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From the March 31, 1890 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Last Monday, Lewis Johnson, living on Butler Street, east of Buffalo Avenue, was digging near an old graveyard, when he unearthed a skeleton. He took it home for several days and kept it to show to friends. This morning, tiring of his possession, Lewis gave it to the police. Coroner Rooney will make an investigation.”
Tags: Coroner Rooney, Lewis Johnson
From the November 15, 1877 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Coroner Carroll, of Newtown, was called to the hotel of Christian F. Siebs, at Middle Village, on Monday, to hold and inquest on the body of an unknown man. Mr. Siebs testified that at ten o’clock on Sunday night he heard a noise outside of his house, and calling two men, they procured a lamp and went out. They found the man on the road in a comatose state, and unable to stand. His clothes were very wet. They carried him into the house, replaced the wet clothes with dry ones and they carried him to the barn, laid him on some hay and covered him with some blankets and robes. Next morning he was dead. He was apparently an Italian, about thirty-five years old. The jury found that he had died ‘from congestion of the brain caused by excessive use of alcoholic liquors.””
From the January 8, 1897 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Mrs. Kate Brennan of 416 East Sixteenth Street, New York, last night narrowly escaped having her throat cut with a huge carving knife by her son, Matthew, a hunchback. The latter demanded money for liquor and when his request was refused he attacked his mother. The opportune arrival of another son saved Mrs. Brennan from being killed. The hunchback had to be bound to a bed. He cut his brother severely before the knife could be taken away from him. He was sent to the workhouse for six months this morning.”
Tags: Matthew Brennan, Mrs. Kate Brennan
"These cranks pound and slap and otherwise punish their members."
Buried deep in the annals of theological history in the ass-stomping branch of Christianity described in the following article from the January 12, 1893 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Kalamazoo, Mich.–The noisy Carterites still continue their disturbance at Coloma, and the forbearance of the community has been sadly taxed. Recently Carter promulgated an order from on high to the effect that a tenth of all the property of the members must be paid into his hands for the Lord. It is also said that Carter threatened to kill his wife if she did not obey him. One of the members is reported to have willed his property to Carter in trust for the Lord. He is an old man, and was knocked down and dragged around in order to see whether he could stand the Holy Grace test. These cranks pound and slap and otherwise punish their members, while making the nights and Sundays hideous with their yells and howls for mercy. The thumpings they give each other are for the purpose knocking out the devils, they claim. Not long ago one of the members died, it is said, from the effects of the pounding he received when he joined the Chosen Seven. Carter was given a coat of tar and feathers some weeks since and the citizens threatened not only to repeat the dose but to run his followers out of town.”
Tags: Carter
From a 1901 edition of the Philadelphia Press:
“Whiskers have been tabooed at the Zoo and a crusade against them will shortly be started. Within a few days the keepers will trim the bears’ mustaches, which have grown very long and annoy the beasts. The trimming of the bears’ whiskers will require several days, and is a dangerous operation. Each bear has to be cornered and placed in a cage so small that it is unable to move. The objectionable whiskers are then trimmed with long shears. The position of Zoo barber is not much sought after.”
"The keg of beer fell on his head and killed him instantly."
Alcohol can kill, as is evidenced by the following article in the June 7, 1895 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Charles Breslin, 33 years old, of 663 Graham Avenue, while holding a keg of beer above his head as he was about to put it in an ice box at Henry Hinckelbock’s saloon, 160 Union Avenue, at 8 o’clock this morning, slipped and fell backward. The keg of beer fell on his head and killed him instantly.
Breslin was a driver for a brewing company. When he called at Hincklebock’s saloon this morning he drank several glasses of beer with the proprietor before unloading his wagon. The floor in front of the ice box was wet and slippery. The first keg that Breslin brought in on his shoulder he raised as he approached the ice box. He stepped heavily on the damp floor. His feet slipped forward from under him. He made an effort to throw the keg from him, but it was useless. He lost his hold on the keg and it struck him heavily on the side of his head.
