An evening brawl between Yale students of the Crocodile Club and New Haven's Fountain Volunteer Fire Company resulted in 19 year-old fireman William Miles being shot and fatally wounded. The students swore each other to secrecy and invoked their Fifth Amendment rights. No indictments were able to be made. One of these young men was Joseph Hopkins Twitchell, who later became a clergyman and the best friend of Samuel Clemens. (By John Osborne)
Source Citation
The American Almanac and Repository of Useful Knowledge for the Year 1859, (Boston: Crosby, Nichols, and Company, 1859) 367.
Steve Courtney, Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, May 2008), chapter 1.
Steve Courtney, Joseph Hopkins Twichell: The Life and Times of Mark Twain's Closest Friend (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, May 2008), chapter 1.
Record Data
Date Certainty
Exact
Type
Crime/Disasters
