No. 701
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
May 9, 2025

A Memphis Badger Game.

January 27, 2014
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Via Newspapers.comLittle mix-ups--particularly between strangers--are always embarrassing.  The “Galveston Daily News,” July 24, 1892:SAN ANTONIO-About a month ago a stranger, apparently 35 years of age, came to this city from Mexico, it is said. He took quarters at the Globe Hotel and remained there for ten days. One night he appeared at the Vienna Hotel on South Alamo Street with a valise
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Strange Company - 5/7/2025
Included in yesterday’s trip to Fall River was a stop at Miss Lizzie’s Coffee shop and a visit to the cellar to see the scene of the tragic demise of the second Mrs. Lawdwick Borden and two of the three little children in 1848. I have been writing about this sad tale since 2010 and had made a previous trip to the cellar some years ago but was unable to get to the spot where the incident occured to get a clear photograph.  The tale of Eliza Borden is a very sad, but not uncommon story of post partum depression with a heartrending end. You feel this as you stand in the dark space behind the chimney where Eliza ended her life with a straight razor after dropping 6 month old Holder and his 3 year old sister Eliza Ann into the cellar cistern. Over the years I have found other similar cases, often involving wells and cisterns, and drownings of children followed by suicides of the mothers. These photos show the chimney, cistern pipe, back wall, dirt and brick floor, original floorboards forming the cellar ceiling and what appears to be an original door. To be in the place where this happened is a sobering experience. My thanks to Joe Pereira for allowing us to see and record the place where this sad occurrence unfolded in 1848. R.I.P. Holder, Eliza and Eliza Ann Borden. Visit our Articles section above for more on this story. The coffee shop has won its suit to retain its name and has plans to expand into the shop next door and extend its menu in the near future.
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 2/12/2024
If the backers behind the Empire State Building were really able to build an airship mooring mast at the top, as they announced in 1929 before the tower was completed, then perhaps the Hindenburg wouldn’t have had to dock in Lakehurst, New Jersey, after crossing the ocean from Germany. But of course, a dock at […]
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Ephemeral New York - 5/5/2025
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
Around 3:00, on the afternoon of June 15, 1886, a bellboy heard gunshots while responding to a prolonged ring from room 25 on the second floor of the Sturtevant House in New York City. No one answered his knocks, and the door was locked. He heard groans coming from inside and, together with the hotel carpenter, they burst into the room. The occupants, a man and a woman, both lay on the floor,
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Murder By Gaslight - 5/2/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 19 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith begins an empire in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884.This is page 19, the continuation of page 18, and dated April 14 - May 5, 1884, the continuation of deciphering Soapy Smith's "star" notebook from the Geri Murphy's collection. A complete introduction to
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 4/3/2025
  [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
Society Unveiled. | Robbed of Her Tresses.

A Memphis Badger Game.

Memphis Badger Game

A Memphis Badger Game.
Lillie King and her husband try to work James Yonge for a sucker to the tune of $5,000.

[more]James Yonge, a wealthy Memphis, Tenn. man, was out for a walk the other day when he struck up a flirtation with Mrs. Lillie King, the young and pretty wife of a newspaper carrier. Later he received a note from the fair Lillie, asking him to call at her residence the next evening a certain hour, when her husband would be out. He did so, and the night being warm, removed some of his clothing, Mrs. King doing likewise. At this moment the woman’s husband stepped from a closet, armed with a revolver, and threatened to wipe out in blood the stain upon his honor. Finally King said he would postpone the gore-spilling act provided Yonge handed over $5,000. Not having the ready cash the entrapped man gave his notes for that amount but worded them in such a way that they were valueless. When King’s lawyer presented the notes for collection Yonge demanded that they be returned to him or he would prosecute both lawyer and King for blackmail. Yonge received the notes.

 


Reprinted from The National Police Gazette, October 24, 1892.