Hinckelbock was present at the time of the accident. He hastened to Breslin’s assistance. He rolled the keg away and after failing to revive Breslin called an ambulance from St. Catharine’s hospital. When the ambulance arrived the surgeon said the man was killed instantly by the blow. He had sustained a compound fracture of the skull. Coroner Creamer was notified.”
From the December 20, 1886 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“THOUGHT HE WAS A BIRD–Edward Dowling, aged 45, of 151 Imlay Street, got drunk last evening and thought he could fly. For his first attempt he selected a flight of stairs. After half an hour’s work by Ambulance Surgeon Conklin, Dowling was pronounced out of danger. He will be out in a week.”
"The apparent death, however, was only a trance, or protracted swoon."
From “Fatal Experiment with Chloroform,” a story in an 1848 edition of the New York True Sun which is almost certainly false:
“A young lady, daughter of Mr. Macdonald, a baker in Catharine Street, in this city, recently met her death in the most awful manner, from the use of the now fashionable but most dangerous preparation. About three weeks ago, the ether was employed to allay a toothache; but subsequently the sufferer was supposed to die, from what cause does not appear. The apparent death, however, was only a trance, or protracted swoon; for, on opening the coffin a day or two ago, the unfortunate girl had turned round upon her face, and in her agony and desperation had actually destroyed two of her fingers, on recovering from temporary death by ether. The Coroner’s investigation should elicit the fact as to who prescribed a remedy which produced this most frightful result.”
"His first impulse was to brain the pest with a base ball bat."
The drunk editors of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle published an important medical story in the April 17, 1898 edition, which originally ran in the Philadelphia Times. The piece in full:
“A rat with a wooden leg is a curiosity as curiosities go nowadays. Yet such an animal can be seen any day at the residence of a man named Dugmore, in the southwestern section of the city. About a month ago, Willie Dugmore, a lad of 12 years, found the little rodent trapped in the cellar. His first impulse was to brain the pest with a base ball bat, but the rat looked at him so pleadingly that Willie’s heart was touched and he decided to take the trap to an adjoining vacant lot and liberate the animal. This he did, but instead of scampering off, as he expected, the rat limped painfully up to him and began to lick his hand. Willie then discovered that one of the animal’s legs had been almost severed by the trap. Taking the rat home, he cut the leg off and then bandaged the wound, using as a liniment a little vaseline. He then put the rat into a cage and carefully fed and nursed it for a week. He then removed the bandage and found that the wound had completely healed. The rat was, however, unable to walk, and Willie decided he would make for it an artificial leg. Going down to the cellar he obtained a piece of pine, and after some whittling succeeded in making a leg. This he fastened on with a string and was delighted to see that his plan was entirely successful. The rat is now the family pet and can be seen any day hobbling about the kitchen or teasing a little Irish terrier, of which it has made a lifelong friend.”
Tags: Willie Dugmore
"He was not the fearless bully of old, but a much broken stoop shouldered and crazy old man."
An item about the physical and mental decline of a bullying man in East Tennessee, which was originally published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, appeared in the January 9, 1887 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. An excerpt from the piece, which is more tall tale than journalism:
“The mountain bully is not unlike his kind met with elsewhere, except in his habits, which are instinctively formed by circumstances and surroundings. He abounds in large numbers throughout the East Tennessee mountains, and generally makes his headquarters about the Summer resorts, country stores, elections, shooting matches and wherever there is a crowd gathered. He is always ‘spilling’ for a fight and frequently gets his satisfaction, usually from some quiet dispositioned person who ‘hain’t much to say.’ The mountain bully gets about half full, goes to a shooting match, chews tobacco, blows about his conquests and his ability to lick the best man in the State, runs upon a ‘say nothin’ sort of feller,’ who puts a head on him and an end to his bragadocio talk.
A few years ago there died in a mountain county in East Tennessee a man who was a noted bully. He was a splendid specimen of physical manhood and was in every respect a fighting bully. He would fight at the drop of the hat and could knock out a half dozen ordinary men in one round. He would fight for the fun of it, and he who would dare cross his path was indeed a reckless man. In the old days of State militia and ‘musters’ he was a prominent man in his neighborhood and colonel of a militia regiment. On muster days, when the drill was over, he would proceed to clean up the regiment. When he shed his coat, twisted his huge fist around a few times, and yelled at the top of his voice: ‘Hide out, little ‘uns, I’m a comin’,’ there would be a general stampede. This was how he came to be called ‘Old Hide Out’ in after years.
