No. 696
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 27, 2025
alias:
CHECK FORGER
Via Newspapers.comUnfortunately, the following is all I could find about what was potentially an intriguing poltergeist case, but I thought it was still worth sharing. The “New York Daily News,” April 21, 1962:St. Brieuc, France, April 20-Police and church officials today were investigating reports of a "ghost" in two Brittany villages who is said to have "attacked" people's clothing.
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Strange Company - 3/26/2025
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
The 20th century skyline of Manhattan—dominated by gleaming, crisply defined skyscrapers like the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building—was a frequent subject for photographers of the 1930s and 1940s. “New York Skyline Evening Haze,” 1936 But few have the depth and texture of these muted, murky skyline images by Paul J. Woolf: one of the […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/24/2025
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
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Two days after her disappearance, search parties formed to
look for any trace of Emma between Hill’s Grove and Pontiac. They focused on
the river and ponds in the area, fearing that she may have fallen in and
drowned. On November 14, when the search was all but abandoned, a group of searchers
discovered Emma’s body in the bushes on a knoll, near the road.
The coroner and the medical
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/22/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 18 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)
oapy Smith in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 18, the continuation of page 17, and dated March 28 - April 12, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/11/2025
[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
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.The Bloody Century 2
Takes the reader back to 19th-century America in all its gory glory.
