BOOK REVIEW: “Pittsfield’s Fosburgh Murder Mystery” by Frank J. Leskovitz (History Press, 144 pages, $21.99)
Most of us in western Massachusetts have probably never heard of the Fosburgh murder in Pittsfield.
In 1900, however, it made headlines not just in our area, but around the country. Frank J. Leskovitz explores the ongoing uncertainty surrounding this crime in “Pittsfield’s Fosburgh Murder Mystery.”
Leskovitz, who lives in Pittsfield and conducted research at the Berkshire Athenaeum, subtitles his book, “Scandal in the Berkshires.”
On Aug. 20, 1900, 24-year-old May Fosburgh was shot in the middle of the night at the home her family had inhabited for just a few weeks on Tyler Street in Pittsfield.
Her father and elder brother ran a large construction company and had moved to the town to supervise an expansion project at the Stanley Electric Co., later part of General Electric.
Neighbors heard shots coming from the Fosburgh home. The family summoned a doctor and eventually the police. May’s relatives maintained that she had been killed by burglars. A widespread manhunt was mounted, but no sign of the burglars was ever found.
Both May’s father and brother had sustained injuries, but family descriptions of the burglars were inconsistent. Eventually, suspicious of the family’s story, the police arrested May’s brother Robert, charging him with manslaughter.
The trial that took place the following July attracted big-city as well as small-town reporters. Through reports from the Berkshire Evening Eagle, New York Times, San Francisco Call and other papers, Frank Leskovitz traces the action of the trial.
After six days of oral arguments and testimony, the judge in the case ordered the jury to acquit Robert Fosburgh. The Fosburghs went on with their lives, and no one ever determined what happened the night of May’s death.
Author Frank Leskovitz doesn’t claim to have new evidence. Nevertheless, he presents a clear, thorough account of this old crime.
I asked him by email how he came to write the book. “The Fosburgh case had always intrigued me,” he replied, “and it would periodically get a mention in the local press.”
Leskovitz has always enjoyed writing and history. He recently retired from working as an optician. “Writing a book was definitely not the first thing on my mind,” he explained. Editors at the History Press were intrigued by his web page on the Fosburgh murder, and slowly “Pittsfield’s Fosburgh Murder Mystery” took shape.
The book respects the dead but also respects the interest readers take in the past. Photos, some taken by the author and some provided by Fosburgh descendants, enliven the text, which should interest lovers of local history and of true crime.
Copies of the mystery are available at Boswell’s Books in Shelburne Falls, Berkshire Museum Shop and Arrowhead in Pittsfield, The Mount bookstore in Lenox and at the Bookloft in Great Barrington.
Tinky Weisblat is the author of “The Pudding Hollow Cookbook” and “Pulling Taffy.” Visit her website, www.Ti