Newspapers
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‘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
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‘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
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‘Preserved from the Jaws of Death’ : The Deliverance of Elizabeth and William Fleming
At the beginning of November 1755, four months after General Edward Braddock’s disastrous defeat on the Monongahela, Shawnee and Lenape (Delaware) warriors led by Shingas launched a series of devastating attacks on the Great Cove area of the Province of Pennsylvania. On November 1, a party of about 100 Lenape and Shawnee warriors launched attacks… Continue reading
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Illustrious Thieves: Highway Robbery in Early Modern Oxfordshire
In a previous post, we covered the story of the Dunsdon brothers. Today, we are looking at some other Highwaymen who haunted Oxfordshire’s roads during the Early Modern Period. Claude Duval and James Hind are the two most famous highwaymen associated with Oxfordshire. Duval was born in Normandy in 1643. He moved to Paris… Continue reading
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A Dark and Lonesome Passage to Eternity
Edward Bonney, a 38-year-old alleged counterfeiter from Montrose, Iowa, arrived in Chicago on the steamship Champion early on Thursday, 25 September 1845. Bonney was accompanied by two other men, identified by the local newspaper, The Chicago Democrat, as ’two of the five murderers of Col. Davenport, Wm. F. Birch, alias Haines, and John Long, alias… Continue reading
19th Century, 4th of July, Aaron Long, Banditti of the Prairie, Counterfeiting, Crime, Crime and Punishment, Detective, Edward Bonney, George Davenport, Granville Young, Hangings, history, Illinois, Iowa, John Long, Justice, Murder, Newspapers, outlaws, Public Execution, Rock Island, United States History -
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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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
Hellish Fiends, and Brutish Men 