.
Mama Borthwick, who took a great interest in Wright's work,
divided her time between making suggestions to the men and
writing a book. On Tuesday, Wright kissed Mama Borthwick goodbye
(07:12):
and ran into Chicago to oversee his office. There. In
the interim, something caused Mama Borthwick to dislike Carlton. Whatever
it was may never be known. Visitors to the place
say mister Wright and Missus Borthwick had called them ideal servants.
Missus Borthwick is said to have used the expression they're
(07:33):
really too good to be true. One of the survivors
of the tragedy said whatever happened had led Mama Borthwick
to tell the negro and his wife their time would
be up on Saturday night. Matters appeared to have progressed
as usual, however, until a little before noon yesterday, Mama
Borthwick had requested the butler to serve luncheon for herself
(07:55):
and the children in an enclosed, screened porch which overlooks
a little pond and the river beyond. It is separated
from the main dining room of the low Rambling house
by a passageway at least twenty five feet long. Carlton
announced the luncheon into the main dining room at the
west side of the house. Went the two draftsmen, Fritz
(08:16):
who lives in Chicago, Emil Bordell's who lives in Milwaukee,
Tom Bronker, the foreman, David Lyndbloom, the gardener William Weston,
the carpenter, and Ernest, his thirteen year old son. Carlton
saw them seated, then he slipped quietly without and fastened
(08:37):
all the doors and windows. He then drew some buckets
of gasoline from a barrel right kept for his automobile
and splashed it about the front part of the house.
Apparently he warned his wife to run. The servant threw
a match into the flood, and is then believed to
have seized his hatchet and dashed to the porch where
(08:58):
Missus Borthwick and her two cho children were sitting, He
cleft the woman's skull with a clean blow. He turned
and hit little John. The child died in his chair,
where his charred body was found later. Martha, who was
a year older than her brother, apparently was running when
the man struck her. She was found lying in the
(09:21):
broad open court that is part of the interior of
the house. The blow from the hatchet had killed her.
The butler then opened the door to the main dining room,
threw a bucket of gasoline over the floor, tossed a
lighted match within, closed and locked the door from the outside.
Then he took a stand at the northeast corner of
(09:43):
the house, overlooking doors and windows. William Weston broke down
the door just as Fritz hurled himself through a window
of the living room and rolled down the hill to
the creek. The man dashed at Weston and chopped at
his head as the carpenter thrust it out the door.
The butler then pulled the carpenter out of the way
(10:03):
and brained Tom Brunker as he followed Weston. Ernest Weston,
the carpenter's thirteen year old son, who was being taught
draftsmanship by right, was the next one the man cut
him on the head three times. He then dashed around
to the living room window in time to catch David
lynd Bloom, who was burned and cut. I was eating
(10:26):
in the small dining room off the kitchen with the
other men, said Fritz. The room, I should say, was
about twelve by twelve feet in size. There were two doors,
one leading to the kitchen and the other opening into
the court. We had just been served by Carlton, and
he had left the room when we noticed something flowing
under the screen door from the court. We thought it
(10:48):
was nothing but soap SuDS spilled outside. The liquid ran
under my chair, and I noticed the odor of gasoline.
Just as I was about to remark the fact, a
streak of flame shot under my chair, and it looked
like the whole side of the room was on fire.
All of us jumped up, and I first noticed that
(11:08):
my clothing was on fire. The window was nearer to
me than the other door, and so I jumped through it,
intending to run down the hill to the creek and
roll in it. It may be that the other door
was locked. I don't know. I didn't think to try it.
My first thought was to save myself The window was
only about half a foot from the floor and three
(11:28):
feet wide, and it was the quickest way out. I
plunged through and landed on the rocks outside. My arm
was broken by the fall, and the flames had eaten
through my clothing and were burning me. I rolled over
and over down the hill toward the creek, but stopped
about half way. The fire in my clothes was out
by that time, and I scrambled to my feet and
(11:51):
was about to start back up the hill when I
saw Carlton come running around the house with a hatchet
in his hand and strike Brodell, who had followed me
through the winds. Then I saw Carlton run back around
the house, and I followed him in time to see
him striking at the others as they came through the
door into the court. He evidently had expected us to
come out that way first and was waiting there, but
(12:13):
ran around to the side in which the window was
located when he saw me and brodel jump out. I
didn't see which way Carlton went. My arm was painting me,
and I was suffering terribly from the burns, and I
suppose I must have lost consciousness for a few moments.
