Gunshots on Main Street: “Vice and Crime Go Hand in Hand” – The Wilbur Van Tassell Murder

In January of 1904, up the road from the Hudson Day Line Pier, and near the Poughkeepsie Train Station, a deadly shooting took place outside Frank Long’s Elberon Hotel at 50 Main Street.

This crime wasn’t “cut and dry,” nor was it random. There was pre-meditation on both sides of the story. Yet one simple fact was clear. Wilbur Van Tassell was shot dead by an enraged James Newman.

…And it seems as if the local and national press, along with most of the public, thought the murder was justifiable.

In the article “Vice and Crime Go Hand in Hand,” published on Monday, January 18, 1904, a Poughkeepsie Eagle journalist tells the story of an unseemly tryst between Van Tassell and James Newman’s wife, Lizzie (Mullen) Newman.

Wilbur and Lizzie had been secretly meeting at the Elberon Hotel for a couple of months.

The tale unfolds quickly, from the couple’s first introduction by Van Tassell’s brother, Art, to secret rendezvous leading up to the fateful night.

Wilbur and Lizzie would register at the hotel as “Mr.  & Mrs. William Miller of Kingston NY”; A hotel staffer recollects Van Tassell calling Lizzie Newman “his little wifey.”

The affair continued until Lizzie eventually made a blunder. She left a letter meant for Wilbur unattended and in view of James in their home in Wappingers Falls. It was all the information James needed to orchestrate a plan to accost Lizzie and Van Tassell at their Main Street love nest.

On the night of Saturday, January 16^th, Lizzie and Wilbur entered The Elberon and climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor room where they’d made a reservation.

James Newman was waiting for them at the room door.

He clutched Van Tassell by the throat and pointed a pistol at him.  Lizzie screamed, “Jim, don’t shoot him,” then quickly fled down the stairs. This distraction caused Van Tassell to break free from James' grasp.

Van Tassell pushed through the front door of the hotel and bolted up Main Street. He was about to turn on Harris Street by the Hine & Lynch Shoe Factory when Newman fired his first shot through a factory window.

The second bullet he fired hit Wilbur’s back, dropping him to the ground like a sack of dirt.

While Newman began searching for his wife, Van Tassell was carried back to the hotel by a group of onlookers that had quickly gathered at the scene.

Failing to find his wife, James emptied the remaining bullets from the gun and surrendered himself to Sergeant William Sheedy, who was suddenly next to him on the sidewalk.

Lizzie Newman was found in an empty train car at the Poughkeepsie Railroad Station by police officer Maier. The Daily Eagle reported Lizzie first wanting to know if Van Tassell had been badly hurt…

Van Tassell was rushed by ambulance to Vassar Hospital.

I’m doing the Poughkeepsie Eagle article a great disservice. Biased or not, it is loaded with details and information that reads like a pulp fiction story.

“…the ball entered the back above the liver, and going through the lung, had stopped at a point under the skin near the fifth rib”… You got that kind of detail during the JFK assassination!

The Poughkeepsie Evening Enterprise description was even more detailed (and graphic) when writing about the fatal shot, claiming, “The second bullet entered Van Tassell’s back on the right side above the liver and went through his right lung, coming out below the nipple.” They continued, writing that the injury “…is very serious, as a hemorrhage would admit blood to the lung and probably cause death” (which for me immediately conjures up the “I’m not dead (yet)” movie scene in Monty Python’s The Holy Grail).

The Enterprise article also contains Lizzie Newman’s declaration of love for Van Tassell. It also delivers Lizzie’s assertion that she never loved her husband, and married him to spite her father.

Then things get even stranger.

Later on Saturday night, when it was known that Van Tassell was in critical condition, Poughkeepsie City Judge Charles Morschauser decided to go to Vassar Hospital to take the man’s statement.

The Judge also determined that he would bring along James Newman to question the man he’d just shot a few hours earlier!

Newman – Did you know that this woman was married?

Van Tassell – No.

Newman – How long ago did you meet her?

Van Tassell – About two months ago.

Etc…

I’m not certain, but I think bringing an attempted murderer to the deathbed of his shooting victim by the local judge is frowned upon these days.

From its start, the Daily Eagle article sheds Mrs. Newman in a bad light. She “… is not pretty, but is rather attractive in dress.” She was wearing a “large black hat, a natty black coat, and a dark skirt.”

There are subtitles throughout containing lines like “The Wife Was Unfaithful” and “Register as Man and Wife.” At the police station, Lizzie “smiled in a brazen manner after the arrest of her husband.”

The odds were thoroughly stacked against her in the court of public opinion. By reading these accounts, you get the distinct impression that her husband wasn’t going to be convicted of the crime he was initially charged with; murder in the first degree.

Wilbur Van Tassell lingered in his deathbed a bit longer than expected, dying on Thursday, January 21.

During the next several weeks, the story went “turn of the 20^th Century viral,” by landing on the pages of many national newspapers.

This phenomenon would repeat itself during the first weeks of May in 1904.

James Newman was acquitted of all charges against him, as this May 13 New York Evening World headline states.

 

 

“Twelve jurors, most of them property owners in this city, all men of standing in the community, have decided that a wronged husband has the right to murder his wife’s companion – they have upheld the unwritten law.”

The twelve angry men of the jury elaborated on their distaste for both Van Tassell and Lizzie Newman. They also stated how James Newman’s condition would obviously be one of insanity when committing the act of firing a gun, and shooting a man to death with it.

From the very first chilling paragraph of this article to the next, the message gets even colder and more self-righteous as it tumbles down the page.

Even though he was never on trial, “He had it coming” was certainly the unwritten law cast down upon the very dead Wilbur Van Tassell.

Lizzie and James Newman remained married until James' death in 1947. Lizzie had five children: three sons and two daughters. She died on November 23, 1959, at the age of 75. She was buried at St. Mary’s Cemetery in Wappingers Falls.

References

• “Vice and Crime Go Hand in Hand.” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Poughkeepsie Eagle, 18 Jan. 1904, www.newspapers.com/image/114043493/.
• “Van Tassell Near To Death.” The NYS Historic Newspapers, The Pokeepsie Evening Enterprise, 18 Jan. 1904, nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=tpe19040118-01&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN----------.
• “Van Tassell Died at 3:20 PM Today.” The NYS Historic Newspapers, The Pokeepsie Evening Enterprise, 21 Jan. 1904, nyshistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=tpe19040121-01&dliv=userclipping&pageoid=1.1&cliparea=1.1%2C1530%2C1207%2C883%2C1135&factor=4&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN----------.
• “Dying Man’s Advice.” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Topeka Daily Herald, 2 Feb. 1904, www.newspapers.com/image/387486978/.
• “Why Jurors Uphold The Unwritten Law.” Historical Newspapers from 1700s-2000s - Newspapers.Com, The Evening World, 13 May 1904, www.newspapers.com/image/88431172/.