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Jack Mayes
The San Francisco Examiner 4 May 1915 On Thursday, 24 June 1915, Mrs. Jessie L. Mayes, a widowed mother of four, left a wicker suitcase in E.J. Shefter’s drugstore on Second and Alder Streets, Portland, Oregon. A short while later, a teenage boy arrived and announced that he had been sent to retrieve the suitcase. Continue reading
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‘To be Master of The Devil’: Richard Faulkner
The Isle of Ely Summer Assizes, held at Wisbech on Friday, July 10, 1807, only had one prisoner to try, but he was ‘so shockingly depraved and hardened’ that his story bears retelling. Richard Faulkner was 15 when, on February 15 1807, in an act of revenge, he killed George Burnham at Whittlesea (now spelt Continue reading
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The 1915 Vancouver Bridge Fires
By Matthews, James Skitt, Major (1878-1970) – Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1612556 Shortly before 4 a.m. on Thursday, 29 April 1915, a watchman working for the Pacific Box Company noticed smoke rising from the Connaught Bridge, spanning False Creek, Vancouver. The Connaught Bridge, a four-lane, 1,247 metres (4,091 ft) long medium-level steel bridge, was opened to traffic Continue reading
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‘The Very Flames of Hell’ The Great Thunderstorm of 1638
By Original artist unknown, fl 17th century. Contemporary woodcut, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4986301 On the afternoon of Sunday, 21 October 1638, George Lyde, the Anglican minister of the church of St. Pancras, Widecombe in the Moor, Devon, preached before a congregation of 300 worshipers when: ‘a strange darkenesse,’ fell, ‘increasing more and more, so that the Continue reading
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The Strange Execution of John Langford
John Langford, a 22-year-old citizen of Sheridan, Kansas, who ‘had led a desperate life all over the border,’ was sentenced to be hanged by a vigilance committee at Pond City at 2 am on the morning of 25 August 1869. On discovering his fate, Langford admitted to the killing of six men; he added, ‘if Continue reading
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‘Good God! How Grief Has Altered Him!’ Thomas Carson’s Gaol Break
On 27 August 1800, brothers Thomas and John Carson, members of the Meath Yeomanry, stood trial at Trim Assizes for the ‘Wilful murder’ of ‘one of His Majesty’s subjects’, Charles Casliny. Kilmainhamwood (Irish: Cill Mhaighneann), where the killing occurred, is a village on the River Dee in County Meath, Ireland.The Carsons were tried in front Continue reading
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Dreadful Accident at St. James’
The following story was reported in the Bristol Mirror on Saturday, 3 August 1816. Miss Burrowes of Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, was to be buried in the afternoon of Wednesday, 31 July 1816, at St. James’ church.The gravediggers were instructed to dig the grave to a depth of twenty feet to thwart resurrectionists. When Miss Continue reading
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The Burford Highwaymen
One night in early November 1784, the bodies of Tom and Henry (Harry) Dunsdon were removed from the gibbets, which had displayed them as a warning to others who chose the path of lawlessness. The brothers had hung in chains, their bodies open to the elements, in Wychwood Forest, just outside the west Oxfordshire village Continue reading
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First World War Veteran Killed in Wolf Attack?
When the First World War broke out, Carl Lynn enlisted in the Canadian army at North Battleford, Saskatchewan. He served as a sniper for four years in the trenches of the Western Front. After returning from Europe, Lynn worked as a fur trapper in northern Saskatchewan. It was ‘in the hinterland of Saskatchewan’where he lost Continue reading
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Inkpaduta, Henry Lott and the road to Spirit Lake
A bloody massacre. Illustration for True Stories of the American Indians by Edward S Ellis, nd. Credit: Look and Learn On Wednesday, July 1st, 1857, dawn had barely broken when a detachment of Company D, 10th Infantry soldiers from Fort Ridgely reached the Yellow Medicine River, five miles from the agency that bore the same name.The Continue reading
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Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 