No. 373
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 24, 2017

A Skeleton King with a Silver Crown.

The strange relic of departed greatness found in a Livingston (Ala.) cave by a youthful explorer.
July 24, 2017
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Tag: New Orleans

She Whipped the Dude.

Young man who guyed performers in a New Orleans theatre was severely corrected.

10/29/2023

Pretty Stars for the Southern Dives.

Fifteen charming chippies make Rome howl while voyaging to New Orleans, Louisiana.

12/19/2016

Demi-Monde Excursion.

Members of the New Orleans Demi-Monde Enjoying an Excursion to the Suburbs of the Southern Metropolis.

5/16/2016

Torturing a Lover.

6/26/2012

Voodoo Queen Marie

For over forty years, beginning around 1830, Marie Laveau was the most powerful and most feared woman in New Orleans.

3/21/2011
"Tulsa World," September 9, 1976, via Newspapers.comIn the 1970s, Kenneth D. Bacon was the presiding judge of the Oklahoma State Court of Appeals.  He was also a skilled amateur pilot.  In short, he was an intelligent, competent, and extremely level-headed sort, one of the last people you would expect to provide Strange Company material.  However, Bacon claimed that on a
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Strange Company - 5/4/2026
"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
(New York Evening Journal, March 18, 1898)Around 1 a.m. on September 2, 1896, Samuel Meyers ran out of the tenement at 202 East 29th Street, screaming, “Murder! Murder! Police! Police!” Patrolman Tyler heard his cries and ran to the spot. “My wife is murdered!” said Meyers, “Somebody has killed my wife. She’s dead.” Tyler and another officer followed Meyers to a second-floor apartment.
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/2/2026
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
Wicked Victorian Boston. | Midsummer Madness.

A Skeleton King with a Silver Crown.

Strange Relic

The strange relic of departed greatness found in a Livingston (Ala.) cave by a youthful explorer. [more]

Mr. Morgan Lynn, of Livingston, Ala., has in his possession some Indian relics of peculiar interest. They were found by Master Willie Powe, near Horn’s Bridge, over the Sucarnatchie, and consisted of a silver crown about six and a half inches in diameter and two inches wide at the widest part; two silver ornaments, circular in form, and two inches in diameter, and a number of beads. These ornaments were found with—we might say on the person of—a well preserved skeleton. The crown still encircled the skull, and the other ornaments residue upon the chest, having evidently been work about the neck. On the front of the crown is etched the figure of a moose, and on each side of it the figure of a wolf. They are evidently the product of skilled workmen, and from certain letters and figures inscribed on the inner surfaces of the crown we infer that it was of English manufacture. The place on which these relics were found has been settled not less than half a century.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 20, 1888.