• 27th Nov 2025

    A Case of Avunculicide: The Murder of Giovanni Kalabergo 

    Portrait of John Kalabergo. Engraved by E. Jewitt of Camden Town. The original was in the possession of Mr. Craddock, of Banbury, Oxfordshire. On Saturday, 10 January 1852, Dr. Harris’, a surgeon at the Queen’s Hospital, Birmingham, visit to his father’s house in the north Oxfordshire hamlet of Williamscote (now Williamscot), was disturbed by the Continue reading

    history, True Crime
    19th Century, Banbury, Crime, Crime and Punishment, history, Justice, Kalabergo, Murder, Newspapers, Oxford Castle, Public Execution, True Crime
  • 9th Nov 2025

    Ambush at Cooke’s Canyon

    Cooke’s Canyon is a valley located in the Cooke’s Range, a southern continuation of the Mimbres Mountains, in present-day Luna County, New Mexico. The canyon was named for Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, the commanding officer of the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican War (1846-48). He later served in the Union Army during the Continue reading

    history
    Apache, Arizona, Cooke’s Canyon, history, Murder, New Mexico
  • 31st Oct 2025

    An Extraordinary Event at Cracow: From the Newspaper Archives

    The Hamilton Spectator, Wednesday, November 1, 1865. I discovered the following stories in the Hamilton (Ontario)Spectator published on Wednesday, 1 November 1865. The Hamilton Spectator was first published on July 15, 1846, as The Hamilton Spectator and Journal of Commerce.  An Extraordinary Event at Cracow An extraordinary event is reported at cracow. On the 13th Continue reading

    history, True Crime
    19th Century, Baltimore, Canaa, Crime, history, Ipswich, Krakow, New York, Newspapers, Suffolk, True Crime
  • 7th Oct 2025

    Horrible Scenes at the Execution of Three German Criminals

    Following on from the last post, this graphic account of a triple execution in Mecklenburg was featured in the same issue of the Daily Evening Herald.  German journals give a horrible account of the execution by beheading with the sword at Butzau, Mecklenberg, of three murderers, Henry Schaffer, Peter Nopp, and Francis Newmann. The crowd Continue reading

    history, True Crime
    19th Century, Crime, Crime and Punishment, Germany, history, Justice, Newspapers, True Crime
  • 3rd Oct 2025

    Mr. Cyrus King Finds Relief

    I discovered the following two stories while trawling through newspapers.com. Both articles were featured in the Thursday, 8 August 1872, edition of Stockton, California’s Daily Evening Herald. Driven to Desperation Smith Johnson, of Detroit, driven to desperation by the wiles of a widow, promised to marry her, and then attempted to get out of it Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    19th Century, history, Newspapers, Stockton Daily Evening Herald
  • 28th Sep 2025

    ‘As I Stand on the Brink of the Grave’: Who was ‘Sue Monday’?

    On Sunday, 12 March 1864, a detachment of 50 men from the 30th Wisconsin Infantry, under the command of Major Cyrus Wilson, surrounded a tobacco barn at Webster, Kentucky, and after a brief firefight in which three members of the infantry were slightly, and one mortally wounded, captured the notorious Confederate guerrilla Sue Monday (Mundy, Continue reading

    history, True Crime
    19th Century, American Civil War, Confederates, Crime, Crime and Punishment, history, Jerome Clarke, Justice, Murder, Newspapers, Public Execution, Sue Monday, True Crime
  • 3rd Sep 2025

    ‘This Hoary Sinner’ James Wilson

    At the Middlesex Sessions held in September 1823, James Wilson, a watchcase maker, of Northampton Row, Clerkenwell, London, was accused of ‘having repeatedly endeavoured to ravish his own daughter.’ Wilson’s wife died in 1819, leaving behind two daughters and a son. Sarah, the eldest daughter, was around fifteen when her mother died and was serving Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    19th Century, Crime, Crime and Punishment, history, Justice, Newspapers, True Crime
  • 25th Aug 2025

    Turning King’s Evidence: Hylas Parrish, Charles Callaghan and the Murder of Moses Merry  

    Hylas Parrish, an 18-year-old apprentice shoemaker, first met Charles Callaghan at Vauxhall Gardens in the summer of 1813, when he attended a fete held to celebrate the victory of Britain and her allies, Spain and Portugal, over Napoleonic France in the Battle of Vitoria. At the fete, Parrish paid a penny for a ride on Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    19th Century, Crime, history, Justice, Murder, Public Execution, True Crime
  • 19th Aug 2025

    Hugh Monroe

    By Jim Helvey, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53005166 South of the Canadian border, in the Two Medicine area of Glacier National Park, stands the imposing feature that is Rising Wolf Mountain. The author James Willard Schultz named the mountain in honour of his friend Hugh Monroe, a former Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) and American Fur Company Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    19th Century, Alberta, Canada, Fur Trade, history, Hudson’s Bay Company, Hugh Monroe, Montana, Saskatchewan, United States
  • 28th Jul 2025

    The Battle of the Trough, 1756

    The skirmish known as the Battle of the Trough was a minor engagement in the French and Indian War (the North American theatre of the Seven Years’ War). The action, which took place in present-day Hardy County, West Virginia, left seven colonists dead and four others wounded. In the aftermath of the disastrous defeat of Continue reading

    Uncategorized
    1756, Battle of the Trough, Bemino, Fort Pleasant, French and Indian War, GGeorge Washington, Hardy County, history, Seven Years’ War, West Virginia
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Recent Posts

  • A Case of Avunculicide: The Murder of Giovanni Kalabergo 
  • Ambush at Cooke’s Canyon
  • An Extraordinary Event at Cracow: From the Newspaper Archives
  • Horrible Scenes at the Execution of Three German Criminals
  • Mr. Cyrus King Finds Relief

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  • A Case of Avunculicide: The Murder of Giovanni Kalabergo 
  • Ambush at Cooke’s Canyon
  • An Extraordinary Event at Cracow: From the Newspaper Archives

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