No Connection

[Joe Chetcuti]

The Feb 2023 issue of the Whitechapel Society Journal displayed a new book entitled The Tumblety-Lyons Connection by Joseph Howard Tyson III.

I promptly bought the book and read it over. The author spoke respectfully about Tumblety's biographers Tim Riordan and Mike Hawley. He also credited their work in his footnotes and bibliography. That was good to see.

The book's title was in regards to a New York City litigation matter involving Tumblety vs Mrs. Lyons & her son.

In 1878, Tumblety entrusted his railroad bonds to Mrs. Lyons' son. Tumblety made this transaction through Mrs. Lyons. Tumblety then traveled to Europe, but when he returned to New York in 1880, the young man Lyons was gone and so were the railroad bonds. Police action and courtroom drama ensued.

It took awhile for Ripperologists to find out the first names of Mrs. Lyons and her son, but eventually Howard Brown posted up the July 2, 1880 issue of the New York Herald Tribune. Hopefully, this web link will work and it will take you to that thread. Just check out the first post.


www.jtrforums.com/forum/persons-of-interest-or-actual-suspects/dr-francis-tumblety/14096-in-the-1880-s


That newspaper article clearly identified the mother as an elderly woman named Mrs. Mary Lyon and her son as Joseph J. Lyon. Later on, Mike Hawley found the July 1, 1880 Oswego Daily Times and also the July 2, 1880 Rutland Daily Herald. Both articles identified the mother as an elderly lady named Mrs. Mary Lyon.

18 years ago, I asked Tim Riordan to work with me in obtaining the Appellate Court opinion concerning a certain aspect of this railroad bonds case, and we were successful. The court opinion showed that the mother and son had the surname Lyons. Additionally, Mrs. Lyons' attorney described her as an elderly lady and he revealed that her son was of collegiate age.

With all that established, I can now give you my opinion of the book on my next post.

[Joe Chetcuti]

Unfortunately, The Tumblety-Lyons Connection book presented Mrs. Lyons and her son as having been Sophia Van Elkan Lyons and George Lyons. Sophia was a notorious female criminal in her day. It doesn't appear that the author was aware of the report in the New York Herald Tribune that identified the mother and son as Mary & Joseph.

The fact is, Sophia Van Elkan Lyons was 32 years old in 1880 and she certainly was not an elderly woman. Her son George was born in 1866. That means the author is telling us that Tumblety, in 1878, had entrusted his railroad bonds to a twelve year old boy.

Mrs. Lyons' attorney, William P. Burr, claimed that her son first met Tumblety when the young man had just returned from college. Obviously, George would have been too young to have been a college student at this time. I'm sad to say that the author missed the mark on his main premise.

There was something about the book that I found interesting. The author spoke of a 15 year old Francis Tumblety in Ireland in 1845 and he related a new story. I would need to look into that story further before commentating.

[R. J. Palmer]

That newspaper article clearly identified the mother as an elderly woman named Mrs. Mary Lyon and her son as Joseph J. Lyon. Later on, Mike Hawley found the July 1, 1880 Oswego Daily Times and also the July 2, 1880 Rutland Daily Herald. Both articles identified the mother as an elderly lady named Mrs. Mary Lyon.

18 years ago, I asked Tim Riordan to work with me in obtaining the Appellate Court opinion concerning a certain aspect of this railroad bonds case, and we were successful. The court opinion showed that the mother and son had the surname Lyons. Additionally, Mrs. Lyons' attorney described her as an elderly lady and he revealed that her son was of collegiate age.

With all that established, I can now give you my opinion of the book on my next post.

Hi Joe - I checked my notes to refresh my memory. It's been a lot of years since I looked into this.

Mrs. Lyons' name was misreported in the press coverage. Her name wasn't Mary Lyons.

Her actual name was Catherine Lyons. Mary was one of the daughter's names.

This is certain because the litigant's address is listed as Mrs. Lyons, No. 257 West Houston Street, NYC in the original accounts.

The 1880 US Census lists Catherine Lyons, born Ireland, 1824/1825, at that address, with 3 daughters, Mary, Ann, and Elizabeth. The address is cut off in the image below, but it is No. 257 West Houston. You can see the 257 (the house number) highlighted in yellow.




This allowed me to find the family in the 1870 Census.

The father's name was Daniel, a cooper by trade, also born Ireland. The children were born in NYC. Her name is again listed as Catherine, and if I remember, it was the same on her death certficate.


The father died by 1880, so FT was hounding a widow. I doubt if he would have been quite as demonstrative if Daniel was still alive.



