Graveyard at Mink Creek, "Logan Herald Journal," October 29, 1976, via Newspapers.comThe following ghost story was, unfortunately, never fully investigated, so it is hard to tell how much of it is solid fact, and how much is folklore. However, it’s an intriguing enough tale that--with the above caveats--I wanted to give it a niche in the hallowed halls of Strange Company HQ.Some time around
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.
The chalet-style elevated train station is long gone; the Ninth Avenue El, which ran along Greenwich Avenue, was demolished in 1940. (Though Berenice Abbott keeps it alive just as the painting does in this 1936 photo.) The cigar shop in the little Federal-style house on the left has also bit the dust. The land is […]
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: […]
Illustrated Police News, January 13, 1883.
Nicholas L. Dukes of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, was outraged to learn that his fiancée, Lizzie Nutt, had been intimate with other men. Instead of confronting Lizzie, he sent a
A Busted HoneymoonSoapy Smith is arrested in Leadville, ColoradoCarbonate ChronicleMay 17, 1886Courtesy of Colorado Historic Newspapers
(Click image to enlarge)
ew information regarding Soapy Smith in Leadville, Colorado.
A friend, Don Hendershot, found the above newspaper article. Following is the text of that article.Carbonate ChronicleLeadville, ColoradoMay 17, 1886A Busted
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 →
"We follow vice and folly where a police officer dare not show his head, as the small, but intrepid weasel pursues vermin in paths which the licensed cat or dog cannot enter."
The Sunday Flash 1841