No. 287
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 28, 2015

Heroism of a Society Belle.

The Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Ir
December 28, 2015
...
...

You’re forgiven if you assumed 58 Joralemon Street was just another beautifully restored Greek Revival row house in Brooklyn Heights. Built in 1847, it resembles many of the elegant single-family houses on the block, with its red brick facade, long windows, and brownstone trim around the entryway. But take a closer look, and you’ll notice […]
More...
Ephemeral New York - 6/22/2026
"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
More...
Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 10/13/2025
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump!Oh, God, the Strange Company staffers are bar-hopping again.A case of avenged honor.The most famous dog of the Middle Ages.The legend of King Arthur in Greenland.A Welsh village that became a casualty of WWII.The rise and fall of masquerade balls.In which science proves that stolen french fries taste better.Two newly-discovered sermons by St.
More...
Strange Company - 6/19/2026
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
More...
Executed Today - 11/13/2020
 In 1863, Theodore B. Weber, then a businessman in Burlington, Iowa, was attracted to Mrs. Adelaide (Ada) Bennert, a woman sixteen years his junior. His passion “soon ripened into criminal intimacy,” and although both were married, they began a romantic affair. When Mr. Bennert learned of his wife’s infidelity, he left her in disgust. Weber moved to Chicago to join his brother’s
More...
Murder By Gaslight - 6/20/2026
Be sure to stop by our Facebook page tomorrow for a Prosecution Marathon of witnesses. Here are the witnesses for Wednesday, June 14th, Day 9 Rufus Hilliard, City Marshal, Mayor John Coughlin, Mrs. Hannah Gifford (seamstress and dressmaker), Anna Borden ( wealthy socialite who was on Lizzie’s grand tour of Europe, distantly related to Lizzie), Lucy Collett (watching the office of Dr. Chagnon day of the murder), Thomas Bowles ( handyman who once rented a room from Addie Churchill and was wa
More...
Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/13/2026
  [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 […]
More...
Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
Pugilistic Females. | A New Wrinkle.

Heroism of a Society Belle.

HeroismThe Bravery of charming Miss Jaffray, the daughter of a New York millionaire, saves many lives at Irvington, N. Y. 

The people of Irvington, N. Y., had tier New Year celebration disturbed by a skating accident which resulted in the death of two boys, both sons of well-known residents often neighborhood. Hamilton’s pond, a sheet of water eight or ten acres in size and dangerously deep, was thought to have a sufficient thickness of ice to be bearing, and consequently a holiday crowd trooped to it. Skating was going on merrily about noon, when some rash youths ventured on an unsafe part of the ice. Their foolhardiness had the usual result. The ice broke, and they as well as others less deserving of a cold bath were plunged into the water.

If it had not been for the forethought of Howard S. Jaffray, the well-known yachtsmen and man of business and the presence of mind of his daughter, a serious accident, involving a large loss of life, could not well have been avoided. Miss Jaffray rushed for a life line, which her father had provided for emergencies of this kind, and her rare presence of mind was the means of saving all of those immersed, excepting two boys. Paul Cannon and Joseph Gibbons.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, January 19, 1889.