"He rushed into the midst of the Federal soldiers, putting them to flight, not, however, without receiving a serious wound in the head."
When the late war came on he joined a Confederate regiment and made a brave, fearless soldier. During a slight skirmish his company had with the Federals down in Georgia, he took his gun by the muzzle end, with his old time watchword, ‘Hide out, little ‘uns, I’m a comin’!’ rushed into the midst of the Federal soldiers, putting them to flight, not, however, without receiving a serious wound in the head, which put him into the hospital for months and permanently injured his mind.
When he returned to his native county he was not the fearless bully of old, but a much broken stoop shouldered and crazy old man. He would stroll through the neighborhood aimlessly, and seeming unconscious of his whereabouts, always muttering to himself as he went, ‘Hide out, little ‘uns, I’m a comin’.’ Little boys and girls would make sport of him, and ‘Old Hide Out,’ as they called him, paid no heed of their mockery. He had become perfectly harmless.
At last the old man became mortally ill. He was alone in a little cabin provided for his use by an old comrade in the army. A few friends who had known him in his better days gathered around his humble couch expecting the end. It was now late in the afternoon, and the old fellow had not spoken for days. He was rapidly sinking, and some one remarked that he would go down with the sun, which was then pouring its last rays through the chinks and crevices of the cabin wall. Just then his face seemed to lighten up, his eyes twinkled, and he opened his lips.
‘Hide out, little ‘uns, I’m a com–‘
But he never completed his sentence. He had gone.”
Nearly 170 years before Siri, German inventor Joseph Faber demonstrated his Talking Machine, most commonly known as “Euphonia,” which was able to speak sentences in a human if monotone voice. The marvel became a staple of Barnum’s shows, but Faber died without much to his name in the 1860s and his wife–and his contraption–fared just as poorly. Two brief articles follow about the inventor and his machine from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
••••••••••
“Talking Machines” (October 15, 1870): “Some readers may remember Professor Faber’s automaton speaking figure, called THE EUPHONIA, when exhibited in London. It was a draped bust with a wax face. Concealed from the visitors were sixteen keys or levers, a small pair of bellows, and numerous little bits of metal, wood, and India-rubber. When any word or sentence was spoken out, either by Faber or by one of the sudience, the exhibitor mentally divided all the syllables into as many distinct sounds as they embodied; he pressed upon a particular key for each particular sound, which admitted a blast of air to a particular compartment, in which the mechanism was of the kind to produce the sound required; there were thus as many pressures as there were elementary sounds. By a modification of the movements, whispering could be produced instead of speaking.”
••••••••••
“The Talking Machine Was There” (July 24, 1887): “Mrs. Mary Faber, the wife of Professor Faber, who had traveled around the country for years with his talking machine, took Paris green yesterday at 207 East Twenty-Fifth Street, New York. When the police were about to take her from the room Mrs. Faber recovered consciousness for a moment and, pointing to a satchel, declared that the talking machine was there. She wanted it sold to pay the rent. She will probably die.”
Tags: Joseph Faber, Mary Faber
"After two bites Miller was taken violently ill."
From the December 26, 1886 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Ten days before Mann, the Minneapolis quail eater, started in on his task to eat thirty birds in thirty days for a bet of $1,000, Charles Miller commenced the same business on another wager. Yesterday Miller attacked his twenty-eighth bird. He had been complaining for the past five days that he could not sleep at night and that he seemed to have a load of stones on his chest. He felt well when he sat down to his quail, ate a little bread and butter and potatoes, and then attacked the bird. After two bites Miller was taken violently ill, vomiting and being unable to go on with the task. A hack was sent for at once, and he was taken to a doctor’s and from thence to his home. No serious results are looked for, and he will probably be alright in a day or two. Mann ate his eighteenth quail last night, and is still feeling well.”
