No. 614
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 08, 2022

Tar and Feathers.

Lawyer Iken of Rushville, West Nebraska, enjoys a treat at the hands of his neighbors.
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February 8, 2022
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JOHN CLARE
alias: GILMORE
BANK BURGLAR

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
A Bevy of Stage Beauties. | They Were "Soaked" in Every Sense.

Tar and Feathers.

Tar-and-feathers2

An exciting tar and feather affair occurred at Rushville, West Nebraska, recently, a man named Iken, lawyer and land agent, being the victim. Iken had made himself disliked by a large number of settlers by getting In their confidence and then contesting their claims by means of information thus surreptitiously obtained. A number of the victims took him from his office, stripped him and applied a coat of tar and feathers. forcing him at the point of revolvers to assist to decorating himself. Iken was then marched through the streets to drums, which headed the procession. Finally, he was ordered to leave the country and proceeded to do so as soon as be he got the tar and leathers off.

National Police Gazette, July 3, 1886.

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