| The following column appeared in The River Reporter, August 10, 1998. |
By Bert S. Feldman
The Recusant Reporter
Thursday, September 10, 1998
Please note: the second part of last week’s column on the history of the economy of Sullivan County will be resumed next week.
The current big newspaper story of the atrocities committed in the nearby city of Poughkeepsie by an alleged mass serial killer brings to my mind another mass murder attributed to that place.
Since I am writing solely on a memory of the story I have read somewhere, some of the details and names may be in error, but allow me to tell the gruesome tale as best as I am able.
Somewhere around the year 1845, there was, in Poughkeepsie, an inn known as Pilcher’s, located on the Albany Road which I presume is today’s Route 9. To this inn came one day a whaling ship captain returning to his home in the city of Hudson. Hudson at that time was renowned as an inland whaling port in its own right.
Accompanying the captain on his journey was a servant whom the good captain had picked up on a visit to the island of Fiji in the South Pacific.
Man and boy, they sat down at Pilcher’s table and ordered bowls of beef stew featured on the menu.
After finishing the stew, the Fijian boy remarked that while he enjoyed the savory dish, he recognized that the beef, so called, was reminiscent of a tasty dish that his mother had prepared which she called "long pig." The Fijians of that time were known to be cannibals.
The captain quickly called upon the local constabulary to investigate the matter and obtained a search warrant and descended into Pilcher’s cellar. There, in the cool areas of the cellar, they indeed found a number of barrels of human body parts preserved in brine. By the time the police emerged from the cellar, the Pilchers had skeedaddled to some other place and were never found to stand trial.
It is further believed that the story of the errant Pilchers was the inspiration for the play and movies called the "Little Shop of Horrors," which ran on Broadway not too many years ago.
As far as Poughkeepsie goes, it is nice to see a city that clings to old traditions.
As long as we are on the subject of crime, I must tell you of my favorite story of inept criminals. Not too many years ago, the papers reported a story of a bank holdup in the Italian city of Turin. Evidently, two masked men holding guns forced the tellers to hand over the lira. Grabbing the loot, the men dashed out through the revolving door. The police caught them a short time later, both pushing segments of the revolving door in opposite directions.
Mama Mia!
