No. 708
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 14, 2025

A Woman Rescued from the Jaws of a Catamount.

Davy Crockett's Almanack, 1838.
February 18, 2020
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Cambridge Castle, 1730Simon Ockley was Professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge from 1711 until his death in 1720.  In 1718, he was briefly imprisoned in Cambridge Castle for debt, where his enforced stay was enlivened by the company of what we would today call a poltergeist.   Our sole source for Ockley’s brush with The Weird are from a series of letters he wrote to a “
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Strange Company - 7/14/2025
Wouldn’t you love to have interviewed Lizzie’s physician, Dr. Nomus S. Paige from Taunton, the jail doctor, ? He found her to be of sane mind and we can now confirm that he had Lizzie moved to the Wright’s quarters while she was so ill after her arraignment with bronchitis, tonsilitis and a heavy cold. We learn that she was not returned to her cell as he did not wish a relapse so close to her trial. Dr. Paige was a Dartmouth man, class of 1861. I have yet to produce a photo of him but stay tuned! His house is still standing at 74 Winthrop St, corner of Walnut in Taunton. He was married twice, with 2 children by his second wife Elizabeth Honora “Nora” Colby and they had 2 children,Katherine and Russell who both married and had families. Many of the Paiges are buried in Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Taunton. Dr. Paige died in April of 1919- I bet he had plenty of stories to tell about his famous patient in 1893!! He was a popular Taunton doctor at Morton Hospital and had a distinguished career. Dr. Paige refuted the story that Lizzie was losing her mind being incarcerated at the jail, a story which was appearing in national newspapers just before the trial. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, Taunton, courtesy of Find A Grave. 74 Winthrop St., corner of Walnut, home of Dr. Paige, courtesy of Google Maps Obituary for Dr. Paige, Boston Globe April 17, 1919
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 5/24/2025
The article ran in the New York Times on February 19, 1911. “Another Landmark Passing” read the wistful headline on the lower left side of the front page. “The rapid passing away of New York’s famous landmarks was illustrated recently by the sale of the old Rudd mansion on the northeast corner of Riverside Drive […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/14/2025
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
Jerry Shoaff was drinking with a group of young men at Tom Clarke’s saloon in Fort Wayne, Indiana, the night of October 3, 1888. Eight of them decided to go next to Goelecke’s Saloon on East Main Street. Someone proposed that they order drinks there, then leave without paying. They all agreed to the plan. They stood at the bar and ordered their drinks. As the men finished drinking, they began
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Murder By Gaslight - 7/12/2025
Soapy Smith STAR NotebookPage 20 - Original copy1884Courtesy of Geri Murphy(Click image to enlarge) oapy Smith's early empire growth in Denver.Operating the prize package soap sell racket in 1884. This is page 20, the continuation of page 19, and dated May 6 - May 29, 1884, as well as the continuation of pages 18-19, the beginning of Soapy Smith's criminal empire building in Denver, Colorado.&
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/1/2025
  [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
Map of the Square and Stationary Earth. | The Opium Dens.

A Woman Rescued from the Jaws of a Catamount.

A-Woman-Rescued

Upon her approach, her sister, a large masculine woman, fired at the monster, and put a ball through his head; but such is the abstract ferocity of these animals that he did not let go his hold, until her daughter had put a rifle ball through him, and her sister shot him in the head with her pistol, when he relinquished his hold and fell to the ground, where he yelled and rolled about till a man finished him with an axe. The poor woman fainted and fell from loss of blood. She has borne into the house, and her wounds were carefully dressed; but it was several months before she was able to attend to her ordinary occupation.

Davy Crockett's Almanack, 1838 Vol 1. No. 4.