I remember staggering around the corner of the house and
seeing Carlton strike at the other men as they came
(12:34):
through the door, And when I looked again, the negro
had gone. Fritz and Line Bloom dragged the bodies of
the dead and injured from the burning structure. By this time,
the flames were rising high in the air, and bells
and whistles summoned the neighbors from the countryside. Within an
hour after the murders, more than seven hundred farmers, their
(12:56):
wives and children were gathered about the burning bungalow. While
some fought the fire, the others were beating the cornfields
for several miles in every direction for a trace of
the murderer. A short distance away is the private school
conducted by the Missus Jones, sisters of the Reverend Jenkin
Lloyd Jones of Chicago, at Tower Hill. The wounded were
(13:19):
carried there as fast as possible, under the direction of
the reverend mister Jones, who is an uncle of mister
Wright and at present on a vacation there. The dead
were taken to the home of Andrew Porter, mister Wright's
brother in law, a half a mile from the Bungalow.
The Weston Boy and Brunker were taken there and died
shortly afterward. A statement was obtained from Bunker before he died.
(13:44):
The chief of police of Hillside obtained a description of
the man and wired it immediately to all points along
the railroad lines within a radius of fifty miles. The
whole countryside was informed of the tragedy by telephone. All
the farmers and their families for miles around were acquainted
with the story of the right spiritual Hijira and the love.
(14:07):
Bungalow was a showplace. This notoriety aided in the search,
and with an hour Carlton's wife was found hiding in
a clump of bushes by the roadside, three miles from Taliessen.
Mister Wright's name for his Wisconsin retreat, Doctor Jones, personally
headed one of the posses. One of his sisters telephoned
(14:28):
Missus Jane Lloyd Porter, mister Wright's sister, who was spending
the day in Madison, to hurry to Spring Green with
nurses and medical supplies. Missus Porter was able to obtain
the services of two trained nurses, and they left for
the temporary hospital at Tower Hill On a seven o'clock
train from Madison. It was about dosk when men searching
(14:49):
the ruins heard a noise in the furnace in a
portion of the house far away from the burned rooms.
Sheriff J. T. Williams was notified there seemed to be
somebody in the furnace. He pulled open the door. The
man had crawled in feet first. He emitted a moan
when discovered. The sheriff and his helpers roughly dragged the
(15:09):
butler forth. He moaned the one word acid, then tried
to feign unconsciousness. The sheriff bundled him off to Dodgeville
to prevent a lynching. The three automobile loads of farmers,
who at one time stormed the Love bungalow because of
their outraged feelings over the elopement, were ready in a
(15:30):
moment now to string him up. The guns of the
sheriff and his posse stood them off. Enus Lloyd Jones
and uncle of Wright, who was a Justice of the Peace,
impaneled a coroner's jury immediately, and depositions of the various
witnesses to the crime were taken. Justice Jones was assisted
by District Attorney Thomas O'Neill, who was summoned from his
(15:53):
home in Dodgeville. The jury returned a verdict stating the
six victims had met their deaths at the hand Julian Carlton.
Mister Wright was notified of the tragedy at his office
in the Orchestra Building by long distance telephone. Mister Wright
almost collapsed when the news first reached him. He got
(16:13):
the tragic long distance telephone message while at Midway Gardens,
the new south Side amusement park which he designed. This
is Frank Roth at Madison, came a voice over the wire.
Be prepared for a shock. Your wife, that is missus Cheney,
and the two children, and the one of your draftsmen
has been killed by Carlton. Carlton set fire to the
(16:35):
bungalow and got away. He must have gone crazy. A
posse is chasing him. You better get to spring Green
right away. Roth, from whom the message came, is a
friend of the architect. Subsequently, Wright received a telegram from
spring Lake, signed with the initials of Missus Cheney or
Mamon Borthwick, as she now calls herself, Come as fast
(16:58):
as possible. Serious trouble was her message. Efforts made by
right to get a telephone wire to spring Green were unsuccessful.
