Welcome! Our hosts for this week's Link Dump will be two members of the crack Strange Company HQ research team.A notorious Appalachian murder.A look at glacial archaeology.An examination of a musical conspiracy theory.The long-unsolved disappearance of three small boys.And here is your unparalleled opportunity to view the contents of an ostrich's stomach.The Case of the Disappearing
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.
(Click image to enlarge)
ce Box Murphy
Did He Exist?Anyone reading my book, Alias Soapy Smith: The Life and Death of a Scoundrel, and this blog, might have wondered why I have not included the history of the soap gang member, “Ice Box” Murphy. The early biographies introduced me to Murphy, whose story was also included in most of the later biographies and articles. Today, many writers repeat
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: […]
A driverless horse and wagon wandered aimlessly in the prairie
between Fort Gibson and Tahlequah in Indian Territory on December 3, 1883. Jim
Merrill heard the wagon come up to his front gate and went out to investigate.
In the bed of the wagon, he found the body of Arch Casey with a large bullet
hole in his left breast. The wagon tracks were clearly visible in the dirt. They
followed a
When Ashcan School painter William Glackens created this 1900 image of a group of shop girls moving with energy and vitality along a New York sidewalk, the concept of the working young woman was nothing new. Shopgirls specifically emerged in the second half of the 19th century with the rise of consumerism, the garment industry, […]
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 →
New York, New York, 1894 - An unruly horse causes great excitement in the Metropolitan Opera House, this city.
Panic reigned for a few minutes the other afternoon upon the stage of the Metropolitan Opera House, New York, during the representation of "Carmen." It was due to an unruly horse, one of the number which make such an effect in the stage picture of the last act.
When the mounted Alguasil made his appearance, just before the entry of the toreador, his steed began to show that it was in very high spirits, to the uneasiness of the chorus, who felt they were closer than was absolutely safe.
Skillfully curbing the animal, the Alguazil, a Dane named Nyegaard, rode to the center of the stage. There the horse grew so Unruly that Mr. Nyegaard was compelled to rein it sharply, which made it rear on its hind legs right in the midst of the choristers. The chorus scattered right and left and two chorus women took a flying leap into a portion of the audience.
One of the women scrambled back onstage immediately, but the other, of heavy build, had to be assisted back by a couple of her mates and an usher, while the audience laughed heartily. During the hubbub Signor Bevignani continued conducting with as much gravity and composure as though it was all an everyday happening.
Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - February 17, 1894
"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