The Sunday Oregonian., March 15, 1908, Magazine Section, Page 2, Image 48

TIIE SUNDAY OEEGOXIAX, PORTLAND, 3IARC1I 13, 1908.
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Isabella J. Martin, the California Dynamiter and
Poisoner as Revealed by aby John"
itome or the Astounding Wholesale murders max
Planned Out of Mere Revenge
WAS JlARZZXLZr &E-
WHKS "Baby John" Martin sat in
the vltin-ss chair in the little
courtroom at Weaverville. Cali
fornia, a tew wcPkB asto, realizing that at
last had come An opportunity forever to
fri-e htmsflf from the terrible influence
that had dominated tils life elnce he was
lifted from a oradle in a New York
foundling asylum 16 years ajro and taken
Into the we of Mm. Isabella J. Martin
he eat there as a witness against the wo
man he has known all through his child
hood as ui mother, telling in slow de
liberate manner, the awful story of the
crimes this woman luid planned, branding
her. as subsequent disclosures Justified,
the greatest woman criminal of the age
and one of the greatest of either sex.
The boy startled the entire state with
the recital, for he told the story of a
woman who had designed to kill an en
tire community, who had arranged the
bomb with which. she compelled the boy
to blow out the front of a judge s home
intent upon killing the Judge and his fam
ily; who had ordered the wanton killing
of a mining prospector: who was ready
Ho send hundreds of lives into eternity
In order to dynamite the home of another
magistrate; who had contrived to poison
the spring of a neighbor near her home
Jn the mountains, and who held In store
sufficient of the. terrible explosive with
raps, fuse and acid to destroy blocks of city
property. He began his tale In a simple
way, giving the facta to the authorities
ronc'ernlng the crime for which the Mar
tin woman, had Anally been 'brought face
tn face with justice the burning of the
big Morris cattlo barns on the range just
outside the limits of the town of Weaver
ville, up In the Sierra .Mountains of North
ern California- He has concluded the
torr now, except for his testimony in
cvurl. wh-n it is definitely decided just
where Mrs. Martin will be tried and to
which one of the many charges she must
Meanwhile, after 20 rears of jusprting
ith the law, of terrorising officials, of
torturing and hypnotixlng the lad whom
had made the instrument for the
mieratlon of all her diabolical schemes.
or scandalising homes, of concocting
startling sensations, of endeavoring to
cure the fortunes of rich men who had
lled. through the claim that, in each
Instance, "Baby John" was tho lawful
hlr to the jwrticular estate after 20 years
of such intrigue. Mrs. Isabella J. Martin
languishes In the misery of desertion and
ihsnalr. She is In the town Jail at
Wosverville, closely guarded and carefully
watched.
The woman in whose scheming has
rested the fate of hundreds of unsuspect
Ing iiersous, is coming to know the real
weight of the law she has held so lightly.
Mm of prominence alt over California
sigh in relief when they reflect upon their
rjcoerlcnces with Mrs. Martin and the
bnv Rnd can now appreciate their for
tune in the arrest of the woman before
she had an opportunity of increasing her
proscribed ltst. 1
Mrs. Martin is the widow of the wealthy
John H. Martin, inineowner and holder
of valuable property In San Francisco
am! Oskland. its suburb across the bay.
tshe was in her prime one of the most
beautiful of the young society matrons of
akland. After her husband's death she
loft her home for the Kust and returned
in a few years with the orphan child
nlio. from the time he wore swaddling
. lothes. has been called "Baby John by
Mrs. Martin until now he U known alone
bv this appellation.
In every other court proceeding In
which she had ever participated, until
she was met by the awful truth as it
fll from the lips of "Baby John." In
the words of his renfarkable confession.
