No. 622
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
March 15, 2022

A Society Escapade.

How some swell dames of Virginia City, Nevada, in male attire, painted the town red.
March 15, 2022
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Finding your way to Featherbed Lane (below photo, 1910), in the Morris Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, means passing some seen-better-days streets that offer a history lesson about the borough’s early years. Jerome Avenue, where Featherbed Lane begins, was named for flashy Gilded Age financier Leonard Jerome, who built the Jerome Park Racetrack here in […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/5/2026
"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
 Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where we wish our fellow Americans a happy 250th birthday!The unveiling of the Victoria Cross.A handy reminder that Robin Hood was no hero.One really freaking long tennis match.The motivations of Richard, Duke of York."Somebody's father" at the battle of Gettysburg.Why we call it a "honeymoon."The dog who loved trains.Now that all other problems on Earth
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Strange Company - 7/3/2026
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
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
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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 […]
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Early American Crime - 2/7/2019
A Way Out of the Sunday Difficulty. | A Smuggler Queen.

A Society Escapade.

Western-Ladies-Lark

On a recent evening two well-known ladies of Virginia City, Nev., started out for a frolic disguised in fashionable male attire. They were accompanied by male companions, and visited several saloons, calling for drinks at the bar with the nonchalance of habitues. The young men were well known, but the barkeepers were puzzled in trying to guess the identity of their companions.

When they drank at the Sazerac the searching glance of Billy Eckhoft frightened the elder of the two ladies (who, by the way, is married) and with her companion she deserted the other couple and returned home, apprehending discovery. The remaining couple visited numerous saloons on C street and looked in at the faro games, the young lady passing for a good-looking, delicate young man. The participants in the harmless frolic are well known, but their names are suppressed through fear of creating a flutter of surprise in Comstock society.

 

National Police Gazette, June 26, 1886.