No. 707
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 4, 2025

A Hidden Skeleton.

Barton Russel and his wife discover the skeleton of missing Charlie Young near Moorsburg, Hawkins Co
October 26, 2015
...
...

Via Newspapers.comFor this year’s Fourth of July, I’m bringing you something a bit different: A patriotic mystery!  The “Bonner County Daily Bee,” August 26, 2014:KELLOGG - Old Glory is flying high atop a large ponderosa pine on Fourth of July Pass. How the flag got there, on national forest land, is a mystery.At night the American flag, which is on the north side of the highway around
More...
Strange Company - 7/2/2025
Wouldn’t you love to have interviewed Lizzie’s physician, Dr. Nomus S. Paige from Taunton, the jail doctor, ? He found her to be of sane mind and we can now confirm that he had Lizzie moved to the Wright’s quarters while she was so ill after her arraignment with bronchitis, tonsilitis and a heavy cold. We learn that she was not returned to her cell as he did not wish a relapse so close to her trial. Dr. Paige was a Dartmouth man, class of 1861. I have yet to produce a photo of him but stay tuned! His house is still standing at 74 Winthrop St, corner of Walnut in Taunton. He was married twice, with 2 children by his second wife Elizabeth Honora “Nora” Colby and they had 2 children,Katherine and Russell who both married and had families. Many of the Paiges are buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton. Dr. Paige died in April of 1919- I bet he had plenty of stories to tell about his famous patient in 1893!! He was a popular Taunton doctor at Morton Hospital and had a distinguished career. Dr. Paige refuted the story that Lizzie was losing her mind being incarcerated at the jail, a story which was appearing in national newspapers just before the trial. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Taunton, courtesy of Find A Grave. 74 Winthrop St., corner of Walnut, home of Dr. Paige, courtesy of Google Maps Obituary for Dr. Paige, Boston Globe April 17, 1919
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 5/24/2025
How did New Yorkers get through sweltering summer days before the invention and widespread use of air conditioning? Well, a lot of it depended on your income bracket. If you were wealthy, you likely waited out the summer at a seaside resort like Newport or on a country estate cooled by mountains or river breezes. […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/30/2025
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
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
A boatman working near the foot of Little Street in Brooklyn, on October 3, 1864, saw a package floating on the water. Thinking it might contain something of value, he took it into his boat. He unraveled the enameled oilcloth surrounding the package, and inside, covered in sheets of brown paper, was the trunk of a human body. The head, arms, pelvis, and legs had been cut off with a saw or sharp
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 6/28/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
The Latest Agony. | A Rattling Main.

A Hidden Skeleton.

A Horrible Find

A Horrible Find.

Barton Russel and his wife discover the skeleton of missing Charlie Young near Moorsburg, Hawkins Co., Tennessee. [more]

Late on Saturday week evening Barton Russel and his wife were digging for ginseng on Flatgap Road, a mile from the village of Mooresburg, Hawkins County, Tenn., when they discovered the Skelton of a boy lying hidden under the brush wood on the road. A report of the terrible discover brought a crowd to the spot on the following day, when it was ascertained that the body was that of Charlie Young, aged sixteen years, who had left Mooresburg a few weeks previously and who had been missing from his home since that time. It was evident that the lad had been murdered on his way from his aunt’s home at Mooresburg to visit an uncle who lived across Clinch Mountain. Suspicion at once was directed to a man named Marcellus Bunch, who had been heard to say that he would hang or be sent to the penitentiary if something that had happened was ever known.

It was ascertained that Bunch had been trying to sell a coat and a pair of shoes which were subsequently found on his premises and have been identified as belonging to the murdered boy. The hat which Bunch wore was also identified as Young’s. On those proofs of suspicion Bunch was arrested and is now in jail.

Young had no money about him, and the motive for the murder is therefore yet a mystery.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 6, 1886.