No. 716
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 10, 2023

A Lunatics Ball.

Ball of lunatics at the Asylum, Blackwell's Island, East River, N. Y.
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October 10, 2023
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Tag: Connecticut

Colt's Patent Fire-Arms.

Hartford, Conn.

8/27/2024

Revelry Rampant.

The orgies indulged in by Yale students and their female friends.

8/15/2023

Solving the Problem.

The great trouble in aerial navigation.

6/13/2023

Her Trick Spirit Trick Exposed.

Mrs. Bested seized by two men while giving a séance at Hartford, Conn.

9/18/2017

Left His Digits as Souvenirs.

The Misses Franklin, of Glenn Falls, Conn., armed with pistol and axe, put a burglar to flight minus two fingers.

12/12/2016

A Wild Girl in a Connecticut Swamp.

She resides in a swamp near Branford, Conn, and fills the rustics with terror.

6/28/2016

Ought to be Ashamed of Herself.

Miss Venus De Medici, of Italy, outranges the ideas of Norwalk, Conn., Citizens and is Garbed.

5/30/2016

An Undertaker’s Assistant’s Mistake.

8/26/2014

Gold from Seawater!

In 1898, the Reverend Prescott F. Jernegan founded the Electrolytic Marine Salts Company to extract gold from seawater. When the gold ran out, so did Rev. Jernegan, taking the company’s capital.

7/16/2013
EDWARD DINKELMAN
alias: BOWMAN, EDDIE MILLER� HUNTER
PICKPOCKET, SHOPLIFTER, , HOTEL THIEF

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comIt’s time for some Mystery Blood!  The “Sacramento Bee,” August 16, 1870:At the Juapa, at the residence of Mr. John Baldwin, one of those phenomena occurred for which it is so difficult to account. On the 15th instant, a shower of blood fell at the dwelling of Mr. B., spattering the doorstep and the surrounding grounds. There had been only an instant before a perfect calm,
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Strange Company - 6/17/2026

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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
Amen.

New York’s longest “step street” is this dramatic three-block concrete staircase in the Bronx

Getting around the western Bronx by foot means encountering hilly streets, lots of hilly streets. The pitched terrain comes from ridges of bedrock formed millions of years ago extending into Northern Manhattan. Back in the early 1900s when the Bronx was undergoing urbanization, all these hills posed a challenge to transit engineers, since some roads […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/15/2026

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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

Hannah and Stephen.

 Stephen Pettus gave Hannah Southworth a glass of drugged champagne and had his way with her while she was unconscious. Hannah became pregnant and for years after, she badgered Pettus to acknowledge that he had ruined her. When all legal means were exhausted, she avenged her honor by shooting him in the back on a Brooklyn street.Read the full story here: Avenging Her Honor.
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/13/2026
On the Russians.

June 14, 1893 Big Day In Court

Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Burglars on Bicycles. | The Two Paths in Life.

A Lunatics Ball.

Ball of Lunatics

The 5th of this month was sagnalized on Blackwell’s Island by a ball, given to the patients of the Insane Asylum, in honor of the completion of the first of a series of four frame buildings, recently commence in consequence of the overcrowded state of the institution.

Their delusions forgotten, many of the patients whirled about in glee, which, though wild, did not exceed the bounds of common-sense propriety; others were merly roused from their apathetic state, and gazed with a slight smile upon the scene.

Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, December 8, 1865.

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