Welcome to the latest Link Dump!Our host for this Friday's festivities is the one-and-only BABY.Watch out for the Gown Man!Two violent and puzzling deaths.You know, "radioactive anomaly" are two words you'd rather not see together.Ancient diet tips.A widower's mourning gets...complicated.The saloon cat and Theodore Roosevelt.The CIA's psychic army.There's a lot of ancient writing out there
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.
When 721 St. Nicholas Avenue (below, corner house) made its debut in 1891, the formerly sleepy village of Harlem was rapidly becoming part of the urban streetscape. What had been a rural area dotted with estate houses in the 18th century (like Alexander Hamilton’s country retreat, the Grange) became a popular place for wealthy New […]
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: […]
Foully slain by his scapegrace son -- Emanuel Breist meets a terrible fate at Kikngerstown, Pa.Emanuel Breist was one of the wealthiest farmers in
Mahantongo Valley, Pennsylvania. He had four daughters and one son. In 1880,
Breist fought with his 17-year-old son, Henry, and as a result, Henry ran away
from home.The family heard nothing from Henry for four years; then, on
December 4, 1884, the
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 16 - Original copy1883Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)
oapy Smith in Nebraska, Iowa, Denver.This is page 16, dated July-October 1883, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook can be seen on page 1. These notebook pages have never
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 →
The saintly circles of Paterson, N. J., have had a shock. There is a Rev. Mr. Sniffles there who has been very "fresh" in his visits to the pretty sisters, and who has been in the habit of covering his tracks by giving out that he only wrestles In prayer with the daisies of the congregation, of which he is the assistant pastor. This too, although the insatiable old hunks had a young wife who was languishing for a little religion. The other day the parson was disappointed by one of the sisters who postponed her prayers, and returned home in the afternoon unexpectedly. He found his door locked, and there was some delay in admitting him. When he did get into the apartment he found his wife disheveled and disrobed, and another door leading from the room to the exit by the back way was ajar. The parson pursued the sound of retreating footsteps and overtook a deacon of his church, the husband of the lady whom he had made his pastoral visit to. The parson demanded an explanation and the deacon tried to stand him off with a proposition to unite with him in prayer. The parson preferred, however, to unite with him in a wrestling match in Lancashire style. This gave both parties dead away, and now there is a big scandal in that church, and the lawyers are rubbing their hands in anticipation of getting the whole canting mob into their clutches.
"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