No. 51
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 30, 2011

McGinty Survives!

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October 30, 2011
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Tag: Gunshot

Shot for a Bear.

An unsuspecting woman in Platte Lake, Mich., is horribly and fatally made game of.

12/9/2020

Another Fool with a Gun.

Mattie Salter killed by her brother, who didn’t know it was loaded, Sandersville, Ga.

2/18/2019

The Wedding Postponed.

11/27/2017

Packed Away in a Trunk.

James Lavender of Irwinton, Georgia, tries to elude his bondsmen but is found and dragged out.

11/13/2017
JOSEPH COOK
alias: GEO HAVILL, HARRY THORN
SNEAK, FORGER

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comThis account of your basic friendly neighborhood monster appeared in the “Mexico Weekly Ledger,” December 13, 1883:MEXICO, Mo., December 8.--The neighborhood of Hopewell Church, near this city, is much excited over the appearance in the locality of a strange creature, which is thought by the credulous to be a ghost, and which is a puzzle at least to the most skeptical. The
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Strange Company - 9/23/2026

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
Amen.

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

Song of the St. George Murder.

 A Song Written in Memory ofThe St. George Murder.(excerpt) In St. George, Me., as you shall hear,It proves to be the fatal year -That Mrs. Meservey, in the prime of life.By a murderer's hand has lost her life....Nathan Hart is the murderer's name,Father and husband think of the shame,Did he forget all woman kind,Seek like a beast some prey to find?...God in His written book doth say, 
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/19/2026
On the Russians.

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
Whipped By Women | Anxious For a Funeral

McGinty Survives!

McGinty

The popularity of the Cardiff Giant, an allegedly petrified giant man found buried in New York, was so great that spectators continued to pay to view him even after he proved to be a hoax. This prompted showmen throughout America to exhibit their own petrified men. Among the greatest was McGinty, exhibited by the notorious western conman, Soapy Smith, in Creede, Colorado, in 1892. Incredibly, 119 years later, McGinty is still on display at Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe in Seattle, Washington, where he is known as Sylvester. Read McGinty’s story at Soapy Smith’s Soap Box.

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