Tags: Charles Miller, Mann
"William was wily, wary and wicked."
A former cat-meat salesman named Pickles, who later turned to horse thievery, was the subject of a colorful profile in the March 27, 1876 Brooklyn Daly Eagle. An excerpt:
“Another escape from the Penitentiary has come to light. This time it was a clean walk out instead of an escape. The fact has been concealed by the prison authorities for over a month. William Pickles, alias Clark, was the convict who, on the afternoon of February 23, shouldered a pitchfork and walked out at the Penitentiary, ostensibly to the cow stables opposite. They are waiting for his return, but he does not come. A facetious fellow convict, when he heard of William’s departure, began humming the tune, ‘Oh, Willie, we have missed you.’ This Pickles is a character who has made a mark on his day and generation.
"It was a dizzying leap from a cat meat purveyorship." (Image by Lipedia.)
He drew his first breath in ‘Lunnon Town,’ some forty-eight years ago. At a tender age he was apprenticed to a costermonger, who made vocal the streets of London with his cries of ‘Cat meat,’ ‘Cat meat.’ In course of time William became a boss caterer to the feline race. He bade farewell to the shores of his native land about twenty years ago, on account of some little misunderstanding with the authorities there. He came to New York, and at once began to flourish like the typical green bay tree. William was wily, wary and wicked. After viewing the opportunities presented to an enterprising mind in a free land he concluded to direct his attention to horse flesh. It was a dizzying leap from a cat meat purveyorship but Pickles had a great and adaptable soul. He became a trader in horses–in other people’s.
A man of Pickles’ qualities had not much difficulty in getting horses for nothing, and selling them for a good deal. He was thoroughly impartial in his selection of the noble quadroped. He would yank out a claim peddler’s horse from a stable as quick as he would a Hambletonian. It all depends on his opportunities. It is said that in the course of the two or three weeks Pickles would transmogrify the veriest hackney into as trim a looking animal as a gentleman would care to sit behind. He could make a white horse black to order, dapple a pure bay, affix a mark of aristocracy on the brow, make a moribund nag look fresh and cheerful–in short, he was a wizard veterinarian. He could take a kink out of the leg, put strength in the backbone, fructify the tail and do anything with the animal he had in hand in short of causing it to grow a pair of side whiskers. This might have come in time had not Pickles’ scientific pursuits been interrupted by the police. This occurred in the zenith of his prosperity, when he was in the enjoyment of the proud reputation of being ‘one of the handiest men about horses you ever saw.’ He was sent to Sing Sing for ten years. He languished there for about half of his term when one night he managed to reach the sewer pipe and through it he crawled out of the prison.”
Tags: William Pickles
From “Carnival Ends in Disorder,” in the October 9, 1896 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Kansas City, Mo.–Kansas City’s Fall Carnival came to an end amid scenes of roystering and riotous disorder seldom witnessed anywhere. Many fights and brawls resulted and over seventy arrests were made. As a result of the state of affairs Chief of Police Irwin has declared that in future carnivals no masqueraders will be permitted on the streets at night.”
Tags: Chief of Police Irwin
From the September 15, 1901 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“An anarchist picnic which was to have been held at West Hoboken, N.J. to-day was abandoned, because the police gave notice that any person who participated in any public demonstration made by the anarchists would be promptly arrested.”
"Then I threw a net around him and brought him home to Camden."
Jack Gregory, an East Coast rat-catcher of some repute, relayed tales from his trade in an article in the August 10, 1884 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which was originally published in the Philadelphia Record. The article:
“‘I have caught and killed plenty of big rats in my time, but the biggest ones were captured along the wharves,’ said old Jack Gregory, or ‘English Jack,’ as he is called by his acquaintances. Gregory is a little old fellow, not more than five feet in height, and pressing close upon his 60th year. He lives in Camden, on William Street, below Roydon. When he starts out on his rat catching expeditions he is always accompanied by two little Scottish terriers, chained together. With a box of ferrets thrown over his shoulder, ‘English Jack,” presents an odd picture. ‘I have followed rat catching for a living for forty years,’ said Gregory, ‘but the most vicious chaps are generally found along the wharves, near where the sewers empty into the river. They grow up in the sewers, and eventually find their way to the water’s edge, and there they settle permanently or else take up quarters in the warehouses near the docks. I don’t mind a job of clearing a stable of rats. That’s fun for me. But when I am called upon to clear out a warehouse I always know that it means tough work, with the loss of about two or three ferrets. Nine times out of ten a rat will run away from a ferret, and when they emerge from their holes my dogs and I just lay for them and kill them as soon as they show themselves. But I have had many a valuable ferret killed by wharf rats. The rats being used to eating garbage greedily devour everything they come across, and grow to be tremendously large. I have seen lots that were as big as cats, and ferocious fellows they were, too.
