No. 610
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
June 9, 2023

Steam Powered Reformation.

August 14, 2012
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 "The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan MandijnFor this week's Link Dump, we are proud to have as our host the lovely Dossie!Watch out for the Bonnacon!Some Brooklyn life-saving pets.An escape from Death Row.19th century love gone wrong.The link between fairies and prehistoric sites.An Indian doctor explains early 20th century English etiquette.That time when there was a Masonic Pug Society.The man
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Strange Company - 6/9/2023
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"Male Seminary and Normal School,"Independent BladeNewnan, GeorgiaNovember 2, 1860,(Click image to enlarge) OAPY SMITH'S CHILDHOOD EDUCATION     The Smith family passed down the history that young Jefferson Randolph Smith II had enrolled in "a Sabbath school, and was able to continue his education throughout the war, after the war’s end and on into Reconstruction." I believe the ad from the
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 6/2/2023
Image above, Boston Globe. As the 130th anniversary of the Borden Trial in New Bedford begins, visit our Facebook for daily postings and articles about the Trial of the Century. https://www.facebook.com/lizziebordenwarpsandwefts/
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/5/2023
An article I recently wrote for the British online magazine, New Politic, is now available online. The article, “The Criminal Origins of the United States of America,” is about British convict transportation to America, which took place between the years 1718 and 1775, and is the subject of my book, Bound with an Iron Chain: […]
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Early American Crime - 12/17/2021
The death-house of Sing Sing Prison, on the Hudson River in New York State, was a separate building attached to the south end of the main prison. It housed up to eight condemned men in 8’x10’ cells along the south wall in groups of four separated by a corridor. The cells were 8 feet high with iron bars on the front and brick partitions between the cells and on the top, with space between the top
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/3/2023
Manhole mysteries usually involve the ironworks company that made the cover—who worked there, how long they operated. But this time, I’m curious about the abbreviation on a sewer cover found in South Williamsburg, Brooklyn. “Sewer B.R.” the cover reads. Okay, but what’s the B.R.—Brooklyn Railroad? Borough something? I’m unsure of how old this sewer cover […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/5/2023
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 engaged as a carrier of wine, because he and his brother, with the help of […]
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Executed Today - 11/13/2020
Copper. | Steam Powered Reformation.

Steam Powered Reformation.

Steam Powered Reformation

How the indignant citizens of Brockwayville, PA., ridded themselves of a nuisance by calling in the assistance of a plucky engineer and his locomotive.

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For some time Dominic Morillo, an Italian, has been keeping a house of bad repute and an illicit liquor shop on the property of the Ridgeway and Clearfield Railroad at Brockwayville, Penn. Every effort was made to close it up, but without success.

On the evening of Dec. 20 A. J. Cooper an engineer, ran his locomotive on the siding near the house, and a number of men fastened chains around the house and to the locomotive. Then the engine was started, and the whole building was torn form its foundation and completely wrecked. The ruins were afterward set on fire and burned. The inmates escaped unhurt.

 

From The National Police Gazette, January 12, 1884