Richmond, Virginia. Almshouse 1865
So much for the saying, “Love Conquers All.”
SAD RESULT OF A RUNAWAY MARRIAGE.–The New York correspondent of the Philadelphia Inquirer writes:
A few years ago the marriage of Miss Boker, a young, beautiful and accomplished lady, with her father’s coachman, John Dean, set all the scandalmongers in Gotham on end. A sad addendum to the “strange, eventful history,” has now to be added. After the marriage, the couple, notwithstanding there different “bringing up,” lived happily enough together, in a small cottage over in Williamsburg. The husband obtained an office in the custom house, and saved money enough to open a public house at the foot of Grand street, Williamsburg.– But, Alas! for John Dean, he could not keep a hotel. It is said “he was his own best customer,” and as a natural result he commenced treating his wife badly. In a short time all their money was spent, and with poverty coming in at the door, live, as usual, flew out of the window. John beat and abused his wife, but all this she put up with until starvation stared her in the face when she was compelled to ask admission into the almshouse. The petition was granted, and the fashionable, elegant, and accomplished belle of the Fifth Avenue–a few years ago–is now the associate of beggars and paupers.
Weekly Standard (Raleigh, North Carolina) 21 Jan 1863
Tags: 1863, Almshouse, Pauper, wife abuse, Williamsburg
