Hoag Family Plot - Alabama Center Cemetery, Alabama, NY |
SETUP: (Alabama, NY) In November of 1855 Polly Hoag had her fortune told when her and her husband Henry attended an election party at the Alabama Hotel. She was told two members of her family would die, and she would not be one of them. Henry decides he wants to give up being a shoemaker and try farming. This meant they would be moving away from the conveniences of village life, her friends ... and someone else. We will begin in the spring of 1856 (which is somewhere in chapter 2).
As time passed, Polly's hostility towards moving to the farm increased. Mrs. Potter testified during one of the trials that Polly had told her and another woman, Delia Avery, that she was sorry she ever got married. Polly also relayed to the women that she wished she was clear of her husband and children. She did not care how she got clear of them, nor how soon; and that if it was not for them she could go anywhere she had a mind to. Polly told the ladies that she would not care a bit if Henry should die; if he moved on the farm, as he was not healthy, he wouldn't live six months.
Why was Polly protesting so much? Henry would not find out the real reason until right before the move. The answer would not come from Polly, but from her then nine-year-old son Albert.
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BLURB:
In 1856, in the rural town of Alabama, NY one woman's family suffered from multiple unexplained deaths. The town folk grew suspicious of the now remarried Polly Frisch. An investigation commenced, bodies were exhumed, an affair—exposed. Polly would be arrested for the murders of her first husband and daughters. Her fourteen-year-old son would testify against her. If found guilty, the punishment for such a crime was the gallows. Bread & Butter is the true story of Polly Frisch who poisoned her family with arsenic and the five trials it took to convict her.
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The above excerpt is from Bread & Butter: The Murders of Polly Frisch, a book I co-authored with my friend, Ellen Bachorski. We are re-releasing it into the modern world of POD and Kindle, etc. It has had an edit make over and new info added. The copies of the first edition which we printed through Morris Publishing in 2000 are still available. You can see it over on the right in my blog. I did a mock up for the new cover below. What do you think?