Mrs. Martin's manner and knowledsre
of criminal law nave influenced each
situation. She has been both detent
and insistent upon her rights under
Ipsa) technicalities whlcji she could ar.
sue for hours. Despite her bold pres
ence and tenacious spirit, she at afl
times entrenched herself behind the
7U22 34ffZ3Z5
OF OAKLAND, CAZ,
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silent warning that she was a woman
and should be treated as one.. She was
feared in the Courthouses and, when
her eyes were within glancing dis
tance, she was to all intents and pur
poses respected. Her right hand, sus
piciously and menacingly held under
her cape, sometimes compelled this re
spect. Her implied threats on many
occasions reinforced these actions. Po- i
lice officials and court officers could
see the something- that told of danger
in the wild flashes of. her dark blue
eyes and In the thin Arm lines of her
Hps. She was eccentric, yes; but her
eccentricities were not what made her
feared. It was the knowledge that her
eccentricities Indicated no sign of in
sanity, but rather told of the hard, cold
cunning- of the mind that is steeped
In slv thought. She had been mistress
where she was concerned in court af
fairs, and there were few men, how
ever fearless, who at some time in
their careers had not cowed before her
will.
But ' that day In the Weaverville
courtroom there was too fine a ring of
truch and sincerity in what "Baby
John" told to the small group of breath-
ess listeners gathered about. Mrs. Mar
tin sat there and heard her doom.
alone. She was at bay. The boy she
had used in nearly every crime as the
agent for attaining: her horrible ends
had deserted her. He had reached out
and found a world he had yearned for.
away from the spell of those eyes and
the sharp sting; of the leather lasn tnat
hundreds of times had eaten bloody
paths into the flesh of his back.
Step by step the boy went into de
tail of the carnival of killing that his
mother" had fiendishly planned for
him to aarry out. He acknowledged the
burning- of the Morris cattle barns, say
ing that ho had been driven to tne
crime by the woman. Mrs. Jiarun
sneered. She knew too well that the
testimony of an accomplice without
corroborative evidence would amount
to naught. She thought that she still
had the boy within her power. She
thought that he had told only of the
burning of the Morris barns, and that
only because he naa Deen irigntenea
bv District Attorney D. J. Hall. She
did not know that the boy bad pri
vately told Hall everything. She did
not know that he was just beginning
to repeat the confession that would
send her to the state penitentiary at
San Queutln, California.
She drew herself up to the table as
the boy concluded his recital of the
facts concerning the Morris incident
and then proceeded with the story of
planning for the death of old John
Lauk. the scheme to kill Postmaster
Paulsen, of Weaverville, the placing of
the seal -of doom on the life of Harry
Prise, a Trinity County miner: the
dyimmiting of the home of Superior
Judge F. B. Ogden in Oakland; the sev
eral attempts to place the infernal
machine that would kill Police Judge
Oeorge Samuels and hia entire family;
the burning of the home of Prosecuting
Attorney Abe P. Leach (both of Oes;-
land: the arson of her own cottage in
Oakland: the concealment of explosives
enouirh to make many more bombs
and. last and most dastardly of all, the
arrangements for the polluting of the
water in the Weaverville reservoir
with chemicals, sa that everybody in
the mountain town would die In the
aKony of poison.
Mrs. Martin had simply muttered and
made notes, calmly, and yet in a dis-
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ISABELLA dTJMRTlir
P.ay of the passion of anger that swayed I . The story of the live, that were to have , PJi TLTLZ
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until the climax was reached by "Baby
John," and then she knew that it was a
case of fighting alone. She jumped -to
her feet and cried:
"For Gods sake, don't, 'Baby John!'
Don't, please dont!"
And then, when she saw what she had
done, she collected her wits and con
tinued in more dispassionate tones: "He's
crazy; the boy's crazy, I tell you. He's
lying, that's what he is, and I can prove
it. Aek Dr. Austin Flint, and he'll tell
you that 'Baby John' has never been right
since he injured his head some years ago.
I tell you. he's crasy."
