No. 135
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
February 11, 2013

Burglary Tools.

February 11, 2013
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If you’ve ever rounded the corner at Second Avenue and East 13th Street, then you’ve probably been charmed by it—a lilliputian-size confection of a house with a bright red front door and mansard roof. Adding to the whimsy is the fact that the little brick dwelling, with its wrought-iron fence and supersize upper floor windows, […]
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"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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 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!While you read, feel free to visit our open bar.Watch out for those hypnotic serpents!The murder of the Coy family.A brief history of soap.Cats may wind up curing cancer, which wouldn't surprise me a bit.When you're a spiritualist, you don't care if your fiance is dead.The scientific debate over free will.The pyramids of Mars.A surprisingly modern ancient
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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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Maggie Crowley(New York American, March 16, 1898)Robert Hoey, coming home from work in the early hours of March 15, 1898, literally tripped over the body of a dead woman in the courtyard of his New York City tenement. The woman had been strangled to death and dragged to the courtyard known in the neighborhood as “Hogan’s Alley.” Four days later, she was identified as Maggie Crowley, a young woman
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Murder By Gaslight - 3/21/2026
The good-looking thirty-seven year old gentleman handling the reins behind the glossy matched pair pulling the spanking-new carriage drew the attention of more than one feminine eye.  Pacing down French St. at a sharp clip, the lady next to him, dressed neatly in a tailor-made suit with the latest in millinery fashion, smiled up at her coachman. Behind the lace curtains on the Hill section of Fall River, tongues were wagging about the unseemly pair. Lizzie Borden, acquitted of double homici
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  [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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George Dixon’s Victory over Australian Billy. | Insane Criminal Escapes.

Burglary Tools.

Burglary Tools
Burglary tools used by Maximilian Schoenbein (alias Max Shinburn) to rob the Boylston Bank in Boston, in November 1869. [more]

Max Shinburn 
In 1869 burglary was no easier than honest labor, but paid quite a bit more.  The Boylston robbery grossed $500,000 (an estimated $8.5 million in current dollars.)



Eddy Kelley
Eddy Kelley, who worked in Boston 27 years later, preferred dynamite over hard labor and, as the four pistols in his kit would indicate, he was always ready for trouble.  His tools were confiscated by the Boston police who caught Kelley in the act of robbing a harness shop.
Eddy Kelleys Tools

Source:

  • Eldridge, Benjamin P., and William B. Watts. Our rival, the rascal a faithful portrayal of the conflict between the criminals of this age and the defenders of society, the police. Boston, Mass.: Pemberton Pub. Co., 1897