No. 675
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 6, 2024

A Pair of Colorado Dianas.

The Sensation They Made in Leadville Streets.
November 4, 2024
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Via Newspapers.comGhosts may be alarming, but they’re usually not hazardous to your health.  This following tale may be an exception.  The “Altoona Times,” October 27, 1884:New York, October 25.--Dr. Charles C. King, of Buffalo, who is now here, tells a curious story. A month ago two men entered his office.  One said he was suffering from a physical injury inflicted by a ghostly
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Strange Company - 11/6/2024
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Soapy Smith's "star" notebookPage 11 - original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH'S "STAR" NOTEBOOKPart #11 - Page 11     This is part #11 - page 11, dated 1882. This is a continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1.    &
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 11/5/2024
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Myron Buel.“He possesses an expressionless and almost idiotic countenance.”  Illustrated Police News.Myron Buel was called “The Boy Murderer,” though he was 20 years old when he committed the crime. He was charged with the murder of Catherine Richards in Plainfield, New York, on June 25, 1878. The following February he was tried and convicted of first-degree murder. Buel
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Murder By Gaslight - 11/2/2024
On the northwest corner of First Avenue at First Street, on the border of the East Village and the Lower East Side, is a handsome red-brick tenement. Five stories high (with a two-story, beach house–like penthouse on the roof, but that’s a subject for another post), it’s a typical, well-kept building likely on this corner […]
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Ephemeral New York - 11/4/2024
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
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A Pair of Colorado Dianas.

Colorado Dianas At Leadville, Colorado, a few days ago, when the sun was doing its best to provoke the mercury beyond its never-varying maximum expression of heat—65—two handsome young girls rode in from the plains with game-bags, over their shoulders and rifles across the pommels of their saddles. They circled through the town two or three times, awaking the latent manhood In every ennui-stricken breast. They flirted violently as they rode about and managed to get half a dozen of the laziest young tourists In the place to ambling and dodging after them. Suddenly they began to discharge their rifles to right and left in a reprehensively reckless and Improper fashion. Their lovers scattered rapidly, and after pirouetting with their ponies for a short time succeeding the rifle discharges, the fair creatures gallopped off out of sight These two girls are the daughters of a gentleman who camps with his family in Middle Park every year They are highly accomplished and well educated and behaved young women during three-fourths of the year, and seen in the streets of Denver would attract attention by their lady-like deportment.


Illustrated Police News, August 16, 1879.