Voting Station

Patrick Eugene Prendergast

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Assassin

The Resume

    (April 18, 1868-July 13, 1894)
    Born in Cloonamore (Inishbofin), Ireland
    Patrick Eugene Joseph Prendergast
    Former newspaper distributor, 'disgruntled office seeker'
    Assassinated popular Chicago Mayor, Carter Harrison (Oct. 28, 1893)
    Convicted of first-degree murder (Dec. 1893)
    Sentenced to be executed by hanging (Jul. 13, 1894)

Why he might be annoying:

    He was a cross between Charles Guiteau (disgruntled office seeker) and Leon Czolgosz (psychologically unhinged whack-job).
    Those who knew him described him as irrational and emotionally unstable.
    He left home at the age of 16 due to an imaginary persecution complex.
    He found work running a squad of obstreperous Chicago newsboys who didn't respect him and who mocked him incessantly.
    He quickly became a fanatic for the single-tax plan promoted by economist Henry George.
    He nursed delusions of political grandeur (wanting to become the Attorney General for the city despite not holding any degree in law).
    He also became obsessed with Mayor Harrison, writing a series of incoherent post cards that usually ended up in the trash.
    Somehow, he had been led to believe that by working on the Mayor's campaign, he would receive a political appointment at the close of the World's Fair. It never came.
    One story even claimed that he had gone to City Hall to speak to the Corporation Counsel whose office he fully expected to fill. He was laughed out of the room, which proved to be the last straw (he lost it).
    He made an unannounced night visit to the Mayor's house and, after being admitted by a maid, proceeded to shoot Harrison three times. He fled the house, leaving Harrison to bleed to death.
    His attorney tried to get him off on grounds of insanity, but outraged Chicagoans weren't having any of it (they reasoned that there was a spare empty cartridge in the gun showed he knew damn well what he was doing).
    The assassination put a damper on the final week festivities for the World's Fair, effectively resulting in the closing celebration being cancelled in favor of the Mayor's memorial service and funeral.

Why he might not be annoying:

    Today, he probably would have been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.
    He suffered a severe head injury from a fall he experienced at the age of four, resulting in short-term memory loss throughout his life.
    He was emotionally traumatized by the death of his father, when he was thirteen.
    He started out as a telegram delivery boy for Western Union (a job his father got for him, which he held for nearly 2 years).
    His family's savings were wiped out during the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 shortly after arriving (although some sources claim they immigrated to New York City and that he arrived in the city later on).
    He turned himself in to the police after initially fleeing the Mayor's home.
    He figures prominently into Erik Larson's best-seller, 'The Devil in the White City' (which would make for a helluva musical).
    He was the only client of Clarence Darrow's to receive the death penalty (which forever haunted him).

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 14 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 9 Votes: 88.89% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 7 Votes: 28.57% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 12 Votes: 33.33% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 8 Votes: 37.50% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 93 Votes: 56.99% Annoying