Aug 5, 2026 · 43 min · 14 segments
Today, I'm joined by Alex Hortis, author of The Witch of New York, a riveting account of the 1843 trials of Polly Bodine. A resident of Staten Island, Bodine was accused of murdering her sister-in-law…
Gavin WhiteheadHostSo she was a member of the, of the Housemans or the Husmans, and their story is a story of, of America.
She wa- her family came literally before there was a United States, uh, by over a century.
Staten Island, um, was really an island of, of old line families, French Protestants and Dutch Protestants, and then later English.
He, um, bought land on top of trap rock just as Manhattan was going into a, a building boom.
And so he became effectively a multimillionaire, and he also had a prosperous business.
Uh, so she was started off life with, you know, almost every advantage as, as far as a woman would go for that time and that society, um, and very well-known throughout Staten Island.
Her marriage on paper looked like it was perfect because he came from another old line family, and he was a prosperous, um, oysterman, schooner owner.
Um, oysters were the huge food craze of this time, and so both her family and his family made their a lot of money off of selling oysters to New Yorkers, but it was a disaster because, for whatever reason, he was later described, you know, as essentially vicious and temperant.
Um, and that's nin- you know, that's 1800 speak for basically he was a, a drunk and abusive lout.
He, eventually she left him, which for that time was extremely rare, even in very abusive relationships, and you couldn't really get a divorce in New York at this time for a, a woman couldn't.
The only real basis was adultery, and that was extremely embarrassing to prove, um, and just very difficult.
So she just left and went to live back with her father, but that produced in itself its own scandal because women just didn't do that.
So she was a member of the, of the Housemans or the Husmans, and their story is a story of, of America.
She wa- her family came literally before there was a United States, uh, by over a century.
Staten Island, um, was really an island of, of old line families, French Protestants and Dutch Protestants, and then later English.
He, um, bought land on top of trap rock just as Manhattan was going into a, a building boom.
And so he became effectively a multimillionaire, and he also had a prosperous business.
Uh, so she was started off life with, you know, almost every advantage as, as far as a woman would go for that time and that society, um, and very well-known throughout Staten Island.
Her marriage on paper looked like it was perfect because he came from another old line family, and he was a prosperous, um, oysterman, schooner owner.
Um, oysters were the huge food craze of this time, and so both her family and his family made their a lot of money off of selling oysters to New Yorkers, but it was a disaster because, for whatever reason, he was later described, you know, as essentially vicious and temperant.
Um, and that's nin- you know, that's 1800 speak for basically he was a, a drunk and abusive lout.
He, eventually she left him, which for that time was extremely rare, even in very abusive relationships, and you couldn't really get a divorce in New York at this time for a, a woman couldn't.
The only real basis was adultery, and that was extremely embarrassing to prove, um, and just very difficult.
So she just left and went to live back with her father, but that produced in itself its own scandal because women just didn't do that.
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