Newspapers
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‘A Brother Brigand of the Mountains’
James Butler’Wild Bill’ Hickok By unattributed – Heritage Auctions, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33582655 The following article was published in the Telegraph Courier of Kenosha, Wisconsin, on Thursday, 24 August 1876. Trial and Acquittal of the Murderer of Wild Bill-a Characteristic Picture of Frontier Life-Colorado Charley Gives Wild Bill a Good send off-The Finest Funeral the Country… Continue reading
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‘A Crackbrained Fellow”
I discovered this article in the Saturday, 24 May 1856, edition of the Southern Morning Herald, a newspaper published in Goulburn, New South Wales. FRIGHTFUL MURDERS BY A MANIAC The Newhaven (U.S.) Journal gives full particulars of a most frightful case of double murder at Woodbridge (Connecticut). It appears that a crackbrained fellow named Sanford,… Continue reading
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The Fate of the Emily Harris
The Vancouver Island-built steamer Emily Harris made a brief appearance in a previous post. In 1864, the craft had carried three labourers who had been engaged in the construction of a road through the Cariboo goldfields in the Colony of British Columbia, from Nanaimo to Victoria, after they had survived an attack on their camp… Continue reading
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‘Grim Death Came and Took a Step’ : Mike Mitchell
In the years before his death on 13 January 1862, Mike Mitchell had gained a degree of fame and popularity in California and the Pacific Northwest ‘as the best jig dancer ever on this coast.’ On Saturday, 11 January 1862, Mitchell returned to his Portland, Oregon, lodging house, apparently drunk. He got into an argument… Continue reading
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‘If She is a Dead Woman, I Shall Die Happy’: Richard and Ann Griffin
In September 1810, Richard Griffin, a 29-year-old journeyman blacksmith, from Saffron Hill, London was indicted at the Old Bailey for the ‘wilful murder’ of his 34-year-wife Ann. Ann Griffin had been absent from her home for a day and a half when she encountered her husband Richard at Bartholomew’s Fair on 4 September. Richard had been… Continue reading
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Dillie Welsh’s Four-Legged Saviour
The following collection of stories was published in Michigan’s Grand Rapid’s Press on Friday, 7 May 1886. Saved by a Calf A story comes from Alabama to the effect that Four-year-old Dillie Welsh, while playing with a pet calf, went to a well and peeped over the low curb. The calf caught her dress in… Continue reading
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The Ordeal of George Elmes
Leavenworth Daily Commercial, Thursday, 15 July 1875. In the summer of 1875, George Elmes, a German-born resident of Hays City, Kansas, ‘an honest, hard working fellow,’ loaded up a wagon with goods purchased from a sutler’s store and started on a trek from Hays City to Trinidad, New Mexico, where he planned to sell his… Continue reading
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Resurrectionists at Merrion Churchyard
By Hablot Knight Browne – https://archive.org/stream/chroniclesofcri01pelh#page/n317/mode/2up, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24087051 On a Thursday evening early in December 1828, several men, including four brothers named Ryan, gathered at the Merrion churchyard, Dublin, to watch over the grave of the brothers’ recently deceased sister. Around the same time that Miss Ryan was buried, Arthur Flaherty, a painter of… Continue reading
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Robert Thorley and the Footpad
On a Saturday afternoon in November 1812, Robert Thorley was riding from London to his home at nearby Petersham, along the Wandsworth road, when he noticed a woman dressed like a Quaker. Following the woman along the footpath was a man with an apron folded round him in the style of a carpenter. As Thorley… Continue reading
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Turnip Theft
Published in Jackson’s Oxford Journal, Saturday, 13 January 1855 Sarah Field and Elizabeth Langford, both of the parish of Saint Thomas, Oxford, were convicted of stealing turnip greens, the property of William Carey Faulkner, and were fined the sum of 7s. each, including costs. A week was allowed for payment. © Mark Young 2026 source… Continue reading
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 