Fearing the telegram from Missus Borthwick might have been sent
before the tragedy, he got into communication with the telegraph office.
The message, signed M B B was filed at two
(17:20):
o'clock was the reply. Mister Wright called up Sherman Booth,
his lawyer and a personal friend, and the two started
for spring Green together on a Chicago, Milwaukee and Saint
Paul train, leaving Chicago early in the evening. The Bungalow
is four miles from the village and remote in the
southern Wisconsin Hills. On the same train with him was
(17:42):
Edwin H. Cheney, husband of Mama Borthwick and father of
the two children who were killed. The architect was so
distraught he could not tell a coherent story to the detectives.
The Carltons, Julian and his wife were the best servants
I have ever seen, he said. The wife cooked and
Julian was a general handyman. They were Cuban negroes, and
(18:05):
Julian especially seemed to have an education above the average.
They had not been engaged permanently and were to have
quit our employ to day. Julian was to have started
for Chicago on the seven forty five train this morning.
The train would have reached the city shortly after one o'clock,
and he was to have visited my office to get
(18:26):
his wages three days ago. When I last saw him,
he seemed perfectly normal. He must have lost his mind.
Yet I cannot believe that the news is true. The
fact that the telegram signed M. B B was received
after the alleged murders buoys all my hopes. Mister Wright
has gained an international reputation as a founder of a
(18:49):
new school of design. His bungalows, built on low broad
lines are known the world over. He designed the Abraham
Lincoln Center. His latest work was the design for the
new Midway Gardens at Cottage Grove Avenue in the Midway,
on part of the side of the old Sansusi Park.
(19:09):
There is not a curved line in the whole structure,
even the statues and carvings possessing a cubist angular effect.
Right is at work on a design for the Imperial
Hotel to be built in Tokyo, Japan. He designed the
Hillside Home School at Tower Hill, near his Spring Green bungalow,
which is conducted by his aunts, Miss Jane Jones and
(19:32):
Miss Allen C. Lloyd Jones. He also designed the bank
at Spring Green. He is an enthusiastic connoisseur of Japanese
prints and has a collection of them, valued at thousands
of dollars. Many of them are kept in a safe
at the Bungalow. MAE. M. Borthwick was a graduate of
the University of Michigan. Mister Cheney graduated from the same university,
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and the two first met during their college days. The
courtship did not begin, however, until mister Cheney came to
Chicago and Miss Borthwick was then in charge of the
public library at Port Huron, Michigan. Their courtship, it is said,
was unusual, as mister Cheney was an impetuous suitor and
made many trips to Port Huron, despite the fact that
(20:19):
he received just as many rebuffs. Missus Cheney saw little
of her children, it was said when she was at
home with them, employing a governess who had almost entire
charge of them. Her sister, Miss Lizzie Borthwick, resided with
them for years. The Rights and Cheneys were neighbors and
intimate friends in Oak Park, Missus Wright and missus Cheney
(20:42):
were both members of the Oak Park Women's Club. They
moved in the same social circles. The two fathers were friends.
It was the old old story of temperament. Wright thinks
this was the cause of the divergence. Missus Wright was
devoting herself off to her children, he was devoting himself
(21:03):
to architecture. Missus Cheney and Wright were thrown together constantly
when the latter was commissioned by mister Cheney to design
the bungalow in which he now resides at five twenty
eight Northeast Avenue, Oak Park. The house was to be
built along lines suggested by missus Cheney, and she and
Wright had frequent conferences. Then, Wright says he discovered missus
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Cheney was more nearly on his plane of thought, and
that she sympathized with him, shared his ideals, appreciated his efforts,
and gave him the inspiration for work which he complained
he could not draw from the companionship at his own fireside.
Missus Wright had her life in her children, said the architect,
(21:47):
and I in my work. So we grew apart. She
did not understand my going away, and she does not
understand it now. I went because I found my life
confused in my situation and discordant. I hope always to
be able to provide for Missus Right and my children,
and I mean to be something helpful and suggestive of
better things for them, even if I am only in
(22:10):
the shadow behind them. When they get a little older,
I hope they will see me in a different light.
