No. 397
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
November 27, 2017

The Wedding Postponed.

November 27, 2017
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Via Newspapers.comThis tale of strange goings-on in a seemingly unremarkable apartment was told in the “Western Mail,” March 10, 1927:An extraordinary story of queer happenings in an unoccupied Fulham (England) flat was told recently by a foreman and two workmen who have been decorating it (declares the "London Daily News").One of the men mentioned to the foreman some days ago that when working
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Strange Company - 6/10/2026
"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
You can see it peeking out from the Harlem River Drive or through the chain-link fence of the Third Avenue Bridge: a five-story red brick building almost buried behind glass and steel apartment towers. The towers are newish luxury rental residences built on the Bronx side of the Harlem River. Shiny and modern, they bring […]
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Ephemeral New York - 6/8/2026
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
In 1830, Joseph Knapp conspired with his brother, John Francis Knapp, to hire a local criminal, Richard Crowninshield, to murder their great uncle, Captain Joseph White, in Salem, Massachusetts. They believed that if the captain died without a will, they stood to inherit a sizable fortune.Read the full story here: "A Most Extraordinary Case"
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Murder By Gaslight - 6/6/2026
As Mr. Moody for the Prosecution dramatically expounds on hatchets and grisly details, and a glimpse of two skulls in a leather case, Lizzie slumps over in her chair. Was it the heat or the ghastly descriptions?
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Lizzie Borden: Warps and Wefts - 6/7/2026
  [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
Won on the Midway. | Turkey Shooting.

The Wedding Postponed.

Wedding PostponedMichael O’Toole of Edgewood, Maryland, goes for his bride but gets bullets and hot water instead.[more]

Michael O’Toole, a section hand on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, was brought to the Baltimore City Hospital recently, suffering from several pistol wounds. O’Toole had been shot in the left shoulder and in the hip, and was suffering intensely from his wounds. He stated that he lived at Edgewood, about thirteen miles from Baltimore, and was engaged to be married to Kate Callahan, who lived a short distance from his home. He visited the girl and made arrangements to be married at Abington but Rev. Father Sartoria. Charles Callahan, a brother of his betrothed, warned him off the place, and when O’Toole called for the girl, Charles again appeared. Bitter words passed, both produced revolvers and began blazing away. Callahan slipped behind a tree, and from this point of vantage hit O’Toole twice. Callahan is said to have escaped unhurt. To add to O’Toole’s ill luck Mrs. Callahan dashed a pail of water over him and his face is scalded.


Reprinted from National Police Gazette, January 4, 1890.