Last month I caught a news item from
The York Daily Record in York,
Pennsylvania about a promotion company’s plans to turn the site of a sensational
1928 murder into a tourist attraction.
The story mentioned
Hex, the 1969 true crime book that covered the
trial of a murdered "powwow" doctor – a Pennsylvania Dutch witch – Nelson
Remeyer. Remeyer purportedly placed a hex on another powwow doctor, John
Blymire. Blymire and two confederates broke into Remeyer’s house looking for a
lock of his hair and his book of hexes. They encountered Remeyer and murdered
him.
I was privileged to have met the unusual man who wrote
Hex and many
other unusual crime stories.
Back in the mid-1980s, I attended a series of
seminars by Arthur H. Lewis, a former
Philadelphia Inquirer reporter and
author of several non-fiction best-sellers. Lewis, who died in 1995 at the age
of 89, conducted the seminars at the Philadelphia Free Library in South
Philadelphia.
I heard of the offered seminars and having wanted to be a crime writer since
I was 12, I quickly signed up. I hoped to learn about journalism and publishing
from a true professional.
Lewis, a short man with short-cropped white hair, came
across as a lively, unpretentious man who truly loved being a writer. He called
himself a reporter rather than a best-selling author. He told our small group of
writers and aspiring writers that being a writer can be interesting and fun, but
it took hard work and discipline to sit down and write books.
At the time, I was a Defense Department civilian employee and I was writing news and features for in-house Defense Department
magazines. I hoped to graduate to working for newspapers and magazines and
eventually write short stories and novels.
During the course of the seminars,
Lewis was complimentary about my writing and at first I thought he was merely
being polite. But then, after a reading, he told a woman in the group that she
was not and probably would never be a writer.
"You just don’t have it," he told her in cold, blunt terms. He went on to
criticize her submitted work and pointed out in detail why she didn’t have the
skills, abilities or talent to be a writer.
After the seminar, I walked Lewis to his Center City home, a half-dozen
blocks away from the library, as I had after the two previous seminars. As we
walked, I told him I thought he was too harsh with the woman. He replied that
she was wasting her time trying to be a writer. She ought to pursue something
else.
I enjoyed the walks and private conversations with Lewis. Looking back, I
think I learned far more about journalism and publishing from these talks than I
did from attending journalism courses at Penn State and Temple University.
Although he is not well-known today, in his time Lewis wrote several
best-selling books about true crime and other subjects.
He wrote 15 nonfiction
books and two novels. He was nominated for an "Edgar" award by the Mystery
Writers of America in 1965 for
Lament for the Molly Maguires.
The book covered the true story about the secret society of Pennsylvania
Irish coal miners who took the name of a legendary heroine who led insurrections
against the British during the Irish famine. The
Molly Maguires fought
against the truly awful living and working conditions in the mines, yet many
would say that the
Molly Maguires were terrorists due to their violent actions.
Led by Jack Kehoe, a tough ex-miner turned saloonkeeper, the
Molly
Maguires initially committed violence only against brutal mine bosses and
dynamited the mines and company trains. Later, like any organized crime or
terrorist group, they cut off the ears and tongues of suspected informants and
took to beating and killing anyone who offended a member of the powerful secret
organization.
In response to the violence, the mining companies hired the Pinkerton
Detective Agency. The Pinkertons sent in an Irish undercover detective named
James McParland. McParland posed as a murderer hiding out and he quickly
infiltrated the secret society. For three years, McParland worked his way up to
the leadership of the group.
The detective, an early day-Donnie Brasco, gathered evidence that helped
convict and hang the
Molly Maguire leaders, including Jack Kehoe, in
1877.
Lewis’ book was later made into a 1970 film starring Sean Connery and Richard
Harris.
The film, directed by Martin Ritt and written for the screen by Walter
Bernstein, was notably more sympathetic to the
Molly Maguires than Lewis’
book. (Ritt and Bernstein, it should be noted, were political leftists and
communist sympathizers in the 1950s).
Arthur Lewis was born in Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania on September 1906. He
dropped out of college to become a reporter with
The Philadelphia
Inquirer in 1927. He said he loved being a reporter, which he likened to
going to a new show every day. He later worked in radio and did public relations
work for several Pennsylvania governors.
He published his first book in 1956 when he was 49. The book was
The
Aaronsburg Story, the true story of the founding of a Central Pennsylvania
town in 1786 by Aaron Levy. Four years later he published
The Worlds of
Chippy Patterson, a fascinating book about a Philadelphia criminal lawyer
who took on the vilest cases and defended gangsters, madams and sexual deviants.
Patterson was also a lover of classic literature. Years after reading Lewis’
book, I would watch the British TV series and read John Mortimer’s short stories
about his fictional character, British lawyer Horace Rumpole, and think of
Patterson.
Patterson was the scion of a wealthy and socially prominent family, yet he
identified with criminals and social outcasts. The book covers a wonderful
period of time in the Philadelphia court system and all levels of Philadelphia
and American society.
Another favorite Lewis true crime book of mine is
Murder by Contract: The
People v. "Tough Tony" Boyle. Lewis’s book covers the 1969 murder of Jock
Yablonski and his wife and daughter and the subsequent trial of Boyle, who was
the head of the United Mine Workers.
In 1969 Joseph "Jock" Yablonski challenged Boyle for the union leadership. He
lost in what most observers believed was a fraudulent election and Yablonski
asked the Department of Labor to investigate the fraud. "Tough Tony" then hired
three hit-men to kill and silence Yablonski. Lewis’ story is also about an
interesting Philadelphia lawyer named Richard A. Sprague, who acted as the
prosecuting attorney.
Lewis also wrote books about carnivals, prostitutes, eccentrics and the
Philadelphia Kellys, including one Kelly named Grace who became a movie star and real life
princess. The Princess and the Kelly family were not at all happy
with the book, as it exposed family secrets.
Lewis loved being a writer. He used a restored 1917 L.C. Smith typewriter and
well into his 80s; he continued to type 1,000 words a day.
Lewis died on January 25, 1995. He led a full and fascinating life, it seems
to me, and he left behind his loving wife of many years and children and
grandchildren.
Arthur H. Lewis was a very good
interviewer and researcher long before the Internet and Google. And thanks to
his enthusiasm for people and stories, and his down-to-earth and likeable
personality, he was able to get his unusual subjects to tell all, or nearly all.
And the rest is history, as they say.
Although his books are largely out of print today, thanks to the Internet and Abebooks.com, E-Bay
and other Internet-based book traders, you can still purchase Lewis’ books at
reasonable prices.
Arthur H. Lewis’ books are part of my library and I suspect his books are
also part of the libraries of many a reader who is interested in
history, in crime, and in a good story about fascinating people and
times.
Note: The column originally appeared in the
Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine in 2007.
