No. 711
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 3, 2025

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

A Drunken Man Slips Down Under a Load of the Explosive - Blown to Atoms.
November 26, 2024
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Tag: Erie Canal

Ararat: City of Refuge.

7/3/2012

Saloons and Houses of Ill-Fame.

Buffalo, New York, May 1893.

5/8/2012
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!The Strange Company staffers have decided this is Take Your Kittens To Work Day.Five really weird books.A murder in Madison County.The author of William the Conqueror's "medieval big data project." You can now read online the oldest known book about cheese, which for my money is one of those times when you have to salute the internet.17th century ship's
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Strange Company - 8/1/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
You can practically feel the clattering rush of the elevated train roaring above Third Avenue in this dramatic 1930s painting by Bernard Gussow, a Russia-born artist who was raised on the Lower East Side. The amber train, twilight skies, and green and pink tints to the storefronts give rich pops of color to what could […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/28/2025
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
 Read the full story here: The Walworth Patricide.
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/2/2025
Stop by this week as we explore what happened the week before the murders, Emma and Lizzie’s getaway to Fairhaven and New Bedford, and new imagery which will help to tell the story. The pears are almost ripe, August 4th is coming fast, and thoughts begin to turn to that house on Second Street once again. Follow us at https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/ !
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/26/2025
  [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
Photography as an Aid to Divorce. | The Bloody Century 2.

Rum and Nitro-Glycerine.

Rum-and-Nitro

At Red Rock, Penn., Saturday afternoon, March 16, a man, intoxicated, staggered through the streets, carrying on his shoulders a bag containing nitro-glycerine. Fifteen minutes later, the town was shaken, and the inhabitants were frightened by a terrific explosion. Investigation showed that the man slipped down, causing the explosion. Fragments of the body were scattered in every direction.

The man's name was Henry Seeley. He was carrying two cans of nitro-glycerine, each containing eight quarts. After the explosion a human foot and a hole in the ground was all that could be found. Seeley had been drinking very heavily all day, and at the time was in an intoxicated state. A number of people had tried to get the compound away from him, but he guarded it with a drawn revolver. It is supposed that he slipped on the ice and the cans, coming in contact with the earth, caused the nitro-glycerine to explode. The trees and bushes for rods around were strewn with pieces of flesh and shreds of clothing, making one of the most shocking sights imaginable.


Illustrated Police News, March 29, 1879.