Abraham Rothschild
Abraham (or Abe) Rothschild (born 1853 in Cincinnati, Ohio) was the son of Meyer Rothschild, a Cincinnati jeweler. He is not a member of the prominent European Rothschild banking family. He is known to history primarily for being accused of murdering Diamond Bessie Moore, a prostitute who was his mistress and traveling companion (and wife), in 1877 near Jefferson, Texas.
Abe Rothschild was handsome and capable in business as befitted his station in society, and for a time he worked as a traveling salesman for his father's prosperous jewelry business. His future looked bright. But his attraction to fast living and women soon led to alcoholism, and he became an embarrassment to his family, frequenting saloons and brothels with impunity.
He met Bessie Moore in a Hot Springs, Arkansas brothel in 1875, and the two were together until her death. It is thought he murdered her because she threatened to scandalize his family with the news of her pregnancy outside of marriage, but it is also possible he was motivated by greed for her large collection of diamond jewelry.
The evidence against Rothschild was virtually ironclad, but his conviction was reversed on appeal, and he was acquitted in a second trial in 1880. The decision outraged the community. After the acquittal he returned to Cincinnati and continued in a life of crime. Rothschild's later exploits include posing as a wealthy business man in several southern towns in order to acquire large quantities of jewellery on credit and then quickly leaving town before being discovered.
Read more about this topic: Diamond Bessie
Famous quotes containing the word rothschild:
“Here was a little of everything in a small compass to satisfy the wants and the ambition of the woods,... but there seemed to me, as usual, a preponderance of children’s toys,—dogs to bark, and cats to mew, and trumpets to blow, where natives there hardly are yet. As if a child born into the Maine woods, among the pine cones and cedar berries, could not do without such a sugar-man or skipping-jack as the young Rothschild has.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)