No. 691
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 25, 2025

Said She Would and Did.

Mrs. Cary cures her husband of flirting by ascending in a balloon at Buffalo, N. Y.
April 27, 2015
...
...

[Note: I published this story on my World of Poe blog back in 2012--13 years ago, ye gods, where does the time go?!--but I thought it had enough of a Strange Company vibe to include it here.]In October of 1845, the corpse of a prostitute named Maria (or Mary Ann) Bickford was found in her Boston boardinghouse lodgings, her throat gruesomely slashed. Her former lover, a wealthy, married man named
More...
Strange Company - 2/24/2025
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.
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
Lenox Hill, Murray Hill, Carnegie Hill, Golden Hill—Manhattan used to have a lot of hills, and the island’s once-bumpy topography lent itself to neighborhood names still in use today. (Well, not Golden Hill, but I’m partial to bringing it back.) But one true hill that remains on the streetscape spans Lexington Avenue between 102nd and […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 2/24/2025
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: […]
More...
Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
Illustrated Police News, Nov. 10, 1883.Zora Burns was a beautiful and captivating young woman with “…abundant hair of yellow-golden tint clustered about features as perfectly regular as those which Phidias chiseled from the marble of Greece. Her form was grace and symmetry personified, and despite her lack of educational advantages, her natural tact and quickness of intellect atoned in great
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 2/22/2025
(Click image to enlarge) LUBFOOT" HALL - CON MANSoapy Smith's mentor?     Recently, I saw two Youtube videos on "Soapy" Smith. Both chose to use the old error filled biographies as sources. Sometimes I leave a comment, letting the author and visitors know some of the errors in the videos and letting them know that there are published true histories of Soapy if they so desire. In
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 2/23/2025
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
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Mdlle. Carlotta de Berg. | Surf Swimming at Hawaii, Sandwich Islands.

Said She Would and Did.

Said she Would and Did

Mrs. Cary cures her husband of flirting by ascending in a balloon at Buffalo, N. Y. 

Head Waiter Cary at the restaurant at Crystal Beach, Buffalo, N. Y., has experienced the novel sensation of seeing his wife leave him by the balloon route. And a more surprised man could not have been found between dawn and sunset. Cary is a “masher” and has kept his wife and babies in the background while he carried on flirtations with the fair diners at his table.

Mrs. Cary had a quarrel with her spouse lately, which ended in a threat that she would leave him for a home beyond the skies. The other afternoon a big crowd assembled to see the balloon ascension. Just before the gas bag was filled Mrs. Cary trundled the baby over in its carriage and left it with her husband. The next Cary heard was the shout: “Cary, there goes your wife.” Cary looked up and say to his amazement, hanging to the balloon the wife of his bosom. She seemed self-possessed on her aerial perch, and waved adieu to the crowd as she ascended.

He stood as if transfixed, unable to utter a cry. Presently the balloon was checked in its skyward course and then to his consternation the deserted husband saw his better half cut loose from the airship and drop with a parachute to the earth. She landed only a few rods from her starting place. She was not half so scared as her husband and it is safe to say Cary will not flirt again until he recovers from his fright.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, September 16, 1893.