In 1857, a prominent New York dentist was found murdered in his Bond Street office. Suspicion fell on Emma Cunningham, the widow who ran the boardinghouse and claimed to be his wife — and heir. Her acquittal did not end the scandal. Adisputed marriage, a claimed pregnancy, and a staged birth kept the city riveted and raised new questions about truth, reputation, and inheritance in mid-19th-century New York.

Source Materials:

Duke, Franklin. Celebrated Criminal Cases of America. San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, 1910.

Serratore, Angela. “The Murder of Dr. Harvey Burdell and the Scandal That Gripped 1857 New York.” Smithsonian Magazine.

Roberts, Sam. “The Murder That Gripped Bond Street.” The New York Times.

The New-York Daily Times (1857), contemporary coverage of the Burdell murder and Emma Cunningham trial.

Contemporary inquest and trialreporting in New York newspapers, 1857.