The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Herriges Horror in Philadelphia, by Anonymous

Title: The Herriges Horror in Philadelphia

A Full History of the Whole Affair. A Man Kept in a Dark Cage Like a Wild Beast for Twenty Years, As Alleged, in His Own Mother's and Brother's House

Author: Anonymous

Release Date: December 12, 2011 [eBook #38282]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HERRIGES HORROR IN PHILADELPHIA***

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THE
HERRIGES HORROR
IN PHILADELPHIA.

A FULL HISTORY OF THE WHOLE AFFAIR.

A MAN KEPT IN A DARK CAGE LIKE A WILD
BEAST FOR TWENTY YEARS,
AS ALLEGED,
IN HIS OWN MOTHER’S AND BROTHER’S HOUSE.

The Most Fiendish Cruelty of the Century.

ILLUSTRATED WITH RELIABLE ENGRAVINGS,
DRAWN SPECIALLY FOR THIS WORK.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by C. W. ALEXANDER,
in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court in and for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.

THE HERRIGES HORROR.

Every now and then the world is startled with an event of a like character to the one which has just aroused in the city of Philadelphia the utmost excitement, and which came near producing a scene of riot and even bloodshed.

John Herriges is the name of the victim, and for an indefinite period of from ten to twenty years has been confined in a little cagelike room and kept in a condition far worse than the wild animals of a menagerie.

What adds an additional phase of horror to the case of this unfortunate creature is the fact that he was thus confined in the same house with his own brother and mother. To our minds this is the most abhorrent feature of the whole affair.

We can imagine how a stranger, or an uncle, or an aunt possessed with the demon of avarice could deliberately imprison the heir to a coveted estate in some out of the way room or loft of a large building where the victim would be so far removed from sight and sound as to prevent his groans and tears being heard or seen. But how a brother and, Merciful Heaven, a mother could live in a shanty of a house year after year with a brother, and son shut up and in the condition in which the officers of the law found poor John Herriges, is more than we can account for by any process of reasoning. It only shows what perverted human nature is capable of.

THE HOUSE OF HORROR.

The house in which lived the Herriges family is a little two storied frame building or more properly shanty, rickety and poverty stricken in its appearance, more resembling the abodes of the denizens of Baker street slums than the home of persons of real wealth as it really is. It stands on the northeast corner of Fourth and Lombard streets, in Philadelphia.

Immediately to the north of it is an extensive soap boiling establishment, while directly adjoining it in the east are some frame shanties still smaller and more delapidated than itself, and which, belonging to the Herriges also, were rented by Joseph Herriges, the accused, for a most exhorbitant sum. To the credit of the occupants of these shanties, we must say that by means of whitewash they have made them look far preferable to that of their landlord—at least in appearance.

On the north of the soap boiling establishment referred to stretches the burial ground of St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, with its hundreds of monuments and green graves, while on the opposite side of Fourth street lies the burial ground of the Old Pine Street Church, with its almost numberless dead.

The writer of this recollects years ago, when a boy, often passing and repassing the Herriges house, and noticing on account of its forlorn appearance and the comical Dutch Pompey which stood upon the wooden pedestal at the door to indicate the business of a tobacconist.

How little he thought when contemplating it, that a human being languished within its dingy wooden walls, in a condition worse than that of the worst-cared-for brutes.

A fact in connection with this case is remarkable, which is this. On a Sabbath morning there is no one spot in the whole city of Philadelphia, standing on which, you can hear so many different church bells at once, or so many different choirs singing the praises of Almighty God. And on every returning Sunday the poor prisoner’s ears drank in the sacred harmony. God knows perhaps at such times the angels ministered to him in his dismal cage, sent thither with sunshine that could not be shut out by human monsters. Think of it, reader, a thousand recurring Sabbaths found the poor young imbecile growing from youth to a dreadfully premature old age. The mind staggers to think of it. Could we trace day by day the long wearisome hours of the captive’s life, how terrible would be the journey. We should hear him sighing for the bright sun light that made the grave yard green and clothed all the monuments in beautiful flowers. How he would prize the fragrance of a little flower, condemned as he was to smell nothing but the dank, noisome effluvia of the soap boiler’s factory.

Hope had no place in his cramped, filthy cage. No genius but that of Dispair ever found tenement in the grimed little room.

But though so long, oh, so long, Liberty came at last, and the pining boy, now an old man, was set free, through the agency of a poor, but noble woman, Mrs. Gibson, who had the heart to feel and the bravery to rescue from his hellish bondage the unfortunate.

THE GIBSON’S HISTORY OF THE AFFAIR.

On the 1st of June 1870 Thos. J. Gibson and his mother rented the frame house 337 Lombard Street from Joseph Herriges. The house adjoined Herriges cigar store. Mr. Hoger, a shoemaker, living next door to Mrs. Gibson’s, told her at the time she moved into the house, that she would see a crazy man in Herriges house and not to be afraid of him. Mrs. Charnes, living next door but one, for seventeen years, laughed at her, when she asked about the crazy man living locked up in Herriges house, as though making light of the whole matter.

VERBATIM COPY OF AGREEMENT BETWEEN JOSEPH HERRIGES AND THE GIBSONS.

This Contract and Agreement is that the rent of sixteen dollars per month is to be paid punctually in advance each and every month hereafter, and if the terms of this contract is not complied with I will leave the house and give up the possession to the lessor or his representatives.

Thos. J. Gibson.

Received of Ann Gibson sixteen dollars for one month’s rent in advance from June 1. To 30 1870 rent to begin on 1. June and end on