"Chicago Tribune," December 1, 1935, via Newspapers.comMany murders go forever unsolved due to a complete lack of clues. On certain rare occasions, the opposite happens: the victim left behind so many clues--many of them either contradictory or just plain incomprehensible--that it is impossible to make enough sense out of them to conduct a successful investigation. Anyone who tries
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.
There’s a stone fortress with a battlement-like central tower and a double staircase entrance at the corner of Riverside Drive and 140th Street. As striking as this fortified castle is when you encounter it from the sidewalk, viewing it from the West Side Highway helps you truly absorb its out-of-place Medieval feel. Five stories high […]
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 →
National Police Gazette, June 1, 1889.On May 12, 1889, the janitor of the Clifton Boat Club on Staten Island found the body of a young woman floating in the water. Though badly decomposed, Dr. S.A. Robinson identified her as Mary Tobin, who had recently resigned from her job in his office. Mary Tobin’s life was clouded with mysteries and contradictions. She had come to Staten Island from
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
[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 […]
How a plucky New Brunswick, N. J., girl won a wager from one of her doubting companions. [more]
The other evening a party of New Brunswick, N.J., society belles who move in the highest circles called at the police station and asked a policeman to be shown through the engine house of Liberty Hose Company, next door, an explain to them the apparatus. The request was unusual, but the officer assented.
The girls expressed their admiration at everything they saw, fed bon bons to the horses and seemed particularly to admire the perfection of the fire alarm system.
“Oh, what is this police for? Said one of them.
He explained that the firemen slid down the pole form the dormitory.
“How lovely! Can you do it?” was the next question.
The policeman was not sure of his ability, but he would not acknowledge it, and successfully made the effort.
“Now, Laura, it’s your turn,” said on of the girls, and before the astonished officer could interfere, she had encircled the pole and disappeared through the hole in the floor.
She struck the rubber mat below with a bump but recovered herself quickly, and dared her companions to follow.
When all met on the floor below the girls told the policeman that the girl had won a new had and a box of candy by sliding down the pole as the result of a bet between her and her companions.
The apparent eagerness to inspect the apparatus was merely a ruse.
Reprinted from National Police Gazette, October 3, 1896.
"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