But "Baby John" is not crazy. In fact,
he is an unusually bright and an unusu
ally handscme lad. with his faculties
keenly developed. What is most remark
able for one whose- entire life has been
lived in an atmosphere of crime under,
the power of mind of a woman with no
love and much hate in her heart, he has
a faculty for telling the truth untainted
by any omissions of fact or desire for
revenge. The story he has told remains
unbroken. In each detail where he prom
ised disclosures of importance he has kept
his word with the authorities. Upon his
arrival in Oakland from Weaverville he
led Chief of Detectives Walter J. Peter
son. Detective St. Clair Hodgkins, who
is handling the case, and Captain of Po
lice Lynch to De Fremery Park, in the
heart of the city, and there In a grove of
poplar trees he showed them the spot
where a large iron box filled with dyna
mite, acid and fuse, had been cached by
Mrs. Martin. He has also delivered into
the hands- of the police an alarm clock
ingeniously fitted with additional mechan
ism, so arranged as to be capable of
sending muriatic acid into set caps and
exploding a charge of dynamite at any
hour for which the alarm might be
placed.
And so In the town of .Weaverville, far
up in the hills of California, this crim
inal has been enmeshed in the law. Her
arrest has probably prevented her being
known to history as the greatest indi
vidual destroyer of human life, not for
getting the monster, Harry Orchard, from
whom, says "Baby John," Mrs. Martin
took her ideas concerning the infernal
machine as a means of slaughter. For
by May, if her plans had carried, every
body in Weaverville and in tb small
towns thereabouts would have died to
satisfy her craving to slay.
Dassion. and of "Baby John's" partlcipa
tion In tho whole astounding affair Is
probably best told in the boy's open con
fession to Detective Hodgkins.
As you know, Mr. Hodgkins," said tne
lad, "I am about sixteen years of age.
Mrs. Martin, whom I have always caiiea
y mother, has at different times saia
that I am her son; that I am the child
of the Princess Chimay. and again that
I am just nobody's child that she took
me from a foundling asylum In ew
York when I was an infant. However. I
have always been with her. and I thank
God now that the spell has been broken.
I am free, free for the first time in a
life of misery and torture.
"Oh, it's good to be away from her. 1
feel better now. I can sleep nights, and
I know that 'there will be no more beat
ings, no more orders to kill people. May
be you will never know what kind of a
woman Mrs. Martin really is, even after
I have :-j'd my story.
"Well, tj begin with, I want to say
that I i.laeed and fired the bomb last
March at Judg-! Ogdtn's house on Alice
street in Oakland She made me do it. I
rode down there on my wheel after dark
snd sneaked through a vacant lot back
trf the Ogden place. Hiding the bicycle,
stole along the aiieyway to the front
pr.;-ch, set the bomb on a seat there near
the door, and then retraced my atens.
taking with me one end of the fsise
which I had attached to the box of dyna
mite. When I climbed over the fen-:e
into the lot again, I lit the fuse and then.
rode home. Mrs. Martin and I waited
until we heard the explosion and then
we went to bed.
."The next morning we heard that the
force of the explosion had been outward
and away from the house, and the affair
was put down as a bad job. Nobody was
hurt by theexplosion, as you know, but
a section of the house was- torn away. '
Here "Baby John" paused to listen to
the comments of those who had heard
this part of his story.. When he had ex
pressed his sorrow, seemingly -sincere.
because of his act, he continued his con
fession. He told of the manufacture of
the bomb that was to have blown up
Police Judge Samuels and his - family.
Several times at night, the boy said, Mrs.
Martin and he had gone from their home
-at Twenty -first and West streets, in Oak
land, to Judge Samuels' place in Sixteenth
street, just five blocks away, carrying
the infernal machine ami intending to
shone too brightly, and finally, owing to
the fact that Mrs. Martin thought her I
visits in that neighborhood might arouse
some suspicion, the "job" was temporarily
abandoned and left to be done at -another
time. Conditions arose which prevented
them resuming the work and the infernal
machine was buried beneath the Martin
cottage In Wrest street.
These facts had been told previously
by the boy at Weaverville, to District
Attorney Hall and Sheriff Barnett at
Oakland had been communicated with.
Barnett and a posse upon receiving the
information went that night to the Martin
home and began a search for the bomb.
