Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This tale of an unusually eerie bit of real estate appeared in the “Richmond Times-Dispatch,” August 7, 1904:

SOUTH BOSTON, VA., August 6. There is a cabin in this county that has been haunted for forty-three years. The haunted cabin is eighteen miles west of South Boston, near Stebbins, Va, two miles from the public road.

Down by a creek in an old pine field, the darkest, dreariest, most forsaken place that one could picture--there stands a lone log cabin, with a family graveyard all sunken, with ivy, locust and plum bushes. This place is known as Aunt Tabby Anderson's, who was a widow with four children, in the days of 1861--three boys and one girl, and the afflictions of this family were extremely sad in this log cabin. Her oldest son, Joe, and Meredith, the youngest, a bright lad of fifteen years, lived on the magnificent farm of Mr. A. A. Fomer, who allowed them this house, rent free.

In this cabin, in the early days of '61, her son Joe came to his mother with a sad face and told her that he had to go and join Lee's army, and he had one request to make--that was, he had seen a vision and he would be killed In battle--and he wished his remains brought home and buried at the end of this cabin. The youngest son was left alone with the widowed mother. A month later this boy came running home screaming and fell on the doorsteps and was taken with violent convulsions, and when he revived could simply say he saw something, and for thirty-five years was prostrated without reason save as a child. This was the first intimation of these mysterious happenings. 

The widow, about thirty days after the departure of her son, remarked that if she had some paper and envelopes she would go and get Chesley Andorson (a merchant) to write to Joe.  Immediately they were at her feet, the letter was written.

Her son was killed. 

She at once set to work to get his remains home, and after a lapse of two months a box supposed to contain remains of her son was placed in the family burying ground, as he had requested. 

Then these mysterious happenings multiplied.  Rocks would fall on and in the cabin and come through cracks in the log house that no one could get them back through the same openings. The door would raise from its hinges and move out doors. Articles of furniture, clothing, bedding and, cooking utensils, would move about noisily and afterwards would often be found suspended In the trees and bushes, All this caused great excitement throughout the vicinity, and parties of men, middle-aged and old men, visited this place night after night for weeks, even years, and yet the mystery can not be explained. On one occasion a party of ten men took with them dogs and guns and surrounded the cabin before night, and the dogs would whine and crouch at their feet. This only seemed to intensify the display of rocks, for they fell out and in the cabin in great force and quantities.

A few days later a plow was seen to come in one door and go out at the other. The water bucket was seen to move of its own accord, and these same conditions have existed for forty-three years. This widow lived with her afflicted son until 1896. She also had a son blind for twenty years, who died only three years ago.  She had one granddaughter who burned to death, and now the entire family has passed from this life. 

It is said that at the death of Aunt Tabby in 1896, that the shower of rocks on the cabin equalled the worst hailstorm ever heard. 

I could fill columns of your paper and yet one-thousandth part of these strange happenings could not be told. If any reader of The Times-Dispatch doubts this story, they can write any citizen in that locality and get the evidence. 

Mr. Willie Dunn now owns the place, and has a family living in this cabin, and the writer was informed by the lady that she was nervous and would not look at the ghost work, but her husband saw lights and only a week ago the door could not be kept shut. 

The picture, herewith, represents the original cabin and a group of thirteen sightseers.  Professor C. C. Firesheets planned to visit this noted place with some of his friends. A picnic was the result. The members consisted of the following: Professor C.C. Fusheets, who was elected chairman and spokesman; Mr. W. D. Stoops, Umalla, Fla,; Miss Ruselin Spiggs, of Chicago, Ill., with W. W. Murphy, of Mt. Jackson, Va.: Miss Amanda Stoops, of Denver, Col., with Mr. Joseph H. Mabine, of Asheville. N. C.; Miss Georgia Daniel, of Mt. Sterling, Ky., with Mr. Eugene Terry, South Boston. Va; Miss Marguretta Daniel, of Mt. Sterling, Ky., with E. T. Beazley, of the News, South Boston, Va.: Miss Myrtle Edwards, of Chester Springs, Va., with Captain Alex. Spiggs, of South Boston, Va. The haunted house was reached at 10 A.M. At noon. dinner was spread at the old rock spring.  The chaperone made a motion to spend a week, but being put it lost by overwhelming majority. 

The professor then gave a brief sketch of the place for forty-three years. Music, instrumental and vocal, and speech making was the order of the day.

As the shadows of evening began to fall, they left the scene of mystery and the merry party arrived home at 10 P.M. by moonlight.

The Blue Man of Studham

Every now and then, I come across a story that is hard-to-believe, essentially irrelevant, difficult to categorize, but so delightful that I feel the need to share.  This particular example was told by R.H.B. Winder in the “Flying Saucer Review” for July 1967:

The setting is near-perfect for a fairy tale: the village, 60 ft. up in the Chillerns. is quite isolated by the boundary fence of Whipsnade Park Zoo close to the N.W., and a deepish valley to the South; and by the escarpment of these chalk hills dropping steeply away on the far side of the Zoo. It all seems well removed from ions and ionization, but perhaps not quite so remote as your editor and G. W. Creighton anticipated when they suggested that I should report on this case.

It all started with a single flash of lightning which struck on or near the common at about 1:45 p.m on January 28, 1966. Probably an ordinary stroke, because rain was falling and the atmosphere was heavy, but it could have been initiated by artificial ionization of the air. l mention the possibility not because any flying object was seen. But isolated strokes are not all that frequent and this one was certainly followed by some extraordinary events.

