No. 478
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 05, 2020
alias: CHARLES WILLIS, LITTLE PAUL
Italian Risorgimento martyr Pietro Fortunato Calvi was hanged on this date in 1855 in Mantua. The son of a Paduan police commissioner when that province rested in Austrian hands, Calvi — that’s an Italian link, as are almost all in this post — was an army lieutenant who was drawn by the swirl of patriotism […]
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Executed Today - 7/4/2020
(Click image to enlarge)
HE SHOOTING OF HARRY
"SHOTGUN" SMITH.
Denver's unsolved murder: Number #10
On June 23, 1893, Harry "Shotgun" Smith (no relation) went on a drinking binge and made the deadly mistake of visiting the Tivoli Club and provoking a fight with Bascomb Smith, the younger brother of bad man "Soapy" Smith. Bascomb walked away unscathed. Harry Smith was not
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/23/2020
"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn
It's a Star-Spangled Link Dump!
Spaniards should just get out of the art restoration business.
A mysterious ancient fossil.
Maine's oldest unsolved disappearance.
Colma, the city of the dead.
Some heroic dogs and cats.
A Victorian wizard in Liverpool.
A particularly deadly lightning storm.
The Vere Street Coterie.
Weird
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Strange Company - 7/3/2020
It was a perfect weekend to journey out to Tyngsborough to get a glimpse of what was left of the …
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2020
Mamie Kelly
Fourteen-year-old Mamie Kelly of San Francisco, had a crush on the boy next door, nineteen-year-old Aleck Goldenson. Though Aleck was the kind of boy who appeals to teenaged girls—an artist and a bit of a hoodlum—her family had no use for him at all. In spite of this, Mamie took every opportunity be near him. Aleck first enjoyed her attention, then tolerated it, then actively
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/4/2020
The New York City of the moment is bringing many people down. Luckily, we can escape with a little time traveling thanks to these old-school store signs. Matles Florist has been in Manhattan since 1962, and the vintage sign with the very 1960s typeface shows it. The store is on 57th Street between Eighth and […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/29/2020
[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 Family […]
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A female thief who carries a baby in her arms and made its flowing skirts a cover for stolen goods; New York City. [more]
