Cheri L. Farnsworth

Click HERE for last signing of 2011

NEW this year ~ Wicked Northern New York and Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County

 Check out ALPHABET KILLER, my other website devoted to my book, Alphabet Killer: The True Story of the Double Initial Murders. This is the only book entirely devoted to Rochester’s unsolved ‘Double Initial’ or ‘Alphabet’ Murders. It provides a comprehensive, accurate overview of the heartbreaking slayings of three little girls that have confounded authorities for forty years. I will be signing copies of this and my other titles at Bear’s Den Gift Shop in Akwesasne on Sunday, November 27 from 1-3 p.m.

SAMPLE CHAPTER from “WICKED”:  “The Girl Who Was Traded for Chickens” 

    Late one chilly afternoon in November 1908, a young girl—barefoot, filthy, and scantily dressed—showed up at the Lavalley residence in Cadyville seeking shelter. She said her name was Annie and that her parents, Abraham and Mary Terrier of Schuyler Falls, had “put her out.” How do you kick a ten-year-old child out? From the condition of the girl, the eviction from her so-called home was apparently a blessing in disguise. One glance at their diminutive visitor, and the Lavalleys knew that Humane Officer Hennessy was needed. While modern humane officers specialize in animal cruelty, in the early 1900s, it was, as one paper called it, the “noble work of preventing cruelty to [both] children and animals.” It was the humane officer’s job to enforce anti-cruelty laws within his jurisdiction. In those days, there were no government agencies to oversee the welfare of children, so Hennessy acted as a forerunner of today’s caseworker for the New York State Department of Social Services - Child Protective Services division. He had undoubtedly seen his share of shocking situations, due to the nature of his work, but this was one case he would never forget.

   Hennessy questioned the child and the neighbors of her previous caretakers but was unable to speak with her real parents, because her biological father had left several years earlier, after an argument with her real mother. Then, shortly thereafter, Annie’s mother died, and Annie became an orphan—and a vulnerable target for predators, such as (in her case) gypsies, pimps, and child abusers, in that order. Thus, the girl’s actual name, the Humane Officer soon learned, was Annie Ashline of Keeseville, not Annie Terrier of Schuyler Falls. She had somehow fallen in with a band of gypsies passing through the area at the time of her mother’s death; and, although they provided the basic necessities for the short time that she was with them, they did her no favors. In fact, they did the unthinkable, selling her to a “man of alleged ill repute near Redford” for fifty cents—fifty cents—the equivalent of twelve dollars today. When he was finished with her, he took her to the Terrier home and traded her for a half dozen chickens. So far, the only society she knew had been cruel to her, placing her value at next to nothing; and things were about to get worse for her.

While in the care of the Terriers, neighbors told Hennessy that the child was regularly beaten, which they called “flogging” back then, provided with but little clothing, and sent through the snow to the woods, barefooted, to fetch wood for the family. The Ticonderoga Sentinel of December 3, 1908, said she had been “buffeted from pillar to post and [had] been frightfully abused,” until the day the Terriers kicked her out, and the Lavalleys contacted Humane Officer Hennessy on the girl’s behalf. Annie was committed to the St. Vincent’s orphan asylum in Troy. The Sentinel said that at least the investigation “resulted in putting the unfortunate waif in a place where she will receive the care and education which has thus far in her life been lacking.”

Warrants were then issued for the arrest of both Mr. and Mrs. Terrier, “on a charge of endangering the morals of the child, under section 289,”according to the Press Republican. Mary Terrier was “under $100 bail, to appear before Justice Emery,” and Abraham Terrier, while he could not initially be found, did manage to show up in time for his and his wife’s arraignment a few days later. Incredibly, Justice R. H. Emery released the contemptible couple, saying the charge brought against them by Humane Officer Hennessy was lacking in evidence to support it. They were free to go.

Perhaps if the good justice had walked a mile in the child’s shoes, he might have reached a different conclusion. But he hadn’t been subjected to the deeds of a man of ill repute against a frail little body; he hadn’t felt the familiar sting of a whip or been chained to a porch like a dog; and he hadn’t experienced the shame of being sold for a mere fifty cents before being traded for six lousy chickens. If none of that is endangering a child’s morals, then what is?

FOR MORE INFORMATION ON “WICKED NORTHERN NEW YORK,” CLICK HERE.

Order directly from The History Press here.

Also new!

Murder & Mayhem in Jefferson County is now available. Click here for more details and to read an excerpt.

Signed copies of many of my titles are available at the Bear’s Den Gift Shop in Akwesasne. And all titles on this site are available online at amazon.com and www.barnesandnoble.com, as well as at the respective publisher’s website (www.historypress.net, www.stackpolebooks.com, www.northcountrybooks.com) and many independent bookstores.

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