No. 159
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 23, 2013

Drove Nails in his Ear.

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July 23, 2013
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Tag: Louisiana

Torturing a Lover.

6/26/2012

Terrible Struggle with Flame and Flood

The burning of the steamer John H. Hanna near Plaquemine, Louisiana, by which thirty lives were lost

6/20/2011

Voodoo Queen Marie

For over forty years, beginning around 1830, Marie Laveau was the most powerful and most feared woman in New Orleans.

3/21/2011
JOSEPH COOK
alias: GEO HAVILL, HARRY THORN
SNEAK, FORGER

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!  There are no strangers here; only cat friends you haven't met yet.Feeling melancholy?  Try ostrich liver!In 2024, something left a very weird crater on the Moon.More deadly amusement parks.A very unsuccessful hermit.A new cat species has been discovered.  A darn cute one, too.Europe's first treatise on cheese.A sorcerer's magical diary.Why
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Strange Company - 9/25/2026

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

James Dougherty's Obsession.

Mary Anderson was an acclaimed international stage actress in the late 1800s. Among her many fans was a young Brooklyn man named James M. Dougherty.  He worked as a telegraph lineman and studied science in his spare time. He dabbled in a little of everything until, after watching one of her plays, he became obsessed with Miss Anderson. His love for Mary Anderson became his sole
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/26/2026
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
Cuban Beauty Emporium. | Gold from Seawater!

Drove Nails in his Ear.

nails in his ears

Ella Shingledecker, wife of a Bourbon, Ind., man, adopts a novel method of getting rid of her husband. 

Ella Shingledecker, of Bourbon Ind., recently tried to poison her husband with strychnine. She then drove eight-penny nails in his ear while he was asleep. Shingledecker is badly injured. His wife was arrested and held to await the result of his injuries.

"Drove Nails in his Ear." The National Police Gazette 17 Sep 1894: 6.

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