No. 652
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 17, 2024

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City
July 5, 2022
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Via Newspapers.comIt’s Mystery Fires time!  The “Reno Gazette-Journal,” August 14, 1985:JAMESTOWN, Calif. (UPI) - A historic hotel with a colorful Gold Rush past keeps bursting into flames. Its owners blame an arsonist--one that's been dead 100 years or so. Ghost experts say it could be the work of a grudge-bearing, bald-headed, pajama-clad spirit who may have caused the great Jamestown
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Strange Company - 5/15/2024
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.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
What kind of block was East 63rd Street between Second and Third Avenues in the first half of the 20th century? Like so many other streets hemmed in by elevated trains and relatively close to the riverfront, it was a modest stretch of walk-up residences, stores, and stables—anchored on the Second Avenue end by the […]
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Ephemeral New York - 5/13/2024
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: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
 4-year-old Rosa Lochner witnessed her mother’s murder, but Rosa had been deaf since birth, so no one believed she could provide any information. However, after she regained composure, she gave a detailed account in pantomime: mamma rocked the baby to sleep, then Papa woke her up, pointed a revolver at her head, and fired; mamma fell dead on the floor, papa took off her rings, then fled.Read
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/11/2024
CHIEF OF CONSThe Morning Times(Cripple Creek, Colorado)February 15, 1896Courtesy of Mitch Morrissey ig Ed Burns robs a dying man?      Mitch Morrissey, a Facebook friend and historian for the Denver District Attorney’s Office, found and published an interesting newspaper piece on "Big Ed" Burns, one of the most notorious characters in the West. Burns was a confidence man and
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/2/2024
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
They Got Hilariously Full. | Independence Day in the Country.

The First of the Season.

First-Bathers

"The water is not a bit chilly, dear," was the exclamation of a tall, buxom-looking blonde attired in a dark-blue bathing suit trimmed in red, as she held out her hand invitingly to her companion, a petite maiden, who stood hesitatingly on the beach at Atlantic City.

"Well, here I come," said the doubtful bather, and with several dainty jumps she reached the outstretched arms of her friend. In a moment both had turned their right shoulders against a breaker which was about to roll over them. For a quarter of an hour, these brave sea nymphs sported in the water gleefully. attesting by their antics that they were comfortable. A crowd had gathered on the beach to see the first women bathers of the season, and as far as known the first on the Atlantic coast. When the dripping maidens walked leisurely to the beach and buried themselves in a mound of sand they were instantly surrounded by a group of ladies who somewhat annoyed the bathers with foolish questions. They avoided any extended dissertation on early bathing, answering questions in monosyllables. giving their experience in the few expressive words: "The water is pleasant, if not delightful."

The young ladies who have set the whole island agog are Miss Elizabeth Price and her friend, Miss Marian E. Smith, of Philadelphia, ladies who are both guests at the Seaside House. The young ladies are both pretty.


National Police Gazette, June 26, 1886.