No. -1
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 26, 2024

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

A Drunken Man Slips Down Under a Load of the Explosive - Blown to Atoms.
November 26, 2024
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  [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
"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
(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”She took a job at Streeter
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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
| Shocking Youthful Depravity.

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

Rum-and-Nitro

At Red Rock, Penn., Saturday afternoon, March 16, a man, intoxicated, staggered through the streets, carrying on his shoulders a bag containing nitro-glycerine. Fifteen minutes later, the town was shaken, and the inhabitants were frightened by a terrific explosion. Investigation showed that the man slipped down, causing the explosion. Fragments of the body were scattered in every direction.

The man's name was Henry Seeley. He was carrying two cans of nitro-glycerine, each containing eight quarts. After the explosion a human foot and a hole in the ground was all that could be found. Seeley had been drinking very heavily all day, and at the time was in an intoxicated state. A number of people had tried to get the compound away from him, but he guarded it with a drawn revolver. It is supposed that he slipped on the ice and the cans, coming in contact with the earth, caused the nitro-glycerine to explode. The trees and bushes for rods around were strewn with pieces of flesh and shreds of clothing, making one of the most shocking sights imaginable.


Illustrated Police News, March 29, 1879.