It opened in the early 20th century as Union Cigars in a triangular space between Seventh Avenue South and Christopher Street—the major crossroads of Greenwich Village. As of last year, Village Cigars shut its doors due to a rent dispute, as Curbed reported in February 2024. It’s not just any downtown shop that’s turned out […]
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.
Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where our staffers will premiere "Strange Company: The Musical."The Thames of Old London.The family that slays together...Yet another "insurance murder."Van Gogh in Paris.A very tragic family.Los Angeles' first policewoman.Britain's most ghostly places.A planet's gruesome death.So, let's talk Danish Protest Pigs.An English "major UFO scare."The case for
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: […]
Mary Barrows and Oscar Blaney.Illustrated Police News, May 9, 1885,In 1883, Mary Barrows of Kittery, Maine, persuaded her son-in-law,
Oscar Blaney, to murder her husband, Thomas Barrows. Mary had been married before and
had a daughter by her first husband. Thomas never got along with his
stepdaughter, and he despised Oscar. He went into a rage whenever they visited
because he believed Mary
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 18 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)
oapy Smith in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 18, the continuation of page 17, and dated March 28 - April 12, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to this notebook
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 →
Two rivals for the affections of an Arkansas belle fight a desperate battle with knives and are horribly mangled near Bear Creek.
Two young men, cousins, named Austin Guthrie and Franklin Meyers, near Bear Creek, Ark., rivals for the affections of a young girl, quarreled and proceeded to blows. Both were on horseback, and drawing their knives they commenced a contest which lasted several minutes, both receiving fatal wounds. Meyers's arm was almost severed from the body and he was horribly about the face and breast. Guthrie was fearfully wounded in the head and body. Both fainted and fell from their horses. They were found unconscious in a pool of blood by the roadside.
Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 27, 1883.
"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