No. 650
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 3, 2024

A Woman’s Flat-Irony.

Miss Sallie Utterback, of Shoals, Near Vincennes, Indiana, knocks out a man with a waggin’ tongue.
February 2, 2016
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 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with
More...
Strange Company - 5/1/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with
More...
Strange Company - 5/1/2024
 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with
More...
Strange Company - 5/1/2024
It doesn’t look like much, just another semi-vacant commercial building—this one on the southeast corner of 106th Street and Third Avenue—now occupied by a Duane Reade. But give it a closer look, and Art Deco decorative touches come in to view, like the patterns in the light bricks and small geometric shapes above the first […]
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Ephemeral New York - 4/29/2024
 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
 In 1883, Edward Rowell of Batavia, New York, suspected his wife of cheating and set a trap to catch her. He told her he would be gone for severl days on business but did not leave. That night he caught his wife in bed with their former neighbor, Johnson Lynch. Rowell burst into the room brandishing a revolver and fired wildly wounding his wife and killing Lynch. The murder caused quite a
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 4/27/2024
Via Newspapers.comThis is another of what I call “mini-mysteries”--murder or missing-persons cases where there just isn’t enough information for a regular blog post.  This account of a “Missing 411”-style disappearance appeared in the Glens Falls “Post-Star,” November 15, 2017:HORICON — Two years ago Wednesday, Thomas Messick Sr. vanished in the woods of Horicon while deer hunting with
More...
Strange Company - 5/1/2024
She Swallowed Her Teeth. | A Winter Scene.

A Woman’s Flat-Irony.

A Woman's Flat-Irony

Miss Sallie Utterback, of Shoals, Near Vincennes, Indiana, knocks out a man with a waggin’ tongue.

James Ritchey a traveling man, had been accused of making many adverse remarks concerning Miss Sallie Utterback, a domestic at the Commercial Hotel, in Shoals, Ind., besides writing her an insulting letter. Miss Utterback had always borne a good reputation. Few days ago Ritchey called on her to apologize for the injury he had done. He was met at the door by the young lady, who hurled a smoothing iron at him, striking him over the right eye and cracking his skull. Miss Utterback continued the attack in her fury, and would perhaps have killed him if it had not been for the hotel proprietor, who took her away. Ritchey is in a bad condition.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, 11/30/1889.