No. 698
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
April 16, 2025

She Was a Child of Nature.

Sensation created at Boonville, Ind., by the capture of an alleged wild woman.
April 15, 2025
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Tag: New Jersey

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City

7/5/2022

The Girls Biffed Each Other

1/19/2021

Great Base Ball Match.

Great baseball match between the Atlantic and Boxford Clubs of Brooklyn.

4/23/2018

Courtship from a Tree.

Young and Ardent Bob Toppin, a Newark, N. J., youth, does some tall climbing in order to meet his sweetheart, pretty Miss Hobbie, a parson’s daughter.

3/13/2017

Mrs. Snyder Pays Her Bet.

She backed Harrison, and had to wheel Henry Singer in a barrow, at Atlantic City, N. J.

11/21/2016

They Ran a Snide Game.

A “friendly” poker scheme exposed at Bogota, N. J., by one of the players squealing.

6/13/2016

A Sleep-Walker’s Act.

Miss Belle Collis, of Newark, N. J., surprises the neighbors by her want of thought.

3/26/2016

Fierce Football.

The great game recently played between teams representing the colleges of Princeton and Yale, on the former's grounds, Thanksgiving Day.

11/23/2015

New Jersey’s Great Wash Day.

Farmers with their wives and buxom daughters enjoy their annual bath in old ocean, at Spring Lake Beach, N. J.

8/18/2015

Hard Knocks and Horsewhips.

Miss Mamie Gannon, of Jersey City, attacks reporter Lenhart with a horsewhip for traducing her character in his newspaper.

8/10/2015

They Are a Bad Lot.

The frightful picture of crime and debauchery which has given notoriety to Mary Jane Cawley’s backwoods dive at Cookstown, N. J.

7/27/2015

Defying the Guards.

Downed by Kindness After defying a host of armed keepers, James Driscoll, in the Trenton, N. J. State prison succumbs to a gentle word.

1/12/2015

Murderous Assault by a Wife on Her Husband.

10/6/2014

Set Fire to the Bed.

9/22/2014

A Minister’s Scrape.

7/21/2014

"Four Aces."

9/25/2012

Spectacular Scenes & Sights Down on the Jersey Coast

Poster for the 1898 Broadway show "Have You Seen Smith?"

7/17/2012

She Was Bug Crazy.

5/22/2012

A Plucky Elberon, N. J., Girl

1/31/2012
Via Newspapers.comThis tale of a trouble-making bridge in New Jersey appeared in the “Pittsburgh Commercial,” February 3, 1874:The local reporter of the Bedford Inquirer, with the fate of Ananias staring him in his mind's eye, puts in print the following story of a haunted bridge: And now we stumble upon a mystery in Harrison township. About six miles west of this place is a bridge known as
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Strange Company - 4/16/2025
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 Titanic claimed several well-known New Yorkers, some with pedigreed last names like Astor and Guggenheim. But perhaps the most famous passengers who perished after the ship met its fate in the North Atlantic on April 14, 1912 were Isidor and Ida Straus. Their devotion to each other in the last hours of their lives […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/14/2025
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
National Police Gazette, December 29, 1888.Franklin Asbury Hawkins murdered his mother on October 29, 1887, and dumped her body, beaten and shot, by the side of the road in Islip, Long Island. 22-year-old Hawkins was angered that his mother objected to his desire to marry Hattie Schrecht, a servant girl. Hawkins was easily convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to be hanged in December
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Murder By Gaslight - 4/12/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 19 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith begins an empire in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 19, the continuation of page 18, and dated April 14 - May 5, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/3/2025
  [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
| A Terrible Axe Duel.

She Was a Child of Nature.

Child-of-Nature

Some young men, while hunting near Booneville, Ind., a few days ago, came upon a beautiful young woman, who had apparently been roaming for several days through the swamps and woods in an almost nude condition. When she discovered them she darted away like a frightened deer. They pursued her to a cave. catching her just as she was about entering the same. She is about thirty years of age. Her face and body have been terribly lacerated by brambles and bushes. In her temporary hiding place were found a quantity of nuts and herbs and a piece of an old broken earthenware pitcher. She was carried to a neighboring farmer's house, where she has become more docile. Her name has not been discovered, and she refuses to reveal it.


National Police Gazette, December 29, 1888.