No. 553
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
December 09, 2020

Shot for a Bear.

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December 9, 2020
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FREDERICK BENNER
alias: DUTCH FRED, FRANK BELMONT, FRE~ERICK BENNETT
PICKPOCKET, BURGLAR

The Bootleg Boyer Baby

If you are at all familiar with my blog, you know that I delight in sharing moral tales that provide both spiritual uplift and valuable practical advice at navigating this thing called Life.  For instance, if you are going to fake a pregnancy in order to gain a claim to your husband’s inheritance, make sure you have all your paperwork in order.  Acquiring bogus heirs is not a job for
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Strange Company - 10/19/2026

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

Carlyle and Helen.

 Carlyle Harris and Helen Potts.(The Trial of Carlyle W. Harris for Poisoning His Wife, Helen Potts, at New York.)Helen Potts, a nineteen-year-old student at Miss Comstock’s School in New York City, decided not to join her roommates when they went to hear a concert. Helen was feeling ill, but her boyfriend (secretly her husband), a medical student named Carlyle Harris, had prescribed a
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Murder By Gaslight - 10/17/2026
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 Fiendish Schoolmarm. | A Masher Mashed

Shot for a Bear.

Shot-For-A-Bear

At Platte Lake. a few miles north of Frankfort. Mich., on Oct. 26, Mrs. Jane Briggs, of Platte Township, while picking cranberries in a swamp and walking along In a stooping position, with a black hood and shawl on, was mistaken for a bear by two hunters and shot through the neck. Death followed In a few hours. Mrs. Briggs was an old resident of this county and the mother of a large family.


National Police Gazette, November 14, 1885.

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