No. 621
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 08, 2022

A Smuggler Queen.

The beautiful contrabandista lately arrested with five confederates near Deming, New Mexico.
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March 8, 2022
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KATE ARMSTRONG
alias: DILLON, MARY ANN DOWD, SANDERS
PICKPOCKET, SHOPLIFTER

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.comOn this blog, I’ve covered what many Fortean experts like to call “Anomalous Falls From the Sky,” but this is a new one for me.  Lousy actors and criminals in the stocks used to get pelted with tomatoes, but it’s a bit unusual for modern-day suburbanites to get such treatment.  The following is from a syndicated 1998 Dave Barry column which summarizes the incident.&
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Strange Company - 8/19/2026

Convicts to Maryland, 1773 by Peter Dickson

  [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
Amen.

Artifact #93: Soapy's son, hires attorney to stop the slurring of his father's name.

"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

Ida and Sophia.

 Ida Quinlan and Sophia Grant.Mrs. Ida Quinlan went out to buy a pair of stockings at around 9:00 on the night of February 1, 1896, leaving her baby in the care of her sister, Mrs. Sophia Grant. She took a streetcar to the store several miles away and returned to the house at around 11:00. Entering the sitting room, she was surprised to find the drawers of the chiffoniers pulled out and
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Murder By Gaslight - 8/15/2026
On the Russians.

1617: A miller of Manberna, the hangman’s last

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
A Society Escapade. | Bloody Duel over a Woman.

A Smuggler Queen.

Smuggler-Queen

The Collector of Customs at El Paso, Texas, has received information of an important capture in Deming, N. M. A band of Mexican smugglers were overhauled and surrounded. They had a dozen pack mules loaded with goods, and were driving 64 head of cattle and 20 horses, all of which has been known by Mexicans for many years. Five Mexicans, including a woman, said to be the chief of the band, were arrested and lodged in jail at Deming. They are under the lead of Capt. Ignacio Isternano, formerly an officer in the Mexican army. Thousands of cattle and horses have been smuggled over by this mountain path.

 

National Police Gazette, December 4, 1886.

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