Crimes in Herstory (Blog Series) -- The "Female Fiend": How Martha Grinder Became Hot Gossip

 WC Blogpost By: 

iSylvie101, NationalParker & Nina Sayers

You have just moved in with your husband in Gray’s Alley, Alleghany City, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

On the 27th of June, 1865, you are invited by a neighbor, Mrs. Martha Grinder, for a cup of tea.1 Mrs. Grinder is known around the neighborhood as extremely hospitable and charming, so you accept.2 When you return from your visit, your body begins to convulse and you are overtaken with the need to projectile vomit. Fortunately, after visiting your father in New Castle, your sickness is healed. While you are away, your husband joins Mrs. Grinder in her home and soon falls ill as well. When you return to help your husband, Mrs. Grinder closely tends to your needs and helps you in any way she can, including consistently providing you with food. While your husband’s sickness healed, your ailment soon forcibly returns. Mrs. Grinder acts as a kind of nurse, giving you medicine and sustenance throughout your ailment. On the 1st of August, after sustained suffering, you fall dead. After your death, coroners find large traces of arsenic and antimony in your stomach… yours was a death by poison.3

You were Mary Caroline Caruthers, the first nail in Martha Grinder’s coffin.

Who was Martha Grinder?

Martha Grinder grew up in Kentucky, where she was “neglected” by her parents throughout her childhood. She first married at fourteen, but her husband died shortly after. She then remarried to George Grinder. Although Mr. and Mrs. Grinder arrived in Pittsburgh with little money, they soon grew wealthy. Grinder was seen as a respectable, “pure, saintly woman” who was a member of the Methodist church, cared deeply for sick people, and invited many people to her home.4 5

In August, Martha Grinder was first arrested under suspicion of murdering her neighbor Mrs. Caruther. The case was the first of a deluge of accusations against Mrs. Grinder for murder, which she would conduct by poisoning people’s food, drink, and medicine. One such case involved Jane P. Buchanan who took the position as a servant for the Grinder’s. In preparation for the job, she packed a trunk with nice clothing, about fifty dollars in cash, and eleven dollars in gold. The day after her arrival at the Grinders, however, Ms. Buchanan grew ill. While she was afflicted with her ailment, Mr. Grinder retrieved her trunk from her friend. Four days later, Jane P. Buchanan died. When her trunk was uncovered, it had nothing of value inside. While Martha Grinder was in jail, Ms. Buchanan’s death was concluded one of natural causes and her body was buried.

It is unclear how many people Mrs. Grinder actually murdered. The people she allegedly murdered varied from her brother-in-law, a returned soldier, to two children (whose mother survived an allegedly poisoned cup of coffee) (Segrave 51). According to an article in the Chicago Tribune, Grinder had no apparent motivation for any of her murders. While she would

steal money when she had the chance, it appeared to have been circumstantial, rather than being the ultimate goal.6

Is Poison REALLY a Woman’s Weapon?

 The nature of this case is inherently intriguing due to the method by which Grinder killed her victims. Poison is traditionally seen as the woman’s weapon, as it is indirect and does not require any physical strength. An anonymous source told the Leavenworth Daily Commercial in 1871 that “All the poisoners from the Brinvilliers to Martha Grinder were women.” The author of the article debates this, explaining that there are also men who poison as a means of murder. However, they say, “Poison is the weapon of the weak [...] There is no evidence that women naturally love stealthy ways better than men do, though compelled to employ them by weaker physique”.7

This is not a new concept. Actually, it has been discussed for thousands of years. In the Greek tragedy Medea by Euripides the titular character, a powerful witch in Greek mythology, poisons the lover of her ex-husband. However, Euripides puts a twist on the quiet feminine poison archetype. Instead of avoiding violence, Medea infuses a crown and robe with poison and gives it to the woman, “eating away the poor girl's beautiful flesh” and making her “unrecognizable to the sight of anyone but a parent”.8 Even though the poison is a means to subvert her physical strength, the will of violence persists.

In addition, poison is more accessible to women based on gender roles: "Murder required administering a poison in repeated or large doses, tasks that women could conveniently perform since they were trusted with the preparation of food and the administration of medicines".9  As a woman in the 19th century, Martha Grinder would be perfectly positioned to poison those around her. From a modern-day perspective, however, the idea of gendered poisoning is muddled. Although women are still more likely than men to use poison, because more murders are committed by men, most poisonings are committed by men.