The time is coming when people will understand what it
means to say a wife is not the property of
her husband, and that a husband is not the property
of his wife. I am not any woman's property. I
never happen to belong to any woman in that way,
(22:31):
any more than Mama Borthwick ever belonged to any man
in that way. The family in which the old patriarchal
ideal that the head of the house owns this wife
and children, body and soul, is still common, but it
will die. Marriage ought to be put on an economic basis.
I have no reason to expect Missus Wright will sue
(22:52):
for divorce. Most of this happened long before Wright and
Maema Borthwick began to dream of a spiritual hijira. It
was after the European trip and the Cheney divorce that
they began to plan a flight into the wilderness. Mama
Borthwick had not been so frank as to say what
was going on in her mind during the year or
(23:13):
two before the break up in the Right and Cheney families,
but the subsequent events suggested she was in full sympathy
with the right notions as to the limitations of one's
duty to wife, to children, and to society. Then came
the disclosure that disturbed Oak Park Society for weeks. News
was brought from Europe that mister Wright and the then
(23:34):
missus Cheney were touring the continent together. That was in
late nineteen o nine. The two did not go to
Europe together. The architect led the way. Missus Cheney, at
that time, was in Bolder, Colorado with her children. One
day she wrote to mister Cheney asking him to come
and get the children. When mister Cheney reached his destination,
(23:56):
his wife had already gone. At about the same time time,
mister Wright left for Berlin with the intention of having
some books on architectural subjects published. It is believed that
the two met in New York and took the same
steamer across the Atlantic. On November seventh, nineteen o nine,
the Tribune published the first news of the flight of
(24:18):
the soulmates. Even the closest friends of the two families
had been unaware of the European hijira. Until that time.
Missus Wright had been left to care for her six
children in the Oak Park bungalow, which her husband had designed.
She sent her oldest son, Frank Lloyd Wright Junior, to
Germany to induce her husband to return to her. The
(24:41):
Sun's mission failed, and he returned to his work in
the office of a New York architectural publishing firm. Later,
the Sun made another trip abroad, with no better results.
In September nineteen ten, word was received by Missus Wright
that her husband was coming back. Shortly afterward, mister Right
(25:01):
and missus Cheney arrived in New York. While there, the
architect visited the publishing firm, and missus Cheney accompanied him.
The son saw his father but did not greet him
at once. He waited until missus Cheney had walked out
into the corridor, and then, approaching his father, said I've
waited for just such a chance to pay you back
(25:22):
for the way you have treated mother. The boy then
struck mister Wright knocked him down and blackened both eyes.
In August nineteen ten, after Missus Right had learned that
her husband and Missus Cheney had been together in various cities,
she said, I still love my husband and cherished no
hard feelings against him on account of anything that has happened.
(25:46):
I feel no resentment towards Missus Cheney, but I believe
she has queer ideas. During his European tour, mister Wright
was much faded by architects and artists. His reception in
Germany was particularly cordial. It was believed that there he
had something really new and worth while in his profession
to offer the world. He had cut himself loose from
(26:08):
the Greek, Roman and Gothic influences. Missus Cheney spent part
of her time taking a course of study in Leipzig.
She had interested herself in the old and new philosophies
of living and found what was to her a justification
for the spiritual hijira, which the right Cheney flight came
to be called. She began to talk of the mating
(26:30):
of souls and the realization of self and the attainment
of the ideal, the higher perception of duty many like
phrases formed themselves in her mind. Mister Wright returned to
Chicago the following month and went back to live with
his family. Missus Cheney returned too, but did not go
(26:50):
to her husband's residence. Shortly afterward, mister Wright built a
partition in his home. He lived on one side of
it and Missus Wright on the other. The children were
the only ones to whom the freedom of the entire
house was granted. Six months later, the partition was torn
down and it was reported that a full reconciliation had
(27:11):
been effected. On August fifth, nineteen eleven, mister Cheney was
granted an absolute divorce by Judge Theodore Brentano. The only
ground given was desertion. Mister Wright's name did not come
up in connection with the suit. Missus Cheney then applied
to the court to restore her maiden name, and this
(27:32):
was granted. A short time thereafter, she was dropped from
the rolls of membership of the Oak Park Congregational Church.
