The Stories We Tell
By David Wright, Town Historian
Stratford’s history is always fascinating as it is filled with surprising twists, turns, and tales. Imagine our surprise when we learned that, for a brief 8 months in 1868, Stratford had been home to America’s first female serial killer.
In most written accounts of Lydia Sherman, she is identified with the Town of Derby, so the 1954 Sunday Herald account was surprising in that it linked Lydia with Stratford.
Lydia’s only true tie to Stratford was the eight months she spent working for James Curtiss’ mother. (Mrs. Curtiss lived in a home at the site of today’s Stationhouse Square in Stratford Center). James Curtiss was living in New York City when he met Lydia, heard she was good at caring and ministering to people, so he hired her to care for his aged mother. When James met Lydia, she had already dispatched her husband and six children with her arsenic ministrations. Fortunately for James’ mother, and out-of-character for Lydia, Mrs. Curtiss was cared for by Lydia and seemed to emerge from Lydia’s care no “worse for the wear”.
Lydia’s time in Stratford was recalled by her at her trial for murder. Her account was published shortly after her trial concluded a portion of which follows.
The Poison Fiend: Life and Conviction of Lydia Sherman
By Geo. Lippard Barclay 1873
…I went to Sailorsville, Pa., with a family named Maxom. It was not a profitable venture, so I returned to New York and went to live with my stepdaughter, Mrs. Thompson. Then I took a situation with Mr. Cochran, who kept a sewing machine establishment in Canal street. There I became acquainted with Mr. James Curtiss. He asked me to go to Stratford, Conn., to take care of his aged mother and keep house for them. I consented to go for $8.00 per month. I lived there eight months. One day Mr. John Fairchild, at whose store I bought our groceries, asked me if I would like to keep house for a man who had just lost his wife. In this way I became acquainted with Mr. Hurlburt, who lived in Coram, Huntington. After I had been a few days with him he asked me to marry him, which I did Nov. 22, 1868. The ceremony was performed by the Rev. Mr. Morton in his own house. We lived happily for fourteen months. About three months after we were married Mr. Hurlburt made his will. He was subject to fits of dizziness.
After Mr. Hurlburt suddenly, and suspiciously, passed away, some months after marrying Lydia, she married Nelson Sherman of Derby. Nelson believed he was marrying into money since Lydia had inherited Dennis Hurlburt’s estate. Nelson didn’t know that Lydia’s attentions, and affections, always ended with her husbands’ untimely deaths.
You may read a modern account of Lydia’s life in the 2012 book Fatal: The Poisonous Life of a Female Serial Killer. You can locate the book on the internet with a Google search.
An extract from the 1954 Sunday Herald article follows.
Sunday Herald
January 31, 1954
Lovely Lydia’s Poison Took 11-or 23-Lives
In the amazing parade of Connecticut murderesses none stands out like the weird mass killer of the last century – Lydia Struck Hurlburt Sherman of Stratford.
Like many of her sisters in crime, Lydia used arsenic to dispose of her victims.
But compared to a woman like “Arsenic Annie” Monahan, whose story was told last week, Lydia was a creature from another world. For Annie killed only one person, or, at the most two.
Even Mrs. Amy Archer-Gilligan, who couldn’t wait for natural causes to create vacancies at her old folks’ home but hastened the process with judicious sprinklings of fatal “seasoning” on the delicious food she served never equaled Lydia’s record.
3 HUSBANDS VICTIMS
The sloe-eyed, dark-haired beauty from Stratford is known to have poisoned at least 11 people during her lifetime, and is suspected of having done away with a dozen more.
Here is the known list of her victims:
Policeman Edward Struck, her first husband.
Mary Ann, 6, Edward 4, and William Struck, 1, her children.
George, 14, Ann, 12, and Lydia Struck, 18, her stepchildren.
Dennis Hurlburt, 75, her second husband.
Nelson Sherman, of Derby, her third husband.
Addie Sherman, 15, and Frank Sherman, 2, Nelson’s children.
Lydia, a veritable Bluebeard in skirts, started her crime career in New York City.
Lydia was sentenced to life in prison at the Old Newgate Prison in East Granby, CT where she passed away a few years later. The moral of this story is, as James Curtiss no doubt figured out for himself, be very thorough in checking the backgrounds of the people you hire to care for your aged parents!
