All Episodes

ABC:LHS #080-1   The First Troop Philadelphia City Cavalry...
...or "First City Troop", was organized in 1774 as the Light Horse of the City of Philadelphia, one of the first patriotic military organizations established in the American Revolution. Although part of the National Guard system, it is a free-standing unit with its own uniforms and armory. It has served in virtually every war and skirmish ever entered by the United States. After a quarter century of service, it still proudly serves the American populace and the people of Philadelphia. 

ABC:LHS #080   First City Troop, Philadelphia...
...celebrated its semiquincentennial before the country did.
Part 1: brief history of the Troop's First 150 years
Part 2: Fairman Rogers, the finest coach driver in the land, was painted by Thomas Eakins
Part 3: Archibald Loudon Snowden was a late-19th century polymath, an expert in coin minting, the postal service, fire insurance, and Fairmount Park in addition to his years as a captain of the troop
Part 4: Joseph Lapsley Wilson quietly developed one of the finest arboretums in the country which continued under the care of Dr. Albert C. Barnes
Part 5: Hugh Craig, Jr. was the grease that kept the troop moving and the glue that kept it together for more than 30 years, yet he lay in an unmarked grave at Laurel Hill East for more than a century. 

BBB:LHWS #049-4  Oscar Rosier...
...had married the prettiest salesgirl in town, who soon bore him a child. But Oscar had a roving eye which was apparently set on his secretary, another beauty and purported friend of his wife. It did not end well for anyone. 

BBB:LHWS #049-3   Captain Clayton Erb...
...decided to marry and produce an heir at age 50 and selected a young divorcee to serve as mistress of his Red Gables estate in Delaware County. When the woman's sister got involved, things went sour in a hurry. The court case revealed the mansion had been a house of horrors. 

BBB:LHWS #049-2   John Hobbs...
...knew he was being stalked and told his brother that if he didn't leave town soon, he would be a dead man. He was proven right when the woman he was avoiding caught up with him at the train station. 

BBB:LHWS #049-1   Intimate Partner Violence...
...dates to pre-biblical times and violence against women was sanctioned by laws until only recently. Up to 40% of all homicides involve a domestic partner. Men tend not to report abuse when it happens, although attitudes are changing. The adage that “Men are afraid women will laugh at them. Women are afraid men will kill them" is sometimes reversed. Here are three women who killed their intimate partner; their stories are anything but simple and straightforward. 

BBB:LHWS #049    Wives Kill for varying reasons
John Hobbs was stalked and shot at a railway station in 1891 by a spurned lover.
CPT Clayton Erb was shot and killed, either by his wife or his sister-in-law, during one of many knockdown drag-out battles that had occurred in the brief marriage at the Red Gables mansion in Delaware County.
In 1922, businessman Oscar Rosier and his secretary Jerry were mortally wounded by Rosier’s wife, who was thought to be the prettiest salesgirl in Philadelphia. Oscar lived long enough to write a will, which completely blocked his soon-to-be widow from his modest estate. 

ABC:LHS 079-5   The tale of the arsenic widows...
...of Philadelphia will never be told fully. Hundreds of men may have died at their hands. Two of the women who looked the guiltiest were saved from a life in prison by brilliant African American defense attorney Raymond Pace Alexander (BBB:LHWS #005).

ABC:LHS #079-4   Victor "Babe" Andreoli...
...was raised in East Falls in a large, hardworking family, but fell in with bad company. After a botched robbery attempt, he was sentenced to life at Eastern State Penitentiary. His escape in a laundry truck did not end well.

ABC-079, part 3
 
Willie was one of six brothers in the crime business. They never bothered to affiliate with the Mafia, but three of the six brothers were picked off during gang wars. Willie was one of the victims. 

ABC:LHS #079-2   Potito "Little Petey" Bisciotti...
...was on the lower rungs of the mob but wanted to move up in the numbers racket. A rendezvous with fellow gangsters in a deserted tea room led to an untimely death by sawed-off shotgun. 

ABC079-1: How Crime Emerged in the Quaker City
In the early 20th century, ethnic groups clashed over control of gambling operations, protection, the numbers racket, prostitution, and eventually bootlegging. These criminal enterprises weren’t just about making money, but were also about gaining power and influence, sometimes even forging ties with local politicians and the police.

ABC:LHS #079-0 Thugs and Gangsters  
Some Laurel Hill residents are remembered today for their involvement with organized crime in the 1930s and 1940s. 
Petito "Little Petey" Bisciotti was a wannabe numbers man killed in what has become known as the Flag Day Massacre.
Willie Lanzetti was one of six notorious brothers in constant legal troubles; he met his end in a gangland slaying before his body was cremated and the ashes scattered at Laurel Hill West.
East Falls resident Victor “Babe” Andreoli was a cop-killer and Eastern State Penitentiary escapee who was gunned down at a breakfast café in Chester.
You’ll also hear part of the long sordid tale of the arsenic poisoning for insurance ring that took dozens of lives in the late 1930s. Two women who were tried based on the most circumstantial evidence against them were found “not guilty” when they were represented by Raymond Pace Alexander.
 

BBB:LHWS #048   John Henry Fow...
...was a lawyer with two nicknames - "Ducky" for the walk and "Foghorn" for the talk. He was tough and had an uncanny knack for figuring out what was unconstitutional. He debunked the supposed story behind the famous “Washington Crosses the Delaware” painting and then seriously challenged the Betsy Ross flag anecdote.

ABC:LHS #078-5   LTC Edgar Loftus...
...was a Wharton grad who rose in the Army Air Corps to Lieutenant Colonel. On VE Day, he was ranking officer in charge when a small squadron of German Aces landed and then augured in their aircraft at his air base to end their war. One of them was Hitler's favorite pilot. Yes, this really happened.