No. 197
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 31, 2014

Abducted by a Woman.

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March 31, 2014
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Tag: Gangs

Collecting Beer Money.

A gang of female rogues, of the East Side, New York, work a little racket of their own.

9/15/2015

Rogues & Brawlers.

11/13/2012

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011
JOE RICKERMAN
alias: NIGGER BAKER
PICKPOCKET, BURGLAR

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com Here is just one of those minor little oddities that help keep life on this earth from getting too dull.  The “Boston Globe,” December 17, 1928:SANTA BARBARA, Calif, Dec 16 (A.P.) -There may be sermons in stones and books in the running brooks, but it was left for a Santa Barbara woman to reveal today that there is a Schubert melody in a pan of boiling vegetables.&
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Strange Company - 4/22/2026

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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
Amen.

The most unusual house number in all of New York City is on West Fourth Street

Fractional house numbers can be found across New York’s older brownstone and townhouse neighborhoods. Usually the half refers to an adjacent carriage house or backhouse, or sometimes even a basement apartment. But as far as I can tell, this is the only 3/4 fractional on a Gotham doorway or entryway. It’s at 184 3/4 West […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/20/2026

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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

Mamie Cunningham.

(New York Journal, May 31, 1896.)On the morning of Memorial Day, May 30, 1896, Mrs. Annie Cunningham had to go to work, while her 13-year-old daughter, Mary (known as Mamie), was home from school for the holiday. Mrs. Cunningham asked Mamie if she planned to go to the parade. Mamie said no, she wasn’t interested, and she planned to do housework and study. At 8:30, she said goodbye to her daughter
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/18/2026
On the Russians.

Remembering Sarah Morse Borden

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

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Dr. Scott's Electric Corset. | What it is Coming to in Chicago.

Abducted by a Woman.

Abducted by a Woman

Harry Sommerville, of Lexington, Ky., is snatched from his bed by the mistress he had repudiated in order to marry another girl. 


A special from Lexington, Ky., Oct. 6, says: Several weeks ago Harry Sommerville, formerly one of Lexington’s most gifted and promising young artists, married Mrs. Belle Payton, widow of a Cincinnati saloon keeper. The match was not suitable to the lady’s relatives, with whom she has been living, and who had Sommerville in their employ, and the new voyagers on the matrimonial sea were driven away. They went to board with another relative of Mrs. Sommerville, but here their troubles multiplied. A few nights ago the wife of Alonzo Barnett, a conductor on the Cincinnati Southern Railroad, drove to Sommerville’s boarding house, and, going to his bedroom, where he and his wife were in bed, she commanded and forced him to get up, dress and go with her. Since then Mrs. Sommerville has never seen her husband, and she has fallen sick with fever, and is now at St. Joseph’s Hospital. It seems that Sommerville had been intimate with the Barnett woman before his marriage, and that as soon as she heard of it she went for him. All parties are well known here.

National Police Gazette, October 29, 1887

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