No. 29
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 20, 2011

Terrible Struggle with Flame and Flood

The burning of the steamer John H. Hanna near Plaquemine, Louisiana, by which thirty lives were lost
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June 20, 2011
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Tag: Farmer

New Jersey’s Great Wash Day.

Farmers with their wives and buxom daughters enjoy their annual bath in old ocean, at Spring Lake Beach, N. J.

8/18/2015
KATE ARMSTRONG
alias: DILLON, MARY ANN DOWD, SANDERS
PICKPOCKET, SHOPLIFTER

Weekend Link Dump

 Welcome to the Link Dump, where this week, our Strange Company HQ staffers give a shout-out to Clarence, Iowa!Well, why not.  I'm sure it's a charming place.Where the hell is the Pedro Mountain Mummy?The tomb of King Midas' father.Graham Greene in Mexico.A look at supernatural smells.A German liner goes to war.A woman accused of murdering her sister.A mysterious object named Phoebe is
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Strange Company - 8/21/2026

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
Amen.

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

The Attleboro Sensation.

(Illustrated Police News, April 3, 1886.)Agnes Anastasia Long moved out of her parents’ home in East Attleboro, Massachusetts, in April 1882. With her many male suiters, she was considered the black sheep of the family. Her father had enough of her bad behavior and, according to the Boston Herald, “refused to permit her to darken the threshold of his humble home.”She took a job at Streeter
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/22/2026
On the Russians.

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
Sparking in Tompkins Square | Belles of the Bowling Alley.

Terrible Struggle with Flame and Flood

steamboat

Plaquemine, Louisiana , December 25, 1888 – The burning of the steamer John H. Hanna, near Plaquemine, Louisiana, by which thirty lives were lost. 

Another frightful steamboat disaster has occurred on the Mississippi River at the little town of Plaquemine, ninety-five miles above New Orleans, La., on the night of the 25th ult., just as the bells were ushering in Christmas morning. At daylight the citizens of the town who had not yet retired were horrified to see the steamboat John H. Hanna round a bend in the river, a mass of flames from end to end. It was the flames that claimed most of the thirty victims. Others drowned in the water.

Reprinted from The National Police Gazette - January 12, 1889

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