"Gregory is a little old fellow, not more than five feet in height, and pressing close upon his 60th year."
I remember once a pitched battle that took place between three of my ferrets and five rats, down at the sugar boiling house on Delaware Avenue, below South Street. Each rat was fully from fifteen to eighteen inches in length, and must have weighed from four to five pounds. They had it hot and heavy for a quarter of an hour. The ferrets fairly chewed the rats to pieces and came out victorious, though they got severely bitten themselves. Subsequently one of the ferrets died. That night I succeeded in killing ninety rats. But I have seen larger rats than those in my time. A few years ago my dogs caught a rat down at the Washington Avenue grain elevator, which was much bigger than a cat. It was two feet long and weighed twelve pounds. He must gave been quite old and unusually fat. I guess he was the king rat about the elevator. I was very anxious to capture him alive, and it was hard work to drive the dogs off, so eager were they to put an end to him. He had fought them hard, notwithstanding his age, and the dogs had their dander up. I managed to draw them away, and then I threw a net around him and brought him home to Camden. I doctored him for three weeks and his wounds healed pretty well. A saloon keeper near the old Navy Yard made me an offer of $20 and I sold the rat to him to place on exhibition. He did not make much by the venture, as the saloonkeeper’s wife was afraid of the big rat, and being anxious to get rid of the animal poisoned it. While the animal was on exhibition there was a sign displayed on the iron cage in which it was confined, saying: ‘Don’t fool with the rat.’ This injunction was rather unnecessary, for all the customers willingly refrained from poking their fingers between the bars to stir him up. His looks were enough to frighten folks.'”
Tags: Jack Gregory
From “An Odd Little Fire,” in the September 24, 1895 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Edward McCann, a peripatetic pop corn peddler, had his wagon on the corner of Tompkins Avenue and Quincey Street last night when the naphtha tank which furnishes illumination exploded. The wagon caught fire and was burned up, together with the contents. McCann estimates his loss at $200.”
Tags: Edward McCann
This classic photo profiles General George A. Custer with his wife, Elizabeth, at Fort Lincoln in Dakota Territory, two years before he met his waterloo at Little Big Horn. The slaughter that Custer and his cavalry walked into in 1876 was a shocking event that reverberated throughout the country in a time before media was truly mass. Custer’s fame, which was burnished continually by his wife after his death, was also enhanced by the brewery Anheuser-Busch, which commissioned a series of large-scale paintings of the general’s last stand and hung them in saloons and theaters in states all over the nation. A story of what occurred at the foot of the canvas in Detroit from the August 7, 1891 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“A tall, venerable looking man stood upon the platform of the cyclorama of the battle of Big Horn yesterday afternoon and gazed long and earnestly upon the canvas. The old man was feeble, and as he leaned upon the ropes for support the hot tears coursed each other down his furrowed cheeks. The other spectators in his vicinity eyed him with a mix of sympathy and curiosity. Presently a crowd of survivors of the Sixth cavalry, which was commanded by George A. Custer during the war, came up the stairs. Just as the cyclorama lecturer began to tell in his monologue how Custer, his brothers Tom and Boston and his brother in law, Lieutenant Calhoun, had been slaughtered at Big Horn by the Sioux, the old man turned to go as though the narrative had no special interest for him, when one of the veterans, seizing his hand, exclaimed: ‘Why, old man, God bless you.’ Then, turning to his comrades, he ejaculated: ‘Boys, this is George A. Custer’s father.’ Instantly the white haired patriarch was surrounded by boys in blue, who fairly struggled for the privilege of grasping his hand.