Shortly before Christmas of the same year, friends of the
two families were startled to learn that mister Wright had
slipped away on a second hijira. The bungalow at Spring
Green was nearing completion, and the couple had established themselves
(27:56):
there comfortably. Missus Borthwick announced that she was to devote
the rest of her life to literary work. She was
engaged in translating some of ellen Key's commentaries on Free Love.
At that time. Mister Wright made a long statement explaining
their relations to the public, reading, let there be no misunderstanding.
(28:16):
Missus E. H. Cheney never existed for me and now
is no more in fact, But Mama Borthwick is here,
and I intend to take care of her. To answer
a specific question would be of no value. The solution
of this case will be individual, as it must be
in any case, and worked out by honest living, not
(28:37):
by patching broken conventions, nursing wounded sensibilities, or hiding behind expediences.
No one will suffer owing to my neglect of any
rational obligation, economic or otherwise. Meantime, the public will be
asked for absolutely nothing except opportunity to work exactly as before,
(28:58):
which is likely to be deny. For that matter touches
the social fabric in a rotten spot. A written contract
does not make a marriage, nor keep it holy. We
depend too much on outward forms and are too careless
of the spirit beneath them. Integrity of life means unity
of thought and feeling and action, and therefore a struggle
(29:20):
to square one's self with one's life, and failing to
do this, to square one's life with one's self. Every
man with ideals and a work to do. In consequence,
is elevated by the vision in his soul and consumed
by the desire to make it come true. Missus Borthwick
was a woman of unusual education, keenly interested in fiction
(29:43):
and drama as well as in feminism. After she came
to Chicago, she attended lectures at the University of Chicago,
where for a time she was a student under Robert Herrick.
She was ambitious to become a writer, but so diffident
of her talent that she published no original work. However,
she translated two books by Ellen Key, the Swedish feminist.
(30:07):
One of these was called The Torpedo under the Ark,
and the other was The Woman Movement. A month ago,
mister Wright suggested to her that it would be amusing
to edit The Home News, a weekly newspaper published in
Spring Green. Mister Wright laughingly suggested that if she wanted
to make the Home News as well as William Allen
(30:28):
White's Emporia Gazette. He would buy it and give it
to her. Missus Borthwick, partly through her desire to take
an active part in the community, and partly through her
eagerness to have regular and interesting work of her own,
took this suggestion seriously. Mister Wright thereupon proceeded to make
good his offer until the Tribune assured them their son
(30:51):
was more of a hero than a fit subject for
a hospital. Was anxiety in the home of Ernest Fritz,
father of Herbert Fritz, nineteen Gladys Avenue, despite the fact
that the nineteen year old son had sent the following telegram,
Dear mother, our house burned. Am all right? Don't worry Herbert?
(31:12):
Is he dead? Pleaded the mother to the reporter who
visited their home. The telegram has heartened me. I want
to know the truth. After being assured the Tribune's men
at spring Green could not be mistaken and that her
son was only slightly injured, she was contented enjoy ad
free listening at the safe house. Dubbadubbadubba dot Patreon dot com,
(31:36):
slash true crime historian, spring Green, Wisconsin, August sixteenth, nineteen fourteen.
A man, firm faced, pale, strained with anguish beyond tears,
stood tonight at the head of an open grave in
hillside valley. Cloud rack of a passing storms splattered drops
(32:01):
of cold rain at open spots. Blue moonlight filtered through,
lighting the gravestones against the shadows of the wooded hills.
Fireflies gleamed in the thickets, and the chirps of the
insects rose in chorus. Frank Lloyd Wright was there to
bid farewell to Mama Borthwick, the builder of the love
(32:24):
bungalow in the hills of Spring Green, stood alone at
the end of his spiritual hygia. The woman, slain by
a frenzied axemn and incendiary, was laid to rest in
the hills where she made herself an exile for an
unconventional love. The burial of Missus Borthwick was marked by
(32:46):
the same disregard of the cannons as her life. She
went to the grave under the code she and the
man she loved had made for themselves, with no word
to others and no announcement of plans. Wright called his
nephews Orin and Ralph Lloyd Jones. After sundown, they were
joined by John Lloyd Wright, son of the architect. They
(33:09):
took the body of Missus Borthwick from the home of
Missus Andrew t Porter, sister of mister Wright, and placed
it in a pine box, uncovered and unornamented. The funeral
party of four started for the waiting grave at the
cemetery a half mile away. The nephews led the horses,
while Wright and his sons followed slowly behind. At the grave,
(33:34):
the body was lowered with gentle hands, then the nephews
and son withdrew at a sign from mister Wright. He
stood long alone at the grave, looking out across the valley.
