No. 647
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 28, 2024

They Put Her Ashore.

A Show Manager's Faithless Wife.
March 26, 2024
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Tag: New York

Another Steamboat Disaster.

The Steamboat "Riverdale" Blown Up in the Hudson.

11/14/2023

A Great Game of Football.

Fair college students engage in a rough-and-tumble chase after the pigskin.

11/7/2023

Caught a Cowboy.

A Manheim, N.Y., Maiden insert an advertisement in a matrimonial paper and is astonished at the result.

7/19/2022

A Man's Head Blown to Atoms.

A man's head blown to atoms by the explosion of a beer barrel on Long Island.

8/30/2021

Homeward Bound.

Vacationers leaving Lake George, New York, 1879.

5/7/2019

The Age of Advertising.

The next thing in order - The Hudson River Palisades Art Galery.

12/3/2018

Pedal Advertising.

How two Dizzy Girls Advertised Their Charms and Political Faith.

11/5/2018

Up the Hudson.

9/18/2018

Great Base Ball Match.

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

4/23/2018

Thrilling Railroad Accident.

Startling accident at the draw bridge of the Rensselaer and Saratoga Railroad, Federal Street, Troy, N. Y., Saturday, Sept 23.

11/6/2017

Disguising Nature.

Society’s male darlings “making up” their faces for the purpose of “looking pretty” to their addlepated female counterparts; Saratoga, N. Y.

5/29/2017

Pugilists in Petticoats.

Alleged bout between Annie Russell and Elizabeth Sullivan, two pretty clerks in a Buffalo, N. Y.

4/10/2017

Crazed by Politics.

Lendall Pratt, and aged Long Islander, kills himself while in a political frenzy.

11/7/2016

Done Up by Dizzy Blondes.

A special from Canajoharie, Sept 26, says: Duncan Clark, manager of Clark’s Female Minstrels, will probably not visit the Mohawk valley again very soon.

6/20/2016

Saratoga’s Naughty Girl.

Minnie Hull, a dashing young lady from the watering place, is unjustly or otherwise accused of crookedness.

3/7/2016

Heroism of a Society Belle.

The Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Irvington, N. Y.

12/28/2015

Fighting Marines.

Some of Uncle Sam’s land and water police have a genial shindy among themselves at the Navy Yard, Brooklyn, N. Y.

11/5/2015

Another Amorous Parson.

Westchester County is all agog over the case of the Rev. Mr. White, accused of violently assaulting the sister-in-law of a brother clergyman. We illustrate the scene.

10/6/2015

Said She Would and Did.

Mrs. Cary cures her husband of flirting by ascending in a balloon at Buffalo, N. Y.

4/27/2015

The White Porpoise.

We give in our present number a correct sketch of one of the largest specimens of the Porpoise that has ever been seen.

3/16/2015

Killed and Eaten by Hogs.

9/15/2014

They Got Hilariously Full.

Alleged cancan dance indulged in by young male and female swells at Jamestown, New York.

8/12/2014

Thimble Rig A La Mode.

3/18/2014

A New Shoplifting Dodge.

A female thief who carries a baby in her arms and made its flowing skirts a cover for stolen goods

12/3/2013

The Last Dip of the Season.

Water witches who frolic with Neptune, no matter how cold his embrace.

9/3/2013

First Automobile in Manhattan.

8/5/2013

Dropping Their Disguise.

How a loving bridal couple were suddenly transformed into a brace of absconding counterfeiters.

6/18/2013

Undercover Lunatic.

5/26/2013

Shooting at the Elevated.

After-dinner pistol practice at the trains that rush by windows

5/7/2013

Mother Mandelbaum's Secrets.

4/23/2013

The Pawn-Ticket Game.

Pawn tickets make bad collateral.

3/5/2013

Insane Criminal Escapes.

1/27/2013

An Underground Stale-Beer Dive.

12/18/2012

Rogues & Brawlers.

11/13/2012

A Fiendish Husband’s Desperate Deed.

10/16/2012

Serpent and Dove.

10/2/2012

The Advent of Spiritualism.

A simple schoolgirl prank spawned a new belief with millions of followers.

9/4/2012

Copper.

8/20/2012

A Slippery and Subtle Knave – The Bank Sneak.

7/31/2012

A Slippery and Subtle Knave – The Bank Sneak.

Of the many forms of bank robbery, the bank sneak had the safest, easiest and most lucrative method of all.

7/31/2012

Ararat: City of Refuge.

7/3/2012

Street Arabs and Gutter-Snipes.

Waifs and strays of a great city - A group of homeless New York Newsboys.

6/11/2012

A Ghastly Table.

6/5/2012

Comstockery.