‘I was with your son,’ said one, ‘when he made the raid out of Winchester and broke through Early’s line.’
‘I was with him in the First cavalry,’ said another, ‘when Tom, his brother, was shot in the mouth.’
‘I remember that engagement very well,’ replied the old man: ‘Tom brought the red necktie home that he wore on that day, and I’ve got it yet. The blood is on it still.’
There were tears in the eyes of many of the crowd that saw General Custer’s cavalry introducing themselves to the general ‘s venerable father. The latter is now 84 years old.”
Tags: Elizabeth Custer, George A. Custer
"In the large glass case in the rear of the saloon he has caged more concentrated venom than can be found anywhere outside of a poison factory."
That larger-than-life Old West character, Roy Bean, a so-called hanging judge who hardly ever hung anyone, owned a Texas saloon with an usual display case. From a report in the September 27, 1885 Brooklyn Daily Eagle, which was originally published in the Philadelphia Times:
“This is an eating station on the Southern Pacific railroad, and stands well out on the great Prison plain, about midway between El Paso and Del Rio. Old Roy Bean, who formerly dispensed frontier justice of a decidedly original and peculiar kind while acting as a magistrate at Murderville during the building of the railroad, owns the eating privilege at Sanderson and the liquid refreshing business connected therein.
"I suggested to old Roy that it would be a good idea to pull out their teeth, and he kindly gave me permission to operate on them dentally."
In the large glass case in the rear of the saloon he has caged more concentrated venom than can be found anywhere outside of a poison factory. First on the list is a family of centipedes, consisting of a giant nearly ten inches in length, the old fellow’s son and daughter and a numerous progeny of babies. The centipede is not a pretty insect. Once I thought of them as no use, but after seeing a lot of little Chiricahua Indian papooses pulling centipedes from their holes and greedily devouring them, legs, poison and all, I no longer doubted the wisdom and beneficence of their creation. In the course of my checkered career I have had several adventures with centipedes, and always came out second best. A centipede can raise a blister on a man’s body quicker than a red hot iron. If you don’t immediately apply a remedial poultice of pounded prickly pear and dose yourself inwardly with post whisky–the latter is warranted to kill anything but an army mule–the resultant effects may be serious. Centipedes usually attack their victim at night when he is asleep and can’t defend himself. They are armed with about two hundred little lances conveniently lashed to the toe of each foot–of which they have several–and at the base of each lance is a tiny sack of venom. If a centipede crawls across your body, which he’ll most likely do if you lie down anywhere within half a mile of him–you’ll have no difficulty in following his trail, and you’ll remember his visit for weeks. No man ever died from the bite of a centipede, but I have known one to make a man wish he were dead.
"They were about the size of a common saucer, and were as hairy as Esau."
In the cage adjoining that occupied by the centipedes was a den of tarantulas, whose scientific name is lycosa. The den contained two lycosas, but whether they were brother and sister, mother and daughter, father and son, or husband and wife, I am unable to declare. They were about the size of a common saucer, and were as hairy as Esau. Their mouths were blood red, and they each had four red teeth, which from time to time they snapped viciously. I was bitten by a tarantula once, and I felt thankful that these two were caged. I suggested to old Roy that it would be a good idea to pull out their teeth, and he kindly gave me permission to operate on them dentally. I declined. The tarantula is an exaggerated spider, with teeth and hair. They are always ready for a fight, and will tackle anything, not excluding a buzz saw. In days gone by I have often amused myself by teasing one with a red hot coal, and never surrender until they were burned to a crisp. I never heard of anything eating a tarantula. If one bites you, use the same remedies as prescribed for centipede sting, only more so.”
Tags: Roy Bean
"One of the ladies approached the balloon with a lighted candle, when the inflammable gas took fire."