There was no spoken prayer, no word as he stood
alone in the night. Heaped about the grave were flowers, ruddy,
(33:58):
brilliant zenias, blazing nasturtiums, red and gold, and great purple dahlias,
all taken by Right's own hands from the garden Mama
of the Hills had tended at the Love bungalow far
in the night. The flowers were laid over the pine
coffin and the grave filled. Wright walked ahead and alone
(34:21):
as the burial party left the cemetery. The turf, thick,
carpeted and strewn with the brown needles of the pines,
gave no sound of footsteps. The mourner moved with slow
but even stride through the gloom of the lanes leading
back to the Hillside Valley Colony. The bodies of the
(34:41):
dead woman's children have been sent back to Chicago for
cremation in the charge of Edwin H. Cheney, the man
she left for right. Mister Cheney departed with a farewell
to mister Wright, made dramatic by its simplicity. He gave
no sign or word of interest in the burial of
the woman who had been his wife for years. Tomorrow,
(35:03):
the funerals of the other two victims of the Bungalow
murder will be held. Insanity remains the only explanation of
the murders committed by Julian Carlton, the Chicago butler at
the right Bungalow. Officials say the case has been moved
to Dodgeville in Iowa County, where Carlton, at the county jail,
is undergoing a third degree fire of questioning his wife, Gertrude.
(35:28):
Removed from Spring Green today, is held in the same jail.
Frightened at the expectation of the death penalty through his
ignorance of the Wisconsin Code, Carlton, when committed to his cell,
blurted out there was a reason for this, and before
I die, I will tell you. Pushed by Sheriff J. T. Williams,
Carlton refused to elaborate his statement. Tonight, he answered his
(35:52):
inquisitors with an attempted story of self defense. They were
picking on me. I had to fight. The man's wife
said she believed him insane, and told of hallucinations of
persecution which drove him to frequent threats of violence. He had,
at times, she said, taken a hatchet to bed with him.
(36:12):
At the Right Bungalow, the sleepy guards of the Right
Rifles greeted the break of day from the still smoking
ruins of the bungalow, overlooking the hillside valley and the
Wisconsin River. A bloodhound brought for a man hunt, which
ended with the discovery of the slayer hidden in the
furnace among the ruins. Lumbered to his feet and shook
(36:33):
the chain that tethered him to the quaint artistry of
the schloss gate. The hound sniffed uneasily at the ground
at his feet, the spot where five lives were taken
the day before and bayed at the dawn. Down across
the valley of Wright's landscaped Eden Kingdom. A farm hand
drove a herd of prize cows to the milking sheds
(36:56):
to the tinkling accompaniment of the bell cow's music. A
turtle dove set up a melody of doleful tones from
an overhanging pine. A cock sparrow, as vociferous and cosmopolitan
as a city bred brothers set up a row in
the trampled lojia. The routine of the day had begun
in the valley. Hundreds flocked to the borders of the
(37:20):
love Bungalow estate, and automobiles and carriages. Countrymen arrived before
nightfall with heavy rifles and it stood guard, and only
officials or those bearing written permits from Frank Lloyd Wright
were admitted. A great crowd gathered at the big iron
gate in the stone wall, at the main entrance to
(37:40):
the estate, a quarter of a mile away. Frank Lloyd
Wright and Edwin H. Cheney, the soulmate husband and the
husband who was rose from a night of restless naps
and snatches of sleep to meet at breakfast at the
home of mister and missus Andrew T. Porter Wright's sister.
It was a meal of tedious, half hearted attempts at eating,
(38:04):
and few words. Separately. Mister Wright and mister Cheney walked
over the trail to the bungalow and stirred about the ruins.
Here and there, the sight of shattered, burned treasures caught
the eye of Right. He stopped and pulled a broken
piece of porcelain vase from the ashes, Satsuma two hundred
(38:26):
fifty dollars in Japan, he said, as though addressing himself.
