No. 714
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
August 26, 2025

Pugilists in Petticoats.

Alleged bout between Annie Russell and Elizabeth Sullivan, two pretty clerks in a Buffalo, N. Y.
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April 10, 2017
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JAMES ANDERSON
alias: EVANS, JIMMIE THE KID
PICKPOCKET

A Car Bombing in Texarkana

There is something particularly sinister about murders that not only go unsolved, but where it is impossible to even find the motive for the killing.  Such an unaccountable act of evil leaves onlookers with the horrified thought, “For all I know, that could have been me…”  The following mystery is one of those cases.36-year-old Daryl Crouch was president of a successful family-owned
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Strange Company - 8/25/2025

It’s Almost August

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
Amen.

An East Village restaurant’s ghost sign is a relic of the neighborhood’s Italian immigrant past

By the time Sicilian immigrant Michael Lanza founded his namesake restaurant in 1904, the location he chose on First Avenue between 10th and 11th Streets was shaping into a mini Little Italy. Across the Avenue on 11th Street was Veniero’s, the Italian bakery dating back to 1894. in 1908, specialty grocers Russo’s would open a […]
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Ephemeral New York - 8/25/2025

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

A Horrible Butchery.

Three teenage boys made a shocking discovery in Philadelphia’s East Fairmont Park on December 26, 1888. They were in a secluded area near the reservoir where the Water Department stored pipes. Sitting atop a large steel pipe, one of the boys noticed two coarse gunny sacks inside the three-foot mouth of a nearby pipe. He thought they contained the clothes of a tramp. Another boy took a pocketknife
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/23/2025
On the Russians.

Soapy Smith's "STAR" notebook, 1884, Texas, California: Page #21

Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 21 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early trips in Texas, Arizona, California, and the men he met.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 21, which appears to be a continuation of pages 19-20, which ends listing cities in Texas, and page 21 continues in Texas. If this is accurate then
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 8/22/2025

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
Why She Pummeled Him. | Peeped at the Bride.

Pugilists in Petticoats.

Pugilists in Petticoats

Alleged bout between Annie Russell and Elizabeth Sullivan, two pretty clerks in a Buffalo, N. Y. [more]

Dry goods store. An impromptu pugilistic fight is alleged to have occurred between two women in the big dry goods store of Barnes, Hengerer & Co., at Buffalo, N.Y., a few days ago. Annie Russell and her husband and Elizabeth Sullivan were employed there. The two women, it is said, had some words, when Annie hit Elizabeth a stinging blow on the nose. Miss Sullivan responded in true pugilistic style, and blows were exchanged scientifically. Mr. Russell acted as referee until his wife began to get the worst of the fight, when he tried to save her. There was no hair pulling, but there would have been had not Detective Morganstein broken into the ring formed by the other employees and arrested the combatants. Both women were badly punished. All that was lacking to make a real fight was the money.

Reprinted from National Police Gazette, November 17, 1888.

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