Children in Philadelphias jump rope rhyme - 1887 Gaines Ghost sat on a Post; His Feet were full of Blisters. He made three Grabs at Mary Tabbs And the Wind blew through his Whiskers. February, 1887, relates all the gruesome details connected with the murder of a Mr.WAITE or WAKEFIELD GAINES, an African-American, whose headless, legless and armless body was found wrapped in coarse brown paper and marked, Handle with Care, near Manns Millpond, at Eddington, located near the boundary lines of Bristol and Bensalem Townships, in nearby Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Eventually, MARY ANN TABBS, a Black woman of Philadelphia, who lived on Richard Street was arrested, a young girl who had repeatedly been seen with Gaines, a waiter by profession, who resided on Schell Street in the city. On one occasion the young woman, with whom the papers described as being very intimatewith Gaines for some time, but jealous to the extreme, had inflicted a big cut across his cheek and was heard cursing him, saying how she would kill him yet! By February 23rd, Miss Tabbs had confessed to the murder, after a number of witnesses had observed her and her peculiar baggage, as she rode on the train from Philadelphia to Eddington. However, she related how Gaines and a Mr. George Wilson, alias George Wallace, had gotten into a fight at her residence, during which Wilson struck Gaines with a chair stand, by repeated blows, resulting in the latters death. The body was then dismembered with a cleaver in the cellar, and later distributed in pieces, so Miss Tabbs could handle and discard more easily, the trunk of the corpse. Wilson, a native of Connecticut, was only nineteen years of age at the time of the murder. Though Miss Tabbs disposed of the trunk, Wilson or Wallace had taken Gaines two arms, the two legs and the head of Gaines body and threw them in the Schuylkill River, at the western end of the Callowhill street bridge in Philadelphia. Though the affidavits or testimony of Tabbs and Wilson would vary, their guilt was established beyond any doubt. The point of this short sketch is to demonstrate the fact, that even something so innocent as a jumping rope rhyme, may at times include historical tidbits, by which history may be re-constructed, confirmed, or verified.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 14:50:44 +0000
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