Anthony Comstock was on a personal mission to protect America from vice.

5/1/2012

Being Initiated.

3/13/2012

Inspector Thomas F. Byrnes.

3/4/2012

Cosfhe Kreqhh

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2/14/2012

Another Voice for Cleveland.

12/13/2011

New York Society Classified.

11/27/2011

Trixie Got the Best of It.

Two Little Gem Theatre, Buffalo, N. Y., Soubrettes have a scrap on account of a man.

10/8/2011

Caroline Burned!

9/19/2011

The Astor Place Riot

8/15/2011

Recruiting For Sin's Army

7/5/2011

Sparking in Tompkins Square

Cupid in Tompkins Square

6/28/2011

The Bunco Game

The term “bunco” has come to mean to any type of swindle, but in the 19th century it usually referred to a confidence game involving crooked gambling.

5/17/2011

Hazing at the Stock Board

How the battering-ram process is applied by the bulls and bears to while away the idle hours of the dull season.

5/8/2011

The Cardiff Giant

Cardiff, New York, October 16, 1869.

4/10/2011

Bank Heist

The Audacity of a Professional Thief.

4/3/2011

Chorus Girls in a Panic.

An unruly horse causes great excitement in the Metropolitan Opera House, this city.

3/14/2011

“Daredevil” Steve Brodie

2/17/2011
Via Newspapers.comThis account of diabolical doings down on the farm appeared in the “Great Bend Tribune,” September 28, 1908:Groton, Conn. This town is excited indeed over the amazing happenings at the fine old farm of William Hempstead, a mile east of New London.Visitors have been going out in automobiles and carriages to study the mystery. Small articles, such as beans, spools of thread,
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Strange Company - 3/27/2024
HE DUEL IN ELLEN'S HONOR. Soapy Smith’s grandmotherOn Wednesday, August 9, 1820, an argument between 17-year-old, James Bowe Boisseau (1802-1820) and Robert C. Adams (unknown-1820) vying for the attention of 18-year-old Ellen Stimpson Peniston (1802-1860), took a terrible turn. The happy party in her honor took a tragic turn when the competition for Ellen’s affections ended in a deadly duel,
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 1/10/2024
Is that the crenellated crown of a faux Medieval castle looming five stories above Riverside Drive and 83rd Street—flanked by European-inspired row houses with dormer windows and tiled roofs? The separate dwellings that compose this delightful design mashup are quite a sight among the Drive’s mostly uniform prewar apartment houses. Who built these eclectic residences […]
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Ephemeral New York - 3/25/2024
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Margaret Howard learned too late that the man she married was a violent, two-timing gambler. After they separated, he kidnapped their children to be raised by another woman posing as his wife. Margaret snapped and took her revenge on the false Mrs. Howard.  Read the full story here: Margaret Howard.
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/23/2024
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
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
| Unmindful of their Attire.

They Put Her Ashore.

Put-Her-Ashore

A Show Manger’s Faithless Wife—Her Paramour Dumped into the Mississippi, and the Guilty Woman Landed in the Woods.

A "summer snap" manager has been moving up the Mississippi from St. Louis for the last fortnight, exhibiting at various landing places on his way Northward. His domestic experiences on the trip led to a very dramatic scene just below Cairo, last week, in which the full strength of the company participated. The manager's wife, a comely and vivacious woman, considerably younger than her lord in years, had given cause for gossip in the show troupe by her evident partiality for the society of the treasurer of the show. There was no effort by either to conceal their liking for each other, and with reckless disregard of appearances, they were found frequently closeted together in different state rooms, with the door-key turned to shut out intruders. The manager was slow to suspicion, and when suspicion was no longer impossible to others, he remained in doubt. Representations by various members of the company as to improprieties of conduct they had witnessed did not convince him. "The broken pitcher goes to the well once too often," the Spaniards say, and the guilty wife and her paramour, regardless of warnings and their own knowledge that they were under surveillance, made the most of all their opportunities for intercourse. The patient husband of the guilty woman at last "got on to the racket dead." A Mississippi steamer is too narrow a field for a liaison to remain long and undiscovered. The wife and the treasurer were found in a position which left no room for doubt of their criminality, and the wrath of the wronged husband knew no bounds. Ordering the steamer headed for a lonely waste of forest on the Missouri shore, he summoned the show troupe together, told them plainly and with tears running freely down his cheeks, the story of his wrongs and the convincing character of the evidence lie had obtained. He ordered the band to play a dirge, and as the boat run her nose into shore, he put out the gang-plank and made the guilty woman go ashore across it. At the same time he pitched her paramour over the steamer's side into the river. "Now set her out into the channel," said the manager to the pilot.


Illustrated Police News, July 12, 1890.