No. 639
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 05, 2022

The First of the Season.

The Earliest Bath of the Year, at Atlantic City
July 5, 2022
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Join us on our Facebook page as we begin counting down the days to August 4th and all of the events leading up to the day. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 7/7/2026
"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
"Norwich Evening News," February 3, 1970, via Newspapers.comIf you’re at all familiar with my Twitter/X or Facebook feeds, you know that I periodically share old newspaper reports about the seemingly endless varieties of mayhem carried out by goats.  (Why do I do this?  It’s just how I roll, I guess.)  So, you can imagine how delighted I was to learn of the following story, which
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Strange Company - 7/6/2026
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
(New Haven Independent) Taylor Ward sings "Found Drifting with the Tide" (excerpt), the tragic ballad of Jennie Cramer's murder.“Found Drifting with the Tide” was a song written by A. C. Willis, "Dedicated to the memory of Jennie Cramer," who was murdered in 1881.When the body of beautiful young Jennie Cramer was found on a sandbar
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/4/2026
Bare arms, visible ankles, a more relaxed waistline—the most fashionable “bathing dresses” of 1868 allowed a woman to strip off her day-to-day corsets, feather hats, and petticoats and luxuriate in the freedom of the seaside. This ad for what were also called “bathing costumes” came from Godey’s Lady’s Book, an influential periodical that helped shape […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/6/2026
  [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
They Got Hilariously Full. | Independence Day in the Country.

The First of the Season.

First-Bathers

"The water is not a bit chilly, dear," was the exclamation of a tall, buxom-looking blonde attired in a dark-blue bathing suit trimmed in red, as she held out her hand invitingly to her companion, a petite maiden, who stood hesitatingly on the beach at Atlantic City.

"Well, here I come," said the doubtful bather, and with several dainty jumps she reached the outstretched arms of her friend. In a moment both had turned their right shoulders against a breaker which was about to roll over them. For a quarter of an hour, these brave sea nymphs sported in the water gleefully. attesting by their antics that they were comfortable. A crowd had gathered on the beach to see the first women bathers of the season, and as far as known the first on the Atlantic coast. When the dripping maidens walked leisurely to the beach and buried themselves in a mound of sand they were instantly surrounded by a group of ladies who somewhat annoyed the bathers with foolish questions. They avoided any extended dissertation on early bathing, answering questions in monosyllables. giving their experience in the few expressive words: "The water is pleasant, if not delightful."

The young ladies who have set the whole island agog are Miss Elizabeth Price and her friend, Miss Marian E. Smith, of Philadelphia, ladies who are both guests at the Seaside House. The young ladies are both pretty.


National Police Gazette, June 26, 1886.