No. 157
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 09, 2013

It Was a "She."

July 9, 2013
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Tag: Louisiana

Via Newspapers.comMysterious showers of stones are a tiresomely common Fortean phenomenon, but inexplicable egg falls are unusual enough to pique my interest.  The “Reading [England] Post,” December 11, 1974:Flying eggs are bombarding a school in Wokingham in what must be the strangest unsolved mystery of the year. For over the past two weeks, white chickens' eggs have been 'shelling' the
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Strange Company - 3/18/2026
"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
Bond Street today is a pricey place to live. And so it was in the 1830s, when it became one of New York’s most exclusive enclaves. Wealthy residents fleeing the crowded and increasingly commercial neighborhoods below Houston Street sought refuge on this short little street, which only runs two blocks from Broadway to the Bowery. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/16/2026
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
About half past three, the morning of July 2, 1863, a young man on his way to work in Medina, Ohio, saw the home of Shubal Coy in flames. He alerted the neighbors, who came out to douse the flames with water. When the fire was under control, they went inside to look for the Coy family. They found Shubal lying in bed with nine stab wounds in his throat and breast, any one of them capable of
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/14/2026
The good-looking thirty-seven year old gentleman handling the reins behind the glossy matched pair pulling the spanking-new carriage drew the attention of more than one feminine eye.  Pacing down French St. at a sharp clip, the lady next to him, dressed neatly in a tailor-made suit with the latest in millinery fashion, smiled up at her coachman. Behind the lace curtains on the Hill section of Fall River, tongues were wagging about the unseemly pair. Lizzie Borden, acquitted of double homici
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 10/16/2025
  [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
Gold from Seawater! | She Skipped.

It Was a "She."

It was a she

Charles Kelly, arrested for burglary near Princeton, Ind., turns out upon examination to be Clara King. [more]

A Horrible “Find.”

A correspondent at Princeton, Ind., writes: It will be remembered that about two months ago a burglary was committed at Ft. Branch, and that Sheriff McGary and his assistant, Wm. Wire, shortly afterward captured five men near Mt. Carmel who proved to be the guilty parties. After bringing them to the city they pled guilty, at the preliminary trial, to the charge of larceny, and were committee to jail in default of bail. The five burglars gave their names as John Kelly, “Charles Kelley,” John Murphy, Thomas O’Neil and James Gallagher. Charles Kelly seemed to be a very young boy, and gained considerable sympathy from several who saw him, thinking that he had probably been enticed into leaving a life of the Lord. The prisoner were placed in cells together and mingled together in jail, and nothing was supposed to be wrong. On several occasions Charles informed the sheriff that he was afraid of the roughs therein, and would rather be locked in a cell. The prisoner then said her name was Clara King, and that she hailed from Chicago, and had no home or relatives that she knew of, that she joined the gang of burglars in order to make a living. She was taken before the judge of court and proved that she was a female, when she was given three years in the State Female Penitentiary.


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 15, 1887.