Daring, devious and deadly True tales of crime and justice from Nova Scotia's past
Book - 2020
"Welcome to a rogues' gallery of murderers and pirates, brazen bank robbers, and a fraud artist who fooled Halifax's elite. A supporting cast includes a wise-cracking Cape Breton judge, legendary journalist-turned-politician Joseph Howe, circus showman P.T. Barnum, and future prime minister John Thompson. This collection of fifteen true tales of crime and justice drawn from across the province spans more than 150 years of Nova Scotia's history, from a triple murder in 1791 at a farm near Lunenburg to 1947, when Angus Walters, skipper of the racing schooner Bluenose, was attacked in the pages of an American magazine. Filled with surprising twists and courtroom drama, these stories of greed, murder, and vengeance offer a w...indow on the past. But justice can be far from blind. Religious hatred, partisan rivalry, social status, ethnicity, or political corruption sometimes invaded the courtroom, threatening to upset the delicate balance between guilt and innocence. Was justice done in each of these cases? You be the judge. Dean Jobb is an award-winning writer and the author of Empire of Deception, which won the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award and was a finalist for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize. Dean writes a monthly true crime column for Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and he is a professor of journalism and a member of the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction Program at the University of King's College in Halifax."--
- Subjects
- Published
-
Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada :
Pottersfield Press
2020.
- Language
- English
- Main Author
- Physical Description
- 214 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
Issued also in electronic format - ISBN
- 9781989725238
- Part 1. Disorder in the Courts
- Chapter 1. Trial by Humour
- He may well have been the wittiest, most sarcastic judge ever to grace the bench in Canada. Magistrate A.B. MacGillivray's one-liners at the expense of offenders and lawyers who appeared in his Glace Bay courtroom became legendary. But was this any way to dispense justice?
- Chapter 2. "An Unshackled Press"
- An incendiary letter published in The Novascotian, accusing Halifax's civic leaders of corruption, landed pioneering newspaper publisher Joseph Howe in the prisoner's dock in 1835 on a charge of criminal libel. If convicted, he faced imprisonment and financial ruin. Luckily, he had a good lawyer.
- Chapter 3. Death at the Waterloo Tavern
- When the body of the crewman of a British warship was found on the steps of a notorious Halifax tavern in 1853, there was no shortage of conflicting stories, theories, and suspects. The trial that followed would prove to be even more chaotic.
- Part 2. Breaking the Bank
- Chapter 4. Cooking the Books
- By 1870 fames Forman had been the Bank of Nova Scotia's head cashier and most trusted employee for almost four decades. Too bad he was using his accounting skills to line his own pockets.
- Chapter 5. Three-ring Robbery
- When P.T. Barnum's famous circus arrived in Halifax for the first time in the summer of 1876, a couple of enterprising bank robbers stole the show.
- Part 3. Law of the Sea
- Chapter 6. The Saladin Pirates
- Thirteen people were aboard Saladin when it left Chile in 1844, bound for London. Only six remained when the ship ran aground near the Eastern Shore hamlet of Country Harbour a few months later. And each survivor had a different story to tell.
- Chapter 7. The Skipper's Good Name
- Angus Walters raced Nova Scotia's iconic schooner Bluenose to fame and glory. So when an American magazine shot his reputation full of holes in 1946, Lunenburg's renowned captain got even.
- Chapter 8. Mutiny on the Zero
- The mate said it was the cook's idea. The cook blamed the mate. One thing was certain when the ship Zero was found abandoned off the LaHave Islands, on the South Shore, in 1865: the captain was dead, slain by one of his crewmen.
- Part 4. Victorian Horrors
- Chapter 9. A Trust Betrayed
- The brutal death of a penniless Annapolis County woman in 1880 shocked Victorian-era Nova Scotia. It would take the skill of the province's best prosecutor to ensure her killer did not escape justice.
- Chapter 10. An Affair of Honour
- Nicholas Martin, one of Sydney's leading citizens, brazenly shot and killed a judge's son in 1853. Was it cold-blooded murder, an act of revenge, or the work of a madman?
- Chapter 11. Death at the Polls
- Passions were running high during the 1859 provincial election, at a time when religion determined the choice of political party. At a polling station near Halifax, sectarian and partisan hatred exploded into open warfare.
- Part 5. Deadly Disasters
- Chapter 12. The Halifax Explosion's Fallout
- After the explosion of 1917 devastated Halifax and killed almost 2,000 people, the hunt was on for scapegoats. The captain and pilot of the French munitions ship Mont-Blanc survived the blast, only to find themselves charged with manslaughter.
- Chapter 13. Inferno at the Queen Hotel
- Fire swept through Halifax's Queen Hotel on a bitterly cold morning in 1939, killing twenty-eight people. If the hotel's owner had installed proper safety equipment, could more lives have been saved?
- Part 6. Silent Witnesses
- Chapter 14. Tell-tale Chalk
- George and John Boutilier stood trial for murder in 1791 after a brutal attack near Lunenburg left three people dead. Their guilt or innocence turned on a single shred of evidence.
- Chapter 15. The Leather Band
- It was almost the perfect crime - leave no witnesses, make a fast getaway. There was just one damning loose end. Why did the prime suspect in an 1838 murder at a Cumberland County farm have a dead man's wallet?
- Acknowledgments
- Sources
- About the Author
- Books