You can see Joseph, aged 15 in 1870. (He was living outside the home by 1880, though he is still listed there in some directories, if I recall).


Cheers.

[R. J. Palmer]

Yeah, here we go. Here's the family in the 1855 New York State Census. NYC, Ward 5. There was an older brother named Timothy. The parents Daniel, again listed as a cooper, and his wife 'Cath.'

Joseph Lyons' age is given as 2 months. The census was taken on June 7th, so his birthday would presumably be April or late March 1855.



Joseph Lyons died on 5 Aprill 1913 of kidney disease, aged 58, at Fordham Hospital in the Bronx. "Uremia, Chronic Interstitial Nephritis, Chronic Myocarditis Arterio Sclerosis."

[Joe Chetcuti]

That helps quite a bit, Roger. Thank you. The New York Herald Tribune confirmed the 257 West Houston Street address and the article reported that Mrs. Lyons was accompanied to the Tombs Police Court by her daughter. Your census material showed that this daughter very likely was Mary Lyons and she would have been 22 years old when she accompanied her mother Catherine to the police court in 1880.

I think the 1880 newspaper reports simply took the daughter's name Mary and mistakenly presented it as the name of her mother. Thanks for straightening this out.

[R. J. Palmer]

Having dismissed Tumblety as the Whitechapel Murderer, the author of this work then turns his attention to the real murderer: Nathan Kaminsky.

His theory is that Nathan Kaminsky is a close relative of Aaron Kosminski, probably a cousin, having traveled to London with the Kosminski-Lubnowski clan, thus the mDNA found on the so-called "Eddowes" scarf by Jari Louhelainen matches Nathan just as much as it matches Aaron Kosminski. Kaminsky is preferable because (supposedly) he matches Swanson suspect (who 'shortly afterwards died' at Colney Hatch), whereas Aaron Kosminski does not.

He then follows Martin Fido's theory, suggesting that Kaminsky's name was misspelled or had become confused by Macnaghten and Swanson, and ends with a plea for Ripperologists to trace Kaminsky to Poland, thus proving the theory and putting an end to the search for the Ripper.

He makes a rather unfortunate error by having Kaminsky identified at the Seaside Home in Hove in December 1888, and then sent back to the Stepney Workhouse by Macnaghten and Anderson, under the name 'David Cohen.'

Of course, the Seaside Home in Hove was not open in 1888, nor was Macnaghten yet a member of Scotland Yard.

There are two men named Nathan Kaminsky, roughly the correct age, who emigrated to the United States. One settled in Massachusetts, the other was a Rabbi in New York City.

The Massachusetts man is pretty much a non-starter, because his children were born in Russia after 1888, and these flights tended to be one-way. The other man didn't emigrate until the 1920s, so if he was Martin Fido's "Kaminsky," one would expect to find him in the UK in 1891, 1901, or 1911, which doesn't appear to be the case.

[Chris Phillips]

Having dismissed Tumblety as the Whitechapel Murderer, the author of this work then turns his attention to the real murderer: Nathan Kaminsky.

His theory is that Nathan Kaminsky is a close relative of Aaron Kosminski, probably a cousin, having traveled to London with the Kosminski-Lubnowski clan, thus the mDNA found on the so-called "Eddowes" scarf by Jari Louhalainen matches Nathan just as much as it matches Aaron Kosminski. Kaminsky is preferable because (supposedly) he matches Swanson suspect (who 'shortly afterwards died' at Colney Hatch), whereas Aaron Kosminski does not.

It's disturbing to hear that people are still peddling the Shawl DNA nonsense.

Perhaps understandable that some people don't fully understand the scientific issues, but surely the absurdity of the story about Amos Simpson taking a bloodstained garment away from the murder scene as a present for his wife isn't hard to grasp!

[R. J. Palmer]

He does acknowledge that the scientific testing of the shawl was controversial and received considerable criticism, but as I read it, he seems to attribute this criticism more to Louhelainen and Miller "dumbing down" their paper for public consumption, rather than to any actual errors or faulty conclusions in their findings. Thus, he ultimately accepts, or seems to accept, the results.

He does mention the Amos Simpson provenance, but apparently accepts it at face value.

[Chris Phillips]

He does acknowledge that the scientific testing of the shawl was controversial and received considerable criticism, but as I read it, he seems to attribute this criticism more to Louhelainen and Miller "dumbing down" their paper for public consumption, rather than to any actual errors or faulty conclusions in their findings.

A bit of an odd attitude, as the criticism preceded the publication of the paper by four and a half years!