No. 591
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 30, 2021

A Man's Head Blown to Atoms.

A man's head blown to atoms by the explosion of a beer barrel on Long Island.
August 30, 2021
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Tag: Theatre

A Bevy of Stage Beauties.

Five footlight fairies, whose faces and forms charm audiences in London, Paris and New York.

2/22/2022

A Wine-Inspired Wager.

A Female Who Was Not Allowed to Exhibit Her Terpsichorean Abilities.

5/28/2018

A Scene not on the Bills.

Actor Ricardo’s bluff jump from the stage to the audience at the Grand Opera House, Columbus, Ohio.

10/17/2016

Floating Circus.

Spaulding & Rogers’s Floating Circus Palace.

4/11/2016

She Swallowed Her Teeth.

Mrs. Dunsford, of Reading, Pa., meets with a mishap in a theatre.

2/15/2016

Chorus Girls Fight.

Two of the charming girls who pose as "living pictures" in Rice's "1492" have a wordy war, which ends in a hand-to-hand conflict.

5/18/2015

New Years in the Wings.

The fairy of the enchanted realm entertains her subjects in an earthly way.

12/29/2014

Scenes from “In the Tenderloin.”

6/16/2014

Naughty Anthony.

10/23/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011
When reading about UFO sightings, one gets a bit bored of encounters with the usual saucer-eyed little green men, so it’s always welcome when extraterrestrials think outside of the box and offer us humans a more novel spectacle.  In the November/December 1968 issue of “Flying Saucer Review,” a French UFO researcher named Lyonel Trigano presented a striking case which had been brought to his
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Strange Company - 3/30/2026
"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
New York didn’t invent April Fools Day; this holiday might date back all the way to ancient Rome. But starting in the 19th century, April 1 in Gotham has been a day to celebrate with stupid pranks, outrageous hoaxes, the mocking of politicians and business leaders, and since 1986, a parade down Fifth Avenue. This […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/30/2026
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
National Police Gazette, January 28, 1882Mrs. J.W. Gibbons was away from her home in Ashland, Kentucky, on December 23, 1881. She left behind her 18-year-old son Robert, her 14-year-old daughter Fannie, and 17-year-old Emma Thomas (aka Carico), who was staying with them. Mrs. Gibbons returned the following day to find her home burned to the ground and all three inhabitants dead.Read the full
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/28/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
  [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 Charming Female Vaccinator. | Small Feet and Trim Ankles Among Actresses.

A Man's Head Blown to Atoms.

Head-Blown-to-AtomsA few mornings since a terrible accident occurred; In the Long Island Brewery, on Powers, near Bergen street. by which Frank Gilram, an employee in the establishment, had his head blown to pieces by the explosion of a beer barrel. Gilram and Michael Quinn were engaged In cleaning barrels, which Is done by filling the vessel with hot water and slacked lime and then rolling it about in order to generate the gases. While they were thus engaged, a barrel which they were rolling exploded with a loud report and hurled the fragments in every direction. One of the pieces struck the head of Gilram, severing it from the body, and dashing it against the beams of the room so violently that it was crushed into a mass of blood, flesh and bone. Quinn was hurled to the distance of about twenty feet, where he laid in an insensible condition, but was not seriously injured. Gilram resided at No. 64 Union street, and leaves a wife and children.

Illustrated Police News, January 25, 1872.