An early flying machine had an accident and human error only made things worse, as described in an article in the November 6, 1850 Brooklyn Daily Eagle. The story in full:
“The flying machine owned by Captain Taggart, which took unceremonious French leave of its owner at Jersey City, last Wednesday, has, it appears, been destroyed, at Hempstead, on Long Island. The Suffolk Democrat gives the following interesting account of the affair:
‘On Wednesday evening last, at half-past six o’clock, a large balloon, with a beautiful car attached descended near the house of Jonathan Gildersleeve, at Clay Pitts, in this town. The car became entangled in the fence of a lane leading to the dwelling and barn while the balloon gently swayed with the world above it. When it was first discovered by a son of Mr. Gildersleeve, it occasioned a great deal of surprise, and he called to aid a brother and his wife, and his mother to assist securing it. A large opening was made in the balloon to permit the air to escape; but unfortunately at this moment one of the ladies approached the balloon with a lighted candle, when the inflammable gas took fire, and a violent explosion immediately followed, knocking down the whole party, and burning the two young men on the face and hands. The ladies escaped with very slight injuries. The balloon was torn to pieces, and enkindled in a blaze at the same time–and the beautiful car, with its machinery, greatly damaged. The varnished material of the balloon burned so vividly as to set the fence on fire–which, from its proximity to the barn and dwelling, would have communicated the flames to these also, but for the exertions of the injured persons, who, though in great agony, subdued the fire, by tearing down the fence, and throwing water upon the burning fragments of the balloon. The light of the explosion was noticed at the distance of several miles, and the concussion was so great that it was sensibly experienced by the inmates of a dwelling half a mile distant.”
"Last Tuesday evening she was attacked with severe paroxysms of sneezing." (Image by AnA oMeLeTe.)
From the August 8, 1891 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“Springfield, IL.–The physcians of South Charleston, a village twelve miles east of here, are completely baffled by the case of Miss May Creston, who is literally sneezing to death. She seems to be the victim of a strange nervous affliction and with the lingering effects of a severe case of the grip with which she was attacked last winter. Last Tuesday evening she was attacked with severe paroxysms of sneezing, following each other at rapid intervals. Suddenly the paroxysms stopped, leaving her very exhausted. The girl then went into a trance that lasted twelve hours. The terrified attendants thought the girl was dead. The physician treated her with hypodermic injections. She finally awoke languidly, and in a few minutes the sneezing came on. The physicians have been utterly unable to check them. The girl neither eats nor sleeps and seems to suffer terribly.”
Tags: May Creston
“She imagines she hears voices in the wall.”
A decade after President Lincoln was assassinated, his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, who struggled emotionally from the death of not only her husband but three sons as well, was declared insane at the request of her only surviving son, Robert. A report follows from the May 20, 1875 Brooklyn Daily Eagle.
Tags: Abraham Lincoln, Dr. Isham, Mary Todd Lincoln, Robert T. Lincoln
"While the two heads were fairly well formed one of them had only one eye." (Image by law_keven@Wikipedia.)
From the January 17, 1897 Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“There was a two headed cat at Bellevue hospital, New York, yesterday afternoon. It was dead and in a bottle of alcohol. H.M. Vanderbilt of 249 Jefferson Avenue, this city, took the curiosity to the hospital to show the physicians. The cat was born in his cellar, he said, and lived only a few minutes. While the two heads were fairly well formed one of them had only one eye. The physicians at Bellevue were anxious to have the curiosity left at the hospital, but after exhibiting it, Mr. Vanderbilt brought it back to this city.”
Tags: H.M. Vanderbilt
"That respectable old bachelor bishop was beaten with clubs and beheaded in the third century."
An excerpt from a February 14, 1884 Brooklyn Daily Eagle article which explains how the sweet but heathen holiday of Valentine’s Day became associated with a Christian saint, and recalls the (thankfully) lost art of the insulting “comic valentine”:
“Like many other Ecclesiastical festivals which have assumed strange social transformations, St. Valentine’s Day is chiefly remarkable for having no personal connection with St. Valentine. That respectable old bachelor bishop was beaten with clubs and beheaded in the third century, and if he is conscious of his subsequent fame he must enjoy the reflection that no author as well as no saint ever achieved such a posthumous reputation for what he had nothing to do with. The feasts of Pan and Juno, held in February, upon which among other hilarious ceremonies the names of pretty Roman girls of the period were put in a box, and the Roman dudes and greenhorns and old bachelors drew them out, suggested to the ever appropriate instincts of the Christian clergy the holding of them on a saint’s day. Poor old Bishop Valentine was in partibus at the time and had been canonized as well as clubbed and decapitated also at the middle of February, and his commemoration would do very well for the heathen pastime, which would thus acquire a Christian aroma. That is the process by which, in modern times, he has become the patron saint of postmen.