A lump of crumbling mortar rattled down, stirring a pile
of crinkly ashes, exposing a pile of burned scraps bright
with color. He fingered them over, then let them flutter
away in the breeze. They were the fragments of what
(38:47):
had been a fortune in rare old Japanese prints. Bare headed,
his long gray sprinkled hair tangled, and in the suit
in which he hurried away from his Chicago office, Right
pursued his inventory of loss. I will rebuild it, all,
every line of it, as it was before she His
(39:10):
voice died, and he stood musing, this is home. He said.
A broken dahlia stem at the edge of a flower
border attracted his attention. He lifted the crushed flower, pinched
the earth about it, and gave it a new lease
of life. He cast a glance at the ugly rust
(39:32):
red stains in the path, and strode away. In the afternoon,
at the Porter home, there was a half whispered conversation
between mister Wright and mister Cheney. The question of the
disposal of the bodies of their dead. The exiled Mama
of the Hills and her children, John and Martha was
(39:53):
to be settled once years ago. Cheney ventured. She said
that if anything ever happened to the children, I want
their bodies cremated. I will take the bodies of the
children to Chicago to fulfill that wish. No word was
spoken between the men concerning Missus Borthwick. Mister Cheney took
(40:13):
the position that he has assumed through the years of
unconventional romance of his wife and the other man, that
concerning her he had nothing to say. It was not
recalled at this conference that Missus Borthwick had ever expressed
the desire and connection with death or funeral, we will
bury her here, Wright announced and sent out a friend
(40:36):
with a message to the sexton of the little Nameless
Cemetery of Hillside Valley. In the darkened drawing room of
the Porter residence lay what remained of the bodies of
the five dead. Wright passed through with his face averted
from the outspread sheet that covered the flame scarred body
of missus Borthwick. Late in the afternoon, Cheney and Wright
(40:59):
drew together on the broad lawn of the Porter home.
Two automobiles were waiting, one for the body of Brodell,
the other for mister Cheney. And is dead. I'm going now, goodbye.
Ed right clasped Cheney's hand, and they stood looking into
each other's eyes. Goodbye, Frank. There was no trouble in
(41:22):
their voices. At the farewell, they spoke as men with
an understanding. Cheney stepped into his automobile beside the small
wooden box that held the bodies of his children, and
rolled away without a glance back at the place where
the woman who was once his wife lay dead. At
the station in spring Green, mister Cheney personally saw to
(41:45):
the placing of the bodies on the train and read
a pile of messages from condolence from the Oak Park friends.
You were not remaining for the burial of Missus Borthwick,
he was asked. No, he answered slowly, I am only
here to take the bodies of my children home for cremation.
You may say, however, there will be no funeral, either
(42:06):
here or in Chicago. Concerning Missus Borthwick. You must talk
to someone else, he deliberated, and did not utter the
name of right. Will you take any part in the
prosecution of Carlton? I don't know. I do not know
even what happened. Until I do, I shall not know
(42:27):
what I will do. Mister Cheney was eager for news
from the jail at Dodgeville. He was told there was
every evidence of the insanity of Carlton. Do you believe
there could have been any other explanation of the crime.
There are rumors, you know. I am sure that he
was insane and that there was no other reason. Cheney
replied with firmness in his subdued voice. A guard of
(42:51):
nine deputy sheriffs stand watch over Julian Carlton, the slayer.
Threats of a lynching rising at various settlements in the
surrounding region have influenced Sheriff J. T. Williams to take
special precautions. Gertrude Carlton, wife of the prisoner and witness
of the crime Saturday, was today transferred to the Dodgeville Jail. Carlton,
(43:15):
recovering from the effects of a poison taking in an
attempt at self destruction after the murders, tried to build
a story of self defense as he sat through the
long night ordeal of the third degree. They jumped on
me and I had to fight, he said. The sheriff
is attempting to find a motive for the crime. He
(43:37):
admits he went to Chicago a week ago, said Sheriff Williams,
but he refused to tell why or whom he saw there.
I do not believe the negro is insane. His wife
gave information tending to show that her husband was insane.
