No. 329
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
October 10, 2016

Watched her Lovers Fight.

A bloody battle over a pretty woman between two Gold Hill, Idaho, stock raisers.
October 10, 2016
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Tag: Gambling

A Female Card Sharp.

A female gambler detects an opponent cheating and rakes in the pot.

6/2/2026

The New City of Leadville.

A gambling saloon on one of the main streets of Leadville.

6/24/2025

Bucking the Tiger

In a Cheyenne gambling Saloon.

10/7/2024

The Scandal Which Agitates St. Louis.

Astounding Revelations of a Low Cunning and Vile Curiosity in One of the Proprietors of the Grand Opera House.

7/23/2024

"Bet Anything You've Got."

Jim Tuttle startles a faro bank party, at Gold Hill, Neb.

12/13/2022

A Female Gambling House in Boston.

They call it the "retreat" because of its charming privacy and apparent obscurity.

5/31/2022

A Woman Gambler in Nevada.

She Bucks the Tiger and Quits $200 Ahead.

3/29/2022

Forex news live

Two female athletes at Virginia City, Nevada, indulge in a wrestling match for the championship.

11/9/2021

Renewed Activity of "The Finest."

The Police Succeed in Breaking Up Another Gambling Establishment.

5/14/2018

They Ran a Snide Game.

A “friendly” poker scheme exposed at Bogota, N. J., by one of the players squealing.

6/13/2016

Take a Chance?

Many a one, who otherwise would not contribute a dime, will take a chance in a lottery.

9/9/2014

Thimble Rig A La Mode.

3/18/2014

New York Society Classified.

11/27/2011

The Old Shell Game

7/18/2011

The Bunco Game

The term “bunco” has come to mean to any type of swindle, but in the 19th century it usually referred to a confidence game involving crooked gambling.

5/17/2011
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Oh, God, the Strange Company staffers are bar-hopping again.A case of avenged honor.The most famous dog of the Middle Ages.The legend of King Arthur in Greenland.A Welsh village that became a casualty of WWII.The rise and fall of masquerade balls.In which science proves that stolen french fries taste better.Two newly-discovered sermons by St.
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Strange Company - 6/19/2026
"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
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
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
 In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
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
  [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
A Scene not on the Bills. | Another Steamboat Disaster.

Watched her Lovers Fight.

Watched her Lovers FightA bloody battle over a pretty woman between two Gold Hill, Idaho, stock raisers.

George Barker and Henry Paxton, well-to-do stock raisers, near Gold Hill, Idaho, loved Maggie Brandt, a charming widow. She promised to marry both her lovers. They decided to settle the matter by a duel. They fought with knives and Barker fell with a terrible wound in his throat. Maggie, who witnessed the battle, threw herself in the arms of the victor, who cut her nose off and put out her eyes with a slash of his knife.


National Police Gazette, November 12, 1892.