No. 431
Crime, Eccentricity, and the Sporting Life in 19th Century America.
July 16, 2019
The exorcism of a ghost. Engraving by E. Portbury after F.P. Stephanoff
Happy Monday, readers. Let’s talk poltergeists.
A particularly sinister haunting was said to have taken place in Iceland in 1807. The following narrative of the “Ghost at Garpsdal” was dictated by the local minister, a Sir Saemund, in June of 1808. Rather than try to paraphrase, I thought it best to simply publish
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Strange Company - 7/15/2019
Signing party with Q & A and refreshments, July 13th, Saturday 12 -4 p.m. Jules Antiques and General Store, Rt. …
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Lizzie Borden : Warps & Wefts - 6/19/2019
On this date in 1958, Nuri al-Said, the Prime Minister of Iraq’s deposed Hashemite monarchy, was captured trying to flee Iraq in disguise, and immediately slaughtered A onetime Ottoman officer turned veteran of the Arab Revolt under the eventual King Faisal I, Nuri al-Said (or as-Said) was a preeminent politician for much of the Kingdom […]
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ExecutedToday.com - 7/15/2019
Jeff and Joe
Soapy Smith buries Joe Simmons
The Illustrated Police News
April 9, 1892
(Click image to enlarge)
oe Simmons
was a tall, slender gambler
known to many as “Gambler Joe” Simmons, a member of the Soap
Gang who managed Soapy Smith's Tivoli Club in Denver, 1890, and Soapy's Orleans
Club in Creede, 1892. According to William Devere’s poem "Two Little Busted Shoes," Simmons
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Soapy Smith's Soap Box - 3/25/2019
Thomas H. Jones, aged 21, was planning to leave Brooklyn on October 5, 1880, to start a new life in San Francisco. The night before his planned departure he went to say goodbye to his friend George Secor and the two young men went to a lager beer saloon run by N. Debrowski on Atlantic Street to play billiards.
Between games, they went to the bar for some soda water. As they were placing
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Murder by Gaslight - 7/13/2019
alias: CLARK, TIM OATS
SNEAK, PICKPOCKET
Gothic architecture usually brings to mind shadowy vaulted ceilings and cathedral spires, and there are plenty of examples of this all over New York City. But there’s a mashup of a building on a tiny Tribeca block that’s such a fascinating kaleidoscope of Gothic details, it suggests something light and frothy, not dark and Medieval. […]
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Ephemeral New York - 7/14/2019
[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 Family […]
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