Wicked Victorian Boston

Adolph Albrecht

Killed cheating faro dealers.


Dr. Adolph Albrecht was young Boston druggist of good character. He was not known to be a gambler, but one evening in 1887 he stopped into a gambling hall run by David “Dude Gambler” Lanahan and Edward Flanigan to play faro. What Albrecht did not know was that Lanahan and Flanigan ran a “brace” game—that is a game explicitly run to cheat the players. He caught Flanigan dealing two cards at a time and grabbed his bet from the table. In the fight that followed Albrecht drew a revolver and killed both Lanahan and Flanigan.