No. 822
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 29, 2025

The White Porpoise.

We give in our present number a correct sketch of one of the largest specimens of the Porpoise that
July 29, 2025
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Tag: Abduction

A Square Meal.

A wolf in search of a square meal helps himself to a baby; Clintonville, PA.

3/21/2016

Chloroformed While She Slept.

The attempted abduction of Miss Hildreth, a Chesterfield, N.H., girl, by her lover, Fayette Haskins.

5/24/2015

Was Her Story a Fake?

Miss Alice Jackman, a St. Louis heiress, claims to have been abducted a second time.

3/2/2015

Abducted by a Woman.

3/31/2014
Via Newspapers.comGhosts get notoriously snippy when earthly affairs are not arranged to their satisfaction, as this news item from the “Chester Chronicle,” January 16, 1858, will illustrate:Within one mile of Llangollen station, at a place called the Fron, there have been some strange and singular scenes. Some months ago a person named Joseph Hughes died very suddenly on his way to chapel.
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Strange Company - 9/16/2026
  [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
"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
One Week Only!On sale for 99 cents!So Far from Home:The Pearl Bryan Murder"Yes. they drove far from the city,To a place so far from home,There they left her body lyingHeadless and all stained with blood" Buy for 99 centsSale ends Sept. 21More Information
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Murder By Gaslight - 9/15/2026
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
Terrible Explosion in Boston. | The Reign of Outlawry.

The White Porpoise.

The White Porpoise

White Porpoise, caught in the river Saginaw, by Capt. Leyfield, of the Patapsoot. 

We give in our present number a correct sketch of one of the largest specimens of the Porpoise that has ever been seen. It was sketched by our artist as it laid on pier No 13. Its measurement is about twenty-five feet in length, and weighs two thousand eight hundred and sixty pounds. It was caught by Captain Leyfield, of the Patapsoot, in the Saginaw river, and was brought on here by him as a curiosity fit to astonish even a New Yorker.

It is supposed, from its immense size, and the decayed condition of its teeth, to be nearly two hundred years old, which supposition is borne out by the fact that it has become perfectly white. The Porpoise is of the mammalia genus, and is one of the must universal of fishes, being found in every sea. It is somewhat singular, consider the large quantity of blubber found in these creatures, that no regular fishery has been established to convert them into oil. We understand that it is the intention of the owner to exhibit it in the Palace Garden

It is now at the store of Mr. Rowe, 15 Albany street.


Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, February 4, 1860.