The key word in these studies is “murder.” However, the use of poison goes beyond killing. Poison is defined as “a substance that through its chemical action usually kills, injures, or impairs an organism”.10 This, therefore, includes rohypnol, AKA roofies. The nonconsensual administration of this drug is mostly committed by men and the victims are overwhelmingly women.11. From a young age, women are told to watch their drinks in social settings. It is so normalized in our society that it isn’t even seen as a poison. However, the nature of the drug and the way it is used classifies it as such. Therefore, the way that we gender poison is inherently false. Poison, as defined here, is also a means of physical violence and an overriding of consent. In Martha Grinder’s case, it was a way to uphold her traditional womanhood while inflicting her will onto others.

The Trial and Execution 

In October of 1865, Martha Grinder was tried for the murder of Mary Caroline Caruthers. The case came after a barrage of accusations and accounts against Grinder for the murders of multiple (at least six) people.12 On October 28th, she was convicted of murder in the first degree. However, the jury took multiple hours to come to a verdict, first coming to the decision of conviction by six and acquittal by six. This uncertainty in the verdict stemmed from beliefs that Mrs. Grinder was mentally insane. While the jury seemed sensitive to Grinder’s punishment if she was insane, it is important to note that this was probably in large part due to her racial and class status being white and wealthy. Had she been a woman of color and/or low income, it seems unlikely the jury would have paid so much empathy and thoughtfulness toward her sentencing. Regardless of how long it took to sentence her, Grinder was sentenced to first-degree murder in October and sentenced to be executed on January 19th, 1866.13  Three doctors assessed her sanity prior to the execution and concluded she was “completely sane” on January 18th.14

On the day of her scheduled execution, Martha Grinder could be observed preparing her physical body meticulously for its departure from this world. According to an article in The Chicago Post, Grinder woke that morning with a determination to plait her hair and even went as far as to have oil sent to her cell with which to dress her plaits. She took great care to coordinate her final attire of a “brown alpaca dress, trimmed … with lace, lightly made kid slippers, and white stockings,” the clothes in which she would be buried.15  However, what Grinder, or the onlookers at her execution, could not anticipate was that Grinder’s corpse would not be buried for another eleven years. It is reasonable to assume that Grinder did not consent to such a fate as evidenced by her obsessive upkeep of her appearance before her presumed burial. However, after a long and convulsive struggle for life against the damp noose used in her execution, her painted corpse was dismounted and subsequently subjected to a decade’s worth of experimentation in various embalming methods.16 In this way, Martha’s execution becomes a case study through which to examine the larger and persisting issue facing many imprisoned persons: the degradation and exploitation of the imprisoned body.

Prisoner’s Bodily Autonomy After Death While Martha Grinder was executed in the early weeks of 1866, related ethical concerns pertaining to the violation of the bodily autonomy of imprisoned persons persist today. A notable, and very recent, example is the state sponsoring of the exchange of prison time for flesh. In February of this year, a Massachusetts bill, sponsored by Democrats, proposed that convicted prisoners should be granted a maximum of a 365-day reduction in exchange for participating in organ donation. Promoting organ donation is incredibly important and imperative especially as more than one hundred thousand Americans are waiting for lifesaving transplants.17 Additionally, prisoners and the greater community would benefit from the reduction of excessive prison sentencing which often reflects racial prejudice. However, binding these two initiatives together creates exploitative conditions that necessitate the abuse and the denial of autonomy from the imprisoned body.

Such exploitation of prisoners is often justified by their previous misdeeds. It is tempting to relish in the “eye for an eye” philosophy which encourages often violent punitive measures to establish a sense of justice. However, the outcome is quite the opposite. The human desire to inflict and witness the suffering of those who have themselves inflicted suffering breeds the conditions that cause further injustice. Stripping prisoners of humanity additionally creates a sensational culture around crime and violence.

