No. 373
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 24, 2017

A Skeleton King with a Silver Crown.

The strange relic of departed greatness found in a Livingston (Ala.) cave by a youthful explorer.
July 24, 2017
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Via Newspapers.comGhosts get notoriously snippy when earthly affairs are not arranged to their satisfaction, as this news item from the “Chester Chronicle,” January 16, 1858, will illustrate:Within one mile of Llangollen station, at a place called the Fron, there have been some strange and singular scenes. Some months ago a person named Joseph Hughes died very suddenly on his way to chapel.
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  [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
"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
One Week Only!On sale for 99 cents!So Far from Home:The Pearl Bryan Murder"Yes. they drove far from the city,To a place so far from home,There they left her body lyingHeadless and all stained with blood" Buy for 99 centsSale ends Sept. 21More Information
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/15/2026
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
Wicked Victorian Boston. | Midsummer Madness.

A Skeleton King with a Silver Crown.

Strange Relic

The strange relic of departed greatness found in a Livingston (Ala.) cave by a youthful explorer. [more]

Mr. Morgan Lynn, of Livingston, Ala., has in his possession some Indian relics of peculiar interest. They were found by Master Willie Powe, near Horn’s Bridge, over the Sucarnatchie, and consisted of a silver crown about six and a half inches in diameter and two inches wide at the widest part; two silver ornaments, circular in form, and two inches in diameter, and a number of beads. These ornaments were found with—we might say on the person of—a well preserved skeleton. The crown still encircled the skull, and the other ornaments residue upon the chest, having evidently been work about the neck. On the front of the crown is etched the figure of a moose, and on each side of it the figure of a wolf. They are evidently the product of skilled workmen, and from certain letters and figures inscribed on the inner surfaces of the crown we infer that it was of English manufacture. The place on which these relics were found has been settled not less than half a century.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 20, 1888.