They dug with picks under the house,
gauging every stroke with the thought
that the slightest carelessness meant the
cost of their lives and the lives of many
residents in the vicinity, besides incalcul
able damage to property. Gingerly they
picked away until past midnight Deputy
Sheriff Brown, an expert on explosives,
discovered the hidden destroyer.
It was taken to the county jail and the
next day an examination of it was made.
It contained 71 full sticks of dynamite.
Deputy Brown, in his report to Sheriff
Barnett stated that, had the bomb been
exploded in front of the Samuels home,
every house In the square would have
been shattered and most of the occupants
of them killed or badly hurt.
The infernal machine was constructed
box-shaped and of wood. It was 26 inches
long, 14 inches wide and 10 inches In
height. In the -center of the cover was a
hole one and a half inches in diameter.
To one side of this hole was placed a
plaster of paris cast in which was set,
with the mouth downward, a bottle con
taining nuriatic acid. Attached to the
cork in the bottle was a wire connecting
with a string and this string was to have
been tied to the front gate of the Samuels
yard. The bomb would have been con
cealed just below the curface in the
ground. . Directly beneath, the moutk
of the bottle of acid, and placed
at the top one of the dynamite
rolls, was a cap which, when affected by
the acid, would have exploded. The re
sult of this happening even "Baby John"
doesn't like to think about now
Next door to- where the dynamite box
had been lying concealed for months, two
shifts of 100 girts- each have been at
work in the Excelsior Laundry every day
and every night. Had any concussion
exploded the bomb every girl at work in
the laundry would, in all likelihood,
have lost her life.
4
4r Zt.lto
When the boy was asked to explain the
plans for poisoning the water In the
Weaverville reservoir, he said:
"We had purchased a large quantity of
that acid which you found and we were
to have dumped it into the lake. There
were persons Mrs. Martin was after in
Weaverville and she bad decided upon
this general plan as the best way of
getting them. When the water should
be low in the spring, I was to pour in
the poison. In less time than it takes
to tell we should have killed everybody In
the town."
And with this simple explanation, he
dismissed the reservoir case.
"Mrs. Martin's idea of killing old John
Lauk, who lived near Brown's Creek, just
above our mountain place, was also sim
ple," "Baby John" went on. "We were
to have poisoned the spring where he
got his water. But Lauk was arrested
for highway robbery. I think, and he
went to prison for life." '
And here "Baby. John," laughed for the
first and only time during the narration
of his story.
An innovation In the busines f mur
der which Mrs. Martin had entered into
was the means she. devised for doing
away with Postmaster Paulsen, of Weav
erville. In this postoffice the postmaster
attends personally to the cancellation of
all stamps. Mrs. Martin bad skillfully
fixed an explosive In the upper right
hand corner of an envelope which she
was to send through the mails and which,
when struck by the cancelling machine,
would have blown Paulsen to eternity
and destroyed all traces of the paper
containing it.
Harry Price, a prospector in the Brown
creek and, at a secluded spot in the bend
was to have been slipt in the back.
"Baby" John" was under instructions
to follow hfm along the bed of the
creed and. at a secluded spot in the lenrl
of the stream, far beyond the Young
ranch, to shoot him from behind.
"The coyotes will finish our friend
Price," was Mrs. Martin's expressed
Idea
The heavy fall of snow last Winter is
all that saved Price. The boy knew that
m case of the body being discovered
sooner than was expected he might De
tracked and Price's death was conse
quently deferred until a better oppor
tunity presented Itself.
Day after day further bits of informa
tion are being gleaned. While the boy
has shown no disposition to withhold
anything, the disclosures he has to make
are so many that some of them tempo-
rarily escape his memory. Only recent
ly It was learned that Justice Samuel P.
Hall, of the California Court of Appeals
had also been doomed to death for his
participation in a suit about a year ago.
in which Mrs. Martin was a party. And
in telling of the Judge Hall plot and re
counting the Ogden. Samuels and Leach
attempts.' "Baby John" has convinced the
authorities that Mrs. Martin was actuat
ed in her murderous desires, not by in
sanity, but by a lurking wish to attain
her ends in the series of arson and other
(Concluded on Page 1L