Poisoned Wedding

Guest Poster Charles Suddeth with an interesting true story...and a bit of history on food poisoning.

On April 15, 1891 Fannie Belle Herr and Winfred Snook were wed at her father’s Magnolia Stock Farm near Lyndon Station, Kentucky, about 12 miles east of Louisville. Lyndon Station was a railroad stop located in a prosperous area of horse farms and potato fields.

At the wedding feast on the grounds of the Herr Mansion, around 80 people dined on mushrooms, cake, ice cream, and chicken salad. Within hours, about 70 people fell ill, perhaps 26 dying. The exact number is in dispute, because no one was around to do research in 1891. The bride and groom took a train bound for Niagara Falls. They traveled as far as Cincinnati Ohio, where the bride and groom both became ill. The bride survived, but the groom died 2 weeks later.

Mr. Herr, Fannie’s father, accused servants of poisoning the guests with arsenic, claiming one servant named Jim had warned other servants not to eat. Someone else claimed that one of the bride’s sisters had poisoned the wedding out of jealousy. The poisoning rumors died off though many doctors believed some sort of poisoning had occurred.

The University of Louisville Medical School did research and determined that bacterial contamination of the chicken salad was the cause. The chicken had been cooked 48 hours earlier and stored at room temperature. This is claimed to be the first diagnosed case of food poisoning. In 1891, bacterial contamination as a cause of illness was still in dispute.

The Herr Mansion is still around, but Magnolia Stock Farm has been replaced by a subdivision which is part of Lyndon, Kentucky. Few local people are aware of the horror that the mansion once witnessed. Salmonella food poisoning is common with poultry, but the exact diagnosis has been lost to time.

~Charles Suddeth

I am a writer of picture books, young adult thrillers, and adult mysteries. On my website/blog and my Facebook Author Page, I discuss writing and whatever captures my imagination: http://ctsuddeth.com/  and https://www.facebook.com/pages/Charles-Suddeth-Writer/160410994004533