A Scandal in Old Hobart

The scandal described in these two articles dates back to the 1880s and involves adultery, an unwed mother, a man's abandoning both his families, baby farming, the abduction of a child, and theft by deception. Aside from all that, however, the two stories give us some information about small businesses in Hobart in the 1880s … but the information is not consistent.


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Hobart News, Aug. 2, 1923.


Hobart Gazette, Aug. 3, 1923.

The News gives a vague description for where the Allens' "small bakery" was: "on Third street east of Duck creek bridge." The Gazette has the Allens running a "small store on Third street, in the building now occupied by the Henry Ols family." An Ols descendant tells me that in 1923, the Henry Ols family was living at 801 E. Third Street. That house, according to the county records, was built in 1918; if the county records are correct, the "small store" must have been in a previous structure on that site — or the Gazette simply got the location wrong.

The Gazette also mentions that William H. Allen was a drayman. That helps us identify him in the 1880 Census, which shows William and his wife, Elizabeth — both 35-year-old natives of Scotland — living with their two small American-born children, Harriet and George. I can't find them in any census before or after that.

The four-acre tract that the Allens bought (mentioned in the Gazette article) is too small to show up on any plat map. The brick structure built as a barn but used as a house sounds interesting. (Of course I'm thinking of Eva Thompson's house at 32 North Hobart Road, built in 1889 per the county records, but that's just a theory I pulled out of the air.)

I hope that if Anna Brighton turns up, the local papers will tell us about it.

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We find two of the characters in this story in a couple of the record books I've indexed. For example, here's William H. Allen getting paid in April and June of 1889 for his janitor work in one or more schools:


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

The last mention I can find of him is in 1891, but of course I have not indexed all the existing records.

And here's Anna Brighton, also in 1889, being elected as a teacher in the Union Sunday School.


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Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

I don't think her career in the Sunday School was very long, since I don't find any other mentions of her name. I wonder if she got a chance to teach the lesson in John 8:1-11.