The Sensationalization of her Case Returning to the case of Martha Grinder, it is clear to see the sensationalization that consumed her trial, her execution, and her entire person. Hundreds of people, a significant portion of them being women, packed into the courtroom to hear of her great misdeeds. Newspapers granted her absurd nicknames and monikers such as “Female Fiend” and “the Pittsburg Poisoner”.18 One newspaper article written three years after her execution declared that the “ghost of Martha Grinder is said to speak and jabber in the streets of Pittsburg.”19 The replacement of her name and the attribution of bizarre lore in Grinder’s case likely contributed to the lack of regard for her body and humanity post-mortem. However, it is easy to see how Grinder’s case became such a spectacle due to her dual nature: that of a Churchgoing woman in public and that of the archetypal female poisoner in private.

Although it was a spectacle at the time, there are little to no articles or books about Martha Grinder or her case written in the past 100 years. She served as a form of entertainment, a topic of gossip that would eventually be overridden by the next day’s news. However, it is important to remember her case from a modern-day perspective, as it unveils the nuanced implications of gender, sensationalization, and execution during the 19th century.

ENDNOTES 

1 “A Female Fiend: Execution of Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Poisoner.” Chicago Evening Post, 20 Jan 1866, p. 1.

2 Segrave, Kerry. "1860s: Martha Grinder." Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1830-1899: Death Sentences and Executions in the United States and Canada, McFarland &Company, Inc., 2008, p. 50.

3 “A Female Fiend: Execution of Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Poisoner.” p. 1.

4  Ibid, 1.

5  Segrave, "1860s: Martha Grinder," 50. 

6 "Insanity in Criminal Cases." Chicago Tribune, 31 Aug 1865, p. 2. 

7. Leavenworth Daily Commercial. 27 July 1871, 

8 Euripides., et al. Medea. New ed. P. 29

 9. Blum, Deborah. "The Imperfect Myth of the Female Poisoner." Wired, Condé Nast, 28 Jan. 2013,

10. "Poison." Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poison. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.

11. "Rohypnol Fast Facts." National Drug Intelligence Center, Department of Justice, 1 Jan. 2006, www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs6/6074/index.htm. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.

12. "Insanity in Criminal Cases,” 2.

13. Segrave, "1860s: Martha Grinder," 52.

14. Segrave, "1860s: Martha Grinder," 54.

15. “A Female Fiend: Execution of Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Poisoner,” 1.

16. “News of the Day.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Mar. 1877, p. 2.

17. HRSA. “Organ Donation Statistics.” Www.organdonor.gov, Mar. 2023, www.organdonor.gov/learn/organ-donation-statistics.

18. “A Female Fiend: Execution of Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Poisoner,” 1.

19. “News Boiled Down.” The Galveston Daily News, 30 Apr. 1869, p. 1. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023.

Works Cited 

“A Female Fiend: Execution of Martha Grinder, the Pittsburgh Poisoner.” Chicago Evening Post, 20 Jan 1866, p. 1. 

Blum, Deborah. "The Imperfect Myth of the Female Poisoner." Wired, Condé Nast, 28 Jan. 2013, www.wired.com/2013/01/the-myth-of-the-female-poisoner/#:~:text=Looking%20back%2 0to%20the%2019th,of%20food%20and%20the%20administration. Accessed 1 Oct. 2023. 

Euripides., et al. Medea. New ed. 

“Execution of Mrs. Grinder: Particulars of the Last Scenes -- the Execution.” The New York Times, The Philadelphia Enquirer, 21 Jan. 1866, timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1866/01/21/90432852.pdf?pdf_redirect=true&i p=0. 

HRSA. “Organ Donation Statistics.” Www.organdonor.gov, Mar. 2023, www.organdonor.gov/learn/organ-donation-statistics. 

"Insanity in Criminal Cases." Chicago Tribune, 31 Aug 1865, p. 2. 

Leavenworth Daily Commercial, 27 July 1871

“News Boiled Down.” The Galveston Daily News, 30 Apr. 1869, p. 1. 

“News of the Day.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 10 Mar. 1877, p. 2. 

"Poison." Merriam-Webster's Dictionary. Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poison. 

"Rohypnol Fast Facts." National Drug Intelligence Center, Department of Justice, 1 Jan. 2006, www.justice.gov/archive/ndic/pubs6/6074/index.htm. 

Segrave, Kerry. "1860s: Martha Grinder." Women and Capital Punishment in America, 1830-1899: Death Sentences and Executions in the United States and Canada, McFarland &Company, Inc., 2008, 49-56.