Welcome to the first Link Dump of 2025!A "possessed" woman in India.The links between an Italian Duchess, Thomas Cromwell, and Anne Boleyn.Some supernatural reasons not to stray off the beaten path.Alexander the Great's charm offensive.A map of the Big Cats of Britain.Superstitions can be good for you.The strange Rohonc Codex.Some predictions about 2025 from 100 years ago.A medical mystery
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.
Some of the most beautifully haunting images of New York City in snow are by Robert Henri. In 1902, this Ohio-born social realist painter and founder of the Ashcan School captured 57th Street in snowy twilight as well as an East 55th Street brownstone row hemmed in by snowfall. But this is the only Gotham […]
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: […]
Susan HansonSusan Hanson of Brookfield, New Hampshire, was sitting in the kitchen with her mother and brother on the evening of November 2, 1874. Susan was knitting, trying to relax in preparation for a court appearance the following day. She was suing Joseph Buzzell for breach of promise. Around 7:00, peace in the Hanson kitchen was shattered by a shotgun blast fired through the window.
Soapy STAR notebookPage 14 - Original copy1882Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge)
OAPY SMITH IN CALIFORNIA♫ California's the place you outta to beSo he loaded up his grip and moved to Grass Valley ♪
This is page 14, dated 1882, 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
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 →
Cincinnati, Ohio, November 1893 - Pretty Ida Lawrence gets arrested while entertaining some hackmen in Cincinnati, O.
It was just 2 o’clock the other morning when Ida Lawrence reached Fifth and Vine Streets, Cincinnati, Ohio. She had a jag that would have poisoned an ordinary man.
But Ida was happy. She was still happier when she met with a crowd of all-night hackmen.
“Hello, Ide,” said one.
“Goo’ night,” said Ida.
“Hain’t seen you for a time. Where’ve you been?”
“Me? Where’ve I been? Oh, no place. I guess I ain’t been no place.”
Then she sang:
“On the Midway, the Midway, the Midway Plaisance, Where the naughty Algiers girls Do their naughty, naughty dance.”
And she danced a dance that made even the boy on the stone fountain blush. Behind a telegraph pole stood Officer Moffit. He sneaked over and stpped the performance by calling a patrol wagon. The next day he told Judge Gregg about it and the Judge sent Ida out for four months.
Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - November 25, 1893
"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