Here’s some more late-breaking news from the fall of 1865, as Nashville was beginning to recover from the late Civil War.

It was a crime-ridden season, and among the shootings and stabbings and black-jackings that happened every night in Smoky Row, came this sensational piece of intelligence that seemed to indicate an attempt at mass-murder:

“We learned yesterday that a family of six persons living on Line street, were poisoned by a servant girl who used arsenic instead of leaven in making bread. No deaths ensued, but they were a very sick family from the effects of the deadly poison…” [Daily Dispatch, Sep. 30, 1865.]

There was a brief rumble in the press about the incident, with some speculation about whether it was really an accident, which prompted the following remarkable press release:

“To the Editor of the Nashville Dispatch: In yesterday morning’s Dispatch I find some mistakes. It was not done by a servant, as we do not have any. I made the mistake, using arsenic, instead of leaven, at supper time, in the biscuit, and five of the family partook of them, and were made very sick, but it did not prove fatal to any. We are all doing well. It was Mrs. E.V. Wilson’s family, and the mistake was made by her eldest daughter. Very respectfully, Isabella E. Wilson, Corner of Spruce and Line streets.” [Daily Dispatch, Oct. 1, 1865.]

It’s a bizarre story, made more so by the flippant “what will the neighbors think” rebuttal offered by the family. It begs follow-up questions: What was a tub of raw arsenic doing in the kitchen next to the leavening? Who was the lucky one who didn’t “partake” of the biscuits? Was it the eldest daughter? And did that indicate knowledge of the poison beforehand? Was she ever allowed to cook dinner for the family again?

Alas, many questions and no real answers in this obscure family drama. For the record, the address given would today be the corner of Jo Johnston and 8th Avenue…if there was still such an intersection. Rosa L. Parks Blvd. now passes right over the former site of the residence. Isabella E. Wilson is listed, age 30, on the 1860 census, in the same household as 61-year old Eleanor V. Wilson (evidently “Mrs. E.V. Wilson”) and five members of the John. D. Gower family (probably her son-in-law and grandchildren). The author of the note is evidently the one who made the lethal biscuits, and it probably explains its “no harm done” tone.

Just another day in postwar Nashville. More to come…