A poison register, now on a shelf in the Clinton County Historian’s Office, was used between 1905 and 1951 in Larkin’s Pharmacy at 1 Bridge Street in Plattsburgh, NY.
It gives an enticing look into the reasons people gave for using poisons in the early years of the 20th Century and how their reasons changed over the next half century.
The owner of the pharmacy, Orrel Towne Larkin (O. T. Larkin), born in Beekmantown in 1860, became known as the dean of Clinton County pharmacists. He was one of the seven children of Lorenzo Larkin and Julia Griffith who had both Pilgrim and Quaker ancestors, and who inspired his interest in religion, history and genealogy.
As a young man, Orrel became an apprentice as a prescription clerk for Hiram Cady, a local pharmacist. He attended Plattsburgh Academy during the day and worked in the drug store after school and evenings. After graduating from the Albany College of Pharmacy, he worked at Cady’s for another six years before opening his shop on Bridge Street in 1890.
In the early days, Orrel operated strictly as an apothecary and specialized in filling prescriptions, often answering calls at night to serve patrons. He continued to manage the store until the early 1940s when he turned the business over to his son, Hanford.
As it is today, it was the law to sign the poison register after a purchase, and both Orrel’s and Hanford’s names feature prominently. A second employee’s signature had to be placed in the book before the customer could leave with the poisonous substance. The buyer’s name and address, as well as the reason for the use of the poison also had to be given.
As an example, if we look at pages for April 20, 1925, to September 3rd, we see that four employees signed and countersigned the register, Orrel, Hanford, Charles Devenburgh, and Clayda McArthur.
Charles went on to own his own drug store at the corner of Margaret and Cornelia Street from 1930 to 1933 before he sold it. Clayda was a pharmacy clerk, and with Orrel’s encouragement, she went on to become one of the first female pharmacists in the State.
The people who bought the poisons were a mixture of city and country folk and the two most popular poisons were strychnine and arsenic in various amounts from 1/16 thof a gram to ½ a pound. The poisons were mainly used to kill crows and rats. Strychnine was sprinkled on seeds, usually corn, and put out for the birds and other animals to eat in farms or gardens.
Arsenic was popular for use in taxidermy before the 1960s. The powder was sprinkled on the skin, fur and feathers as a preservative and was sometimes used in solution to soak the items.
To look for arsenic when buying an older stuffed animal, look for a white powder around the eyes and on the skin near the base of the hair or feathers. The poison can be transferred to humans by touch and also by air. Even after a hundred years, the danger can still be there.
In 2023, the Delbridge Museum at the Great Plains Zoo in Sioux Falls, SD, closed after tests found that more than 130 of their stuffed animals had been preserved with arsenic.
Other popular uses for strychnine and arsenic were declared, as customers blatantly told the pharmacists, “To kill my dog,” “To kill kitten,” or “To kill foxes.” In the spring and summer, tulip and gladiola bulbs were sprinkled with strychnine to prevent worm infestation.
Bichloride of mercury was bought for photographic purposes or as a disinfectant. Paregoric (an opium compound) was given to calm children or for toothaches or cutting teeth. Oxalic acid was bought to bleach furniture.
The poison register is a compendium of “cures” used before trips to the vet, or before the local farm store became the order of the day.
In 1925 in Clinton County, there were a couple of notable “poison” cases. One involved the poisoning of three valuable hounds on Lyon Street in Plattsburgh because they were barking and keeping the neighbors up.
Joseph Garrand, one of the owners, was incensed and demanded action, stating “we pay the city license money for the dogs and are entitled to protection.” We wonder which of the city’s pharmacies sold the poison. Larkin’s, Cady’s and Jacques’ were all within a couple of blocks of each other.
Another poisoning made the newspapers in 1925. The poison was not sold at Larkin’s. It was bought at William Hogge’s Pharmacy in nearby Champlain. Mrs. Bessie Mesick Farr, a 35-year-old mother of two children, admitted to murdering her husband Herman with a chocolate drop laced with strychnine.
Two weeks before the offense he had taken out a $2,000 life insurance policy naming her as the beneficiary and the District Attorney thought it was a good enough motive for her to consider poison.
Bessie purchased 25 cents worth of strychnine at Hogge’s Pharmacy and brought it home. Her husband had a bag of chocolate drops, one of which she took and inserted in it the deadly poison.
Herman fixed his lunch pail and set off for work in the town’s sand pit. In the morning he was suddenly taken ill and after a series of convulsions died about 24 hours later despite heroic life-saving efforts.
Inhabitants of Champlain told the District Attorney that Bessie had been married to Herman since she was twelve years old and it was common knowledge that she had threatened his life several times. At trial she admitted her guilt and was allowed to plead to Murder in the Second Degree.
She was sent to Auburn Prison for Women with an indeterminate sentence of 20 years to life. Bessie didn’t serve the full sentence and returned to live in Champlain with her two daughters. She is buried in the Maple Hill Cemetery in Champlain.
Orrel Larkin, who was known for his philanthropy, his son, Hanford, and Charles Devenburgh, are buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Plattsburgh. Clayda, lived to be 94 years old and is buried in the Union Cemetery in Morrisonville.
According to Larkin’s Poison Register, very few crows were poisoned through his pharmacy after World War Two and, since 1972 and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, crows have been afforded protection from unregulated hunting except in exceptional circumstances, so their numbers are increasing.
It also seems that today many of the poisons mentioned have safer substitutes or methods, such as taking animals to the vet’s. When was the last time you heard of your neighbor popping into the local pharmacy for strychnine to “kill the dog?”
Julie Dowd is a Trustee Emeritus at Clinton County Historical Association.
Illustrations, from above: Larkin’s Pharmacy in the 1930s (courtesy of the Clinton County Historical Association); Larkin Pharmacy’s Poison Register (courtesy of the Clinton County Historian’s Office); and portrait of Orrel Towne Larkin (Clinton County Historical Association).
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