No. 675
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 30, 2024

Counterfeiters Surprised.

New York—Base Metal Coinage
July 30, 2024
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Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 24 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's "STAR" notebook page 24, 1882 and 1884, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Portland. Steamer Ancon. This post is on page 24, the last of the "STAR" notebook pages I have been deciphering and publishing for the last two years, since July 24, 2023. The page is two separate notes dated 1882
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 9/17/2025
Stop by this week as we explore what happened the week before the murders, Emma and Lizzie’s getaway to Fairhaven and New Bedford, and new imagery which will help to tell the story. The pears are almost ripe, August 4th is coming fast, and thoughts begin to turn to that house on Second Street once again. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ !
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/26/2025
Via Newspapers.comSome author--I can’t recall who he or she was--once wrote that it made no sense that ghosts were always seen fully clothed.  Shouldn’t they all be naked?  That writer would be pleased with the following news item from the “Springfield News Sun,” August 22, 1999:BAGHDAD, Iraq - Ghost stories are pretty common around the old Iraqi city of Haditha. Still, when the ghosts
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Strange Company - 9/17/2025
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
One Week Only! The Bloody Century Half Price!
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/16/2025
Deep roots anchor P.J. Clarke’s, the restaurant and bar occupying a Civil War–era brick building with its top two floors sheered off at Third Avenue and 55th Street. Converted into a tavern in 1884 when Irish laborers held a large presence in the developing neighborhood, the building was bought by Irish immigrant Patrick “Paddy” J. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 9/15/2025
  [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
The Convicts Returning from Dinner. | The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Counterfeiters Surprised.

counterfeiters Notwithstanding the extreme hazards involved, in these days of sharp detective service, the factitious business of manufacturing counterfeit money seems to keep a greater or less number of "crooks " at work almost continually. The latest capture in this line was accomplished in Brooklyn, upon the night of Thursday. December 27th, by Special Operative John P. Brooks, of the U. S. Secret Service force, who surprised three men in the act of turning out a rather poor imitation of the silver dollar. Some of the base coins were red hot in the molds, while the crucible, battery, milling - tools, and other paraphernalia, were in active employment in the hands of Messrs. Green, Cassidy and Kenney, the three men who constituted the gang. The two former are old offenders, both having recently completed terms in the Penitentiary for counterfeiting. The dollars turned out by their counterfeit-factory, upon the top floor of a tenement in Pearl Street, Brooklyn, where they were arrested, had been in circulation in Brooklyn for two or three months past. Mr. Brooks traced up their source, and planned the raid so successfully, that when the doors were burst in by the police the crooked alchemists were completely surprised, and surrendered without resistance.


Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, January 12, 1889.