No. 523
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 25, 2020

Decoration Day and its Memories.

May 25, 2020
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Tag: Banjo

Members of the Banjo and Mandolin Clubs.

Mount Holyoke College, 1898-1899.

4/24/2023

A Surmise.

Take your gun with you if you're going to play on that banjo.

10/15/2018
 Welcome to the Link Dump!  Our host for this week is the very handsome mascot of HMS Barham!The herbalist of Spitalfields.The "Exposition Universelle" of Paris.The King of Switzerland.Cleopatra's mysterious death.A shipwreck from WWI has just been discovered.The real "Lord of the Flies" was nothing like the novel.  Thankfully.The laughter epidemic of 1962.Ancient Roman
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Strange Company - 5/8/2026
"As his son I am proud of hisefforts to succeed in life"Jefferson Randolph Smith IIIArtifact #93-2Jeff Smith collection(Click image to enlarge) oapy's son hires a legal firm to stop the defamation of his father's name. At age 30, Jefferson Randolph Smith III, Soapy and Mary's oldest son, was protecting his father's legacy and his mother's reputation from "libel" and scandal. He was also
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
The upside to a constantly changing city is the sudden resurfacing of a faded store sign. Case in point: the outline of the “Cards-U-Like” Hallmark store on First Avenue between 75th and 76th Streets. I’m placing it in the late 1970s because of the cute cursive letters, and the earliest newspaper ads I could find […]
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Ephemeral New York - 5/4/2026
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
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
"Diamond Flossie" Murphy.(New York Journal, March 18, 1898.)Flossie Murphy was a flamboyant character, notorious in the demi-monde of New York City’s Tenderloin. She had a fondness for diamond jewelry, which she wore conspicuously, earning her the nickname, “Diamond Flossie.” But when she was found on the floor of her room on April 22, 1897, with a rope tied around her neck and all her jewelry
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/9/2026
Whatever you believe about the guilt or innocence of Lizzie Borden, I have always believed film makers do a great injustice to the story by not beginning at the beginning- the death on March 26, 1863 of the first Mrs. Borden. In the dying moments of Sarah Morse, Emma takes on the weight of the care of her little sister, not yet three years old. Emma herself was just 12 on March 1st. Emma has seen her mother suffer for a long time, seen her pain and loss of little Alice Esther. Emma is old enough
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 3/26/2026
  [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 […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
June. | Pretty Female Billiardists

Decoration Day and its Memories.

Decoration Day

“Love and Tears for the Blue; Tears and Love for the Gray.”

From the silence of sorrowful homes
The desolate mourners go
Lovingly laden with flowers
Alike for the friend and the foe!
Under the sod and dew
Waiting the judgement day,
Under the roses the Blue,
Under the lilies the Gray!

 


"Decoration Day and its Memories." Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper 2 Jun 1883.