"For the antiquated maid or corpulent bachelor, the valentine is scarcely a thing of beauty or joy."
St. Valentine’s Day has become chiefly a joy to children, who await eagerly the postman’s coming with the welcome letters which are pictures as well. For the antiquated maid or corpulent bachelor, the valentine is scarcely a thing of beauty or joy. The meanness that would gratify its petty spite by anonymous insults through the mail on this literary deluge day would not deserve mention if this morning’s newspapers had not contained a curious and perhaps fatal caution against indulging one’s venom through the valentine. Two women in Philadelphia, who were next door neighbors, mutually accused each other of sending an insulting valentine. Each denied the charge, but neither accepted the denial. They fell upon each other tooth and nail, and, not content with bites and scratches, while one ran for a hatchet the other shot her with a pistol.”
Tags: St. Valentine
This classic photograph, taken by Michael A. Wesner, is the best visual record extant of Siamese twins Millie and Christine McCoy, who were best know during their era as the sideshow act, “The Two-Headed Nightingale.” The daughters of slaves who were sold to and kidnapped by a series of carny men, they were popular stage attractions until their deaths in 1912. From “A Double Headed Woman” an 1881 article about the clever women in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle:
“They call her the ‘two-headed woman.’ She is at Bunell’s new museum. There are two heads, two necks, and two shoulders, and two sets of upper and lower limbs, but just below the shoulders the two bodies are joined. Mentally, two; physically, one. She can’t see herself–that is, they can’t see each other–because the backs of their heads almost touch. They sing and dance well. She was talking to herself–that is, the two mouths were engaged in speaking–behind the scenes, when the Eagle reporter entered yesterday, and one of her was gently tapping her foot on the floor.
‘How do you do?’
‘I am well,’ said one head.
‘First rate,’ said the other.
‘And what is your name?’
‘I’m Millie,’ muttered one.
‘And I’m Christine,’ murmured the other.
‘Could Millie feel well and Christine the opposite?’
‘Bet your–‘
‘Millie!’
‘You see,’ said Millie, as she gracefully plied her fan, ‘we generally feel the same.’
Indeed!
‘Touch me on the foot a certain number of times,’ said Millie, ‘and then Christine will tell you how often you did it.’
The reporter touched the foot four times and then Millie, with a ripple of laughter asked:
‘How often, Christine?’
‘Four times, Millie dear,’ was the reply.
‘Below the point where the juncture occurs,’ said Christine, ‘we both feel alike. But you could touch me on the cheek a certain number of times and Millie would know nothing about it.’
‘Do your thoughts run in the same direction?’
‘Not always,’ said Millie, ‘Now I might think a man was perfectly horrid, and Christine might think he was simply charming. ‘
‘And yet,’ jocosely remarked the reporter, ‘you couldn’t settle the question by a little run-in, as it were?
‘For a very good reason,’ said Millie. ‘Because if Christine is hurt below the point where we are united, I am hurt also.’
‘Does Millie do the eating for both?’
‘Not at all. We generally eat at the same time.”
‘And while Millie might relish a beef steak for supper, Christine might fancy a reed bird or a prairie chicken?”
‘That might be the case, although, as a rule, we both eat the same things.
‘But you order supper for two?’
‘Yes,’
‘And one person eats it?’
‘Cert.’
‘How old are you?’
‘We are 30, and we were born in Virginia.’
‘Since then, I presume, you have traveled around the world?’
‘Pretty nearly,’ was the reply from both, and then she arose from her seat and walked to the stage, where she sang a duet.”
