No. 830
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
September 09, 2025

The Billiard Room of the Grand Union Hotel,

at Saratoga, N.Y.
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September 9, 2025
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Tag: Football

A Great Game of Football.

Fair college students engage in a rough-and-tumble chase after the pigskin.

11/7/2023

Fierce Football.

The great game recently played between teams representing the colleges of Princeton and Yale, on the former's grounds, Thanksgiving Day.

11/23/2015

She Went into the Scrimmage.

Mrs. Miller Forcibly Removes Her Two Sons form a Football Game at Bridgeport, Conn.

12/8/2014

Collegians at Football.

12/10/2013
JOHN LOVE
alias: JAMES D WELLS
SNEAK, BANK BURGLAR

The Bizarre Murder of Pauline Amsel

"Indian Citizen," November 12. 1914, via Newspapers.comA frightening and inexplicable tragedy hit the normally peaceful town of Durant, Oklahoma in 1914.  According to Jake and Celia Amsel, a well-to-do, respectable couple, at about one-thirty a.m. on the night of November 11, they were awakened by screams emanating from their home’s outdoor sleeping porch.  They were horrified to
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Strange Company - 6/8/2026

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
Amen.

The story of the 19th century factory building hidden within modern Bronx high-rise towers

You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

Youth With Executioner by Nuremberg native Albrecht Dürer … although it’s dated to 1493, which was during a period of several years when Dürer worked abroad. November 13 [1617]. Burnt alive here a miller of Manberna, who however was lately … Continue reading →
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020

The Conspirators and their Hitman.

In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
On the Russians.

Lizzie causes a sensation

As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [Editor’s note: Guest writer, Peter Dickson, lives in West Sussex, England and has been working with microfilm copies of The Duncan Campbell Papers from the State Library of NSW, Sydney, Australia. The following are some of his analyses of what he has discovered from reading these papers. Dickson has contributed many transcriptions to the Jamaica […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
A Train of Cars Rushing Through Fire. | Female Wrestling Match in Nevada.

The Billiard Room of the Grand Union Hotel,

Saratoga-Billiards at Saratoga, N.Y.

This cut gives an interior view of a billiard-room, fitted up in the new portion of the Grand Union just completed by Mr. A. T. Steward. It contains fifteen tables of the latest and most approved pattern, and is fitted up in a truly elegant and tasty manner. While large, as it actually is, the architect has so arranged the room as to give the effect of even greater spaciousness.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, July 24, 1875.

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