Iron or Lead?

[Airmid]

Wheee, I have my Sourcebook now and I've already been reading and re-reading some of the newspaper stuff. Fascinating! A pity that it doesn't contain accounts of all the Fall River newpapers of the days after the murder, but apparently David Kent focussed on the Fall River Herald as the most impartial and best informed newspaper.
So that brings me back to one of the earlier questions in this thread: Who wrote the newspaper articles?

I ran into a new name on the scene: Clarence E. Bury.

I first came across him in the index to the Lizzie Borden Quarterly volumes on this site:
Vol. VI, No. 3, July 1999
.....
Binette, Dennis A. "New Borden-Related Document Added to Collection." Lizzie Borden Quarterly VI.3 (July 1999): 8.
Binette details the finding and contents of a new piece of Borden-related ephemera, a hand-written manuscript from John J. Manning, reporter for the Fall River Daily Herald, to his boss, city editor Clarence E. Bury, that relates the moment of the verdict of "Not Guilty" at Lizzie Borden's murder trial.

That was in 1893, when Manning was working for the Herald to cover the Trial. But maybe Bury hadn't been an city editor for the Herald all that long, or perhaps he was in the habit of doing active reporting too while he was a city editor, because a "Mr. Bury" or "Mr. Burry" is mentioned in the Trial testimony of Walter Stevens, reporter for the Fall River News, who was one of the first reporters present at the house.

Page 1387:
Q What time did you go away?
A I don't know the exact time.
Q As near as you can recollect?
A I walked down with Mr. Bury to the Union bank, into the Union bank; stopped there for a very short time, returned and stopped for a shorter time in front of Talbot's, and turned back into Second Street when the clock struck twelve, City Hall clock.

Page 1396:
Q And from there you went to the Union bank?
A Yes, sir, I went in there.
Q The Union Bank is next to the City Bank, is it?
A Yes, sir.
Q What did you do there?
A My object was to get Mr. Borden's antecedents, but I did not succeed. Mr. Burry was with me.

From this testimony, it seems reasonable to assume that "Mr. Bury" was a newpaperman too, who is also anxious to gather some background information about Andrew, and identifying him with Clarence E. Bury seems only a tiny step to make. If I read Stevens' testimony right, Bury was also at the Borden house soon after the murders, at least some time before twelve.
The next question then, would be which newspaper Mr. Bury worked for. If he was the city editor for the Herald at the end of Lizzie's trial, one could simply say that he must have worked for the Herald at the time of the murders too. However, I ran again into some information that complicated the business again.

Fenner, in his History of Fall River, relates how the Fall River Daily Herald started out as an independent, Democratic paper. On Page 109 he says this:
About the year 1888 the control of the paper passed into the hands
of a syndicate, of which Dr . John W. Coughlin was the leader . Nicholas T. Geagan had been treasurer and manager, and he was succeded by James E . O'Connor . Associated with them were John Cottle, John Stanton, Michael Mooney, James Lawlor, Dr. J . B . Chagnon and James H . Hoar.
In 1893 the control of the paper passed into the hands of men who changed its policy to independent Republican. The president of the new corporation was John D. Munroe, and the treasurer and manager was
George R. H . Buffinton. Thatcher T . Thurston was editor.
The Herald continues as an independent Republican newspaper, the officers of which are as follows : President, James Marshall ; treasurer and manager , John D. Munroe ; directors, James Marshall , John D. Munroe, J. Thayer Lincoln, Edward B. Jennings and Willliam B . Edgar. The editor is Clarence E . Bury .


In the last part of that quote, Fenner is speaking of the directors and staff of the Herald in his time, that is 1906.

If Fenner is correct, there was a change in policy in 1893, which would probably mean that the staff of the newspaper was changed too. It is at least the case for one person mentioned in Fenner: Thatcher T. Thurston. In the Sourcebook, David Kent says on page 322:
The Fall River Globe sent two men to cover the trial, Thatcher Thurston, rated by his fellow workers as the ablest of the Fall River men and E.H. Porter .....

So there we have Mr. Thurston, named as a reporter for the Globe and editor for the Herald in the same year. He must have changed jobs somewhere during or after the Trial.
Clarence E. Bury was city editor for the Herald at the end of the Trial, and was made (general) editor of the Herald some time after that. If the change in policy for the Herald meant that not just the (general) editor but also the city editor of the paper would be replaced, then the change in policy must have taken place during the Trial, and in that case Mr. Bury could have worked for any of the Fall River newspaper at the time of the murders.

I'd best cut my rambling short now. It's already too full of "maybe's" and "could have been's". Do you folks think it's reasonable to identify "Mr. Bur(r)y" with Clarence E. Bury? Or am I asking old questions here?

Airmid.[/i]

[Kat]

Old questions? Ha!
You've covered quite a bit of ground with meticulous detail. I can only think a few of our members are loving such precise accounts!
I can cheerlead and say Good-Oh!. Keep up the good work!

[diana]

Amen to that!

[Kat]

And Harry?

[Harry]

I'll second the Amen. It's always good to see well researched posts.

I don't have much to add. Perhaps Bury was a hands-on type of editor and liked to periodically go out with his reporters. I don't believe he appears anywhere else but in the citations listed by Airmid.

I looked quickly through the indexes of all 3 volumes of "Victorian Vistas" using variations of the spelling of his name and could find no references.

As for the question "Who wrote the articles", that's something that perhaps is lost to history. I don't believe I have ever seen a by-line on a Fall River newspaper on any of the Borden material. Found an article which said that the UP (United Press a competitor of the Associated Press and Reuters) was a pioneer in using bylines in 1908!

http://www.answers.com/topic/united-press-international

[Airmid]

Thanks so much for your kind words, folks! But then, I have some splendid examples to follow on this forum.
And thanks Harry for checking!
Oh and Kat, ever so often when I find something in the sources that makes me think "that's odd" and I check the archives, it seems to me that you spotted the same things already, 3 years ago . I have a lot of catching up to do!

Airmid.