Carlton as a black squat man and was once a
pullman porter, besides recently being a servant to John Vogel,
(44:00):
saying Chicago restauranteur. The Carltons were employed by Right two
months ago. We were well treated and we liked the place,
the woman said. But my husband had the notion that
he was being pursued. He recently got to waking me
in the night at our quarters in the bungalow to
listen for noises. They're trying to get me, he kept saying.
(44:23):
Then sometimes he would choke me and threaten to knock
my brains out. He took that hatchet to bed with him.
Two weeks ago he forced me to tell Missus Borthwick
that we were going to quit because I was lonesome.
Then a week ago he kept saying he was going
to Madison to see a dentist. The next day I
got a message from him in Chicago, but he would
not tell me why he went there. Saturday, he served
(44:46):
the lunch and went to the court with a pail
of gasoline. I saw him start to dip a rug
in the gasoline. Then he struck a match and lighted
his pipe. I went into the kitchen and a minute
later the whole place was afire. I saw while Julian
running toward the barn with the hatchet in his hand.
I ran into the basement, tried a door, and then
(45:06):
jumped out a window and ran down the road towards
Spring Green. I didn't see my husband hit anybody, and
I did not know anything until I was arrested on
the road to town. Acquaintances of Julian Carlton, who knew
him when he lived on the south side black Belt,
declared that he possesses all of the attributes of an
insane man. They say he acted queerly, and that his
(45:28):
wife was in mortal terror of him at times, and
that his fury aroused when he played cards and lost
was uncontrollable. He would leap about like a wild man.
At other times he was morose and sullen, avoided other
persons and gave every evidence of being a moron. He
had few friends and told the few he had, but
(45:50):
little of his past life. Hardly anything is known of him.
Before he went to work for the vogel Sangs, he
was employed as a sort of assistant to the janitor
of the France Willard's School for a month early in
the year. He helped to clean up the school building
and grounds, and did what odd jobs he could in
the neighborhood to earn a few dollars. He worried over
(46:11):
financial matters continually. Maurice Dorsey, an employee in Vogelsang's restaurant
said Carlton and his wife visited his house frequently. He
said they had told him they would see him when
they came to Chicago this week. Dorsey's wife said Carlton
was very excitable. He seemed to be nervous and quivering
(46:32):
all the time. She said he'd fly off the handle
at the slightest provocation. I remember one time when I
gave a whist party and he was playing. All of
a sudden he jumped up and let out a yell
that scared us all nearly to death. All of the
women started to run out, thinking he had gone crazy,
but he sat down, trembling and mumbled a few words
(46:53):
of apology. His mind always seemed to be wandering away
from what he was doing, and what little talked thing
he did was about his poor circumstances and how afraid
he was that he wasn't going to get along. After
they left the employee of mister Vogelsang, the Carltons lived
for a while on Evans Avenue. They shunned the neighbors
(47:15):
and formed few acquaintanceships. Carlton's wife would flee from their
home in terror at her life at times, and usually
sought refuge in the home of missus Harry long as
far as I could learn. They had been married for
two years, said the latter. I didn't like Carlton and
was afraid of him. He always did look queer to me.
I thought he was off all along. His wife was
(47:37):
afraid of him too. She'd come here often, all trembling
and nervous and say he had tried to frighten her.
She said he'd get spells where he was wild eyed,
and do such strange things that she feared for her life. Dodgeville, Wisconsin,
October seventh, nineteen fourteen. Death to Day solved the problem
(48:03):
of the trial of Julian Carlton, the Chicago man who
killed Mama Borthwick and five other persons at Frank Lloyd
Writ's bungalow at Spring Green on August sixteenth. The man
died in the county jail here from the effects of
poison which he took on the scene of his crime. Carlton,
apparently the victim of a seizure of insanity, served luncheon
(48:26):
to the members of the Right Establishment, then swooped down
upon them at a table with a bucket of blazing gasolene.
Because of the fears of lynching, authorities took Carlton to
the adjoining county and locked him up in the Dodgeville Jail.
Carlton remained in the state of semi torpor there until
his death. No coherent statement was gained from him. In
(48:49):
view of Carlton's condition, the officials were unable to establish
a motive, and the question of procedure against him was
never settled.
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