Editing Albert Fish (section)

==Early life==
[[File:1870_census_Fish.jpg|right|thumb|Fish in the 1870 United States census]]
[[File:AlbertFish1889.png|upright|thumb|A July 29, 1889, mugshot of 19-year-old Fish after an arrest for forgery]]
Albert Fish was born Hamilton Howard Fish in [[Washington, D.C.]], on May 19, 1870, to Randall Fish (1795–1875) and Ellen Francis Howell (1838–1903).<ref>Sing Sing Prison's receiving blotter indicates Fish was 33 when his mother died. Available on Ancestry.com under Albert H. Fish.</ref> Fish's father was American, of English ancestry, and his mother was a [[Scotch-Irish Americans|Scots-Irish American]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.wargs.com/other/fish.html |title=Ancestry of Albert Fish |website= wargs.com |publisher=William Addams Reitwiesner |access-date=April 14, 2016 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160423191932/http://www.wargs.com/other/fish.html |archive-date=April 23, 2016 |url-status=live |df=mdy-all}}</ref> His father was forty-three years older than his mother and aged 75 at the time of his birth. Fish was his family's youngest child and had three living siblings: Walter, Annie, and Edwin. He wished to be known as "Albert" [[necronym|after a dead sibling]] and to escape the nickname "Ham and Eggs" that he was given at an [[orphanage]] in which he spent much of his childhood.

Fish's family had a history of [[mental illness]]. His uncle had [[mania]], one of his brothers was confined in a state [[mental hospital]], a paternal half-brother suffered from [[schizophrenia]], and his sister Annie was diagnosed with a "mental affliction". Three other relatives were diagnosed with mental illnesses, and his mother had "aural and/or visual [[hallucination]]s".<ref name="Schechter">{{Cite book | last=Schechter |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Schechter | year = 1990 | title =Deranged: The Shocking True Story of America's Most Fiendish Killer | publisher = [[Simon & Schuster]] | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RtZBOBe5_dAC | isbn = 978-0-671-67875-3}}</ref><ref name="crimelibrary">{{cite web |url=http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/fish/index.html |title=Albert Fish |access-date= December 16, 2008 |publisher=[[Crime Library]] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20081216143933/http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/notorious/fish/index.html |archive-date=December 16, 2008 |url-status= dead |df=dmy-all }}</ref>

On October 16, 1875, Fish's father, a fertilizer manufacturer and former riverboat captain, suffered a fatal [[heart attack]] at the [[Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station]]. His mother then put him into Saint John's Orphanage in Washington, D.C., where he was frequently [[physical abuse|physically abused]]. However, Fish began to [[masochism|enjoy the physical pain]] brought by the beatings.<ref name="TSK">{{Cite book |last1=Wilson |first1=Colin |author-link1=Colin Wilson |last2=Seaman |first2=Donald |title=The Serial Killers |year=2004 |publisher=[[Virgin Publishing]] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p3hKeRB4h8AC |isbn=978-0-7535-1321-7 |via=Google Books }}</ref> By 1880, Fish's mother secured a government job and was able to remove him from the orphanage.

In 1882, at age 12, Fish began a relationship with a [[Telegraphist|telegraph boy]]. The youth introduced Fish to such practices as [[urolagnia|drinking urine]] and [[coprophagia|eating feces]]. Fish began visiting public baths where he could watch other boys undress, spending a great portion of his weekends on these visits.<ref name="TSK" /> Throughout his life, he would write obscene letters to women whose names he acquired from [[classified advertising]] and [[Dating agency|matrimonial agencies]].<ref name="Schechter" />