Alex Butler, aged 10 years, and his friends—Tony Banks, Kerry Gahill, Andrew Hoar, David Inglis, Colin Lonsdale and John Mickleburgh—were playing on the Common on their way to afternoon school. They were in the vicinity of the Dell, which is a shallow valley thickly strewn with hawthorn, gorse and bracken; and a few old tin cans and motor tires. The undergrowth is riddled with passages connecting several dens under the bigger bushes, all no doubt the work of generations of children and animals; and there is a small open space hidden in the middle. The whole is reminiscent of a surface version of a miniature Viet Cong hideout, providing good cover, even in Winter, coupled with surprising freedom of movement for diminutive creatures. The school is about 200 yards away and the nearest houses maybe 150 yards, but small persons could remain concealed for a long time were it not for the children who obviously regard this as their territory and know virtually every blade of grass in it.

A few minutes after the lightning, and its associated thunder. Alex was casting a proprietary eye over the Dell from the top of its northern bank when he saw, quite clearly over the open center, "a little blue man with a tall hat and a beard" standing upright and still in front of the bushes at the opposite bank. He immediately shouted a description to his friends, who were initially skeptical but confirmed his view on joining him. Reacting as if to an intruder, they all began to run down the bank towards the stranger who was only about 20 yards away. The little man reacted, in turn, by “disappearing in a puff of smoke.”

It is easy at this stage, to rationalize the happening into a fairy story based on optical and electrical effects emanating from the lightning, but this tale continues—without further discharges.

Finding nothing at the place where he was first seen, the boys ran on. Little to their right along the bottom of the dell and then up the far bank; still searching for their elusive quarry. They soon saw him again, this time to their left farther along the top of the bank and on the opposite side of the bushes that had previously formed his background. Once again he was standing still and facing them at a range of 20 yards.  They again approached him and he repeated his disappearing trick.

The third time they saw him he was back at the bottom of the Dell, not far from his original position. His pursuers had by now reached his second location. Looking at him through the little bushes, they became aware of “voices" which they describe in a manner suggesting a continuous incomprehensible, and "foreign-sounding" babble, coming from a point in the bushes closer to them and down the slope to the right of their line of sight. A feeling that the little fellow had associates who were communicating with him and to whom he was replying, although they could detect no movement on his part. This induced a sense of caution which deterred them from rushing towards him as before. Instead, the boys continued to circle the Dell until they could look down it, whereupon they saw him for the fourth and last time still standing as motionless as ever in the same place. Uncertain what to do next, they milled around for a few more minutes before they told their teacher their experience.

They warned Miss Newcomb that she would not believe it, but, knowing them as well as she does and after assessing their excitement and listening to their story, she did believe them. She then very sensibly separated them and made each write it down in his own words. The essays were re-written two weeks later, not in order to alter their substance but simply to improve their spelling and tìdyness, and were pasted into a book entitled "The Little Blue Man on Studham Common”. It makes fascinating and convincing reading. I only wish there were space enough to reproduce it here. No doubt it will occupy an honored place in the archives of the Studham Village Primary School.

 

The case was brought to our attention by Mr. L. Moulsler, a long-standing reader of this review, who sent a cutting about it from the Borough Gazette, dated March 3. He kindly accompanied C.B., G.W.C. and myself in a preliminary survey of the district and reminded us of local sightings investigated by him in previous years: an apparent landing at the rim of the hills not far from the Zoo and another, more controversial, case at the nearby Flying Club, of which he is a member. G.W.C. has also found another cutting from the aforementioned newspaper: dated October 15, 1965, it describes mystery lights in the sky over Whipsnade. Finally, it is hardly necessary to mention the Wildman Case (Flying Saucer Review, March/April 1962,)  that took place near Aston Clinton about six miles away on February 9,1962.

Returning to our present case: Miss Newcomb arranged for Mr. and Mrs. Creighton, Colin McCarthy, and myself to meet the principals at the school on Saturday afternoon, May 13. Without any prompting from their obviously respected and loved teacher, they gave a very competent account of the whole incident. They also took us to the places involved and then returned with us to the schoolroom to go into more detail. The following additional points emerged:

They estimate the little man as 3 ft. tall (by comparison with themselves), with an additional 2ft. accounted for by a hat or helmet best described as a tall brimless bowler, i.e. with a rounded top. The blue color turned out to be a dim grayish-blue glow lending to obscure outline and detail. They could, however, discern a line which was either a fringe of hair or the lower edge of the hat, two round eyes, a small seemingly triangle in place of a nose, and a one-piece vestment extending down to a broad black belt carrying a black box at the front about six inches square. The arms appeared short and were held straight down close to the sides at all times. The legs and feet were indistinct. The "beard" is interesting: apparently it extended from the vicinity of the mouth downwards to divide and ran to both sides of the chest. Although agreeing that it could have been breathing apparatus, the boys could not see clearly enough to be certain and this thought had not occurred to them.

The disappearances caused me some difficulty at first, but became more understandable after further explanation of the "smoke" was apparently a whirling cloud of yellowish-blue mist shot towards the pursuers, possibly from the box on the belt. They agreed that he could have stepped into the bushes before this camouflage cleared, although it dissipated quite quickly. They heard no sound other than the voices and saw no movement at any time. Nor did they smell any smells or see anything strange in the vicinity, either on the ground or in the air.

The glow and the mist could have been the products of ionising radiation. Indeed, similar emanations, not necessarily from the same source could have triggered-off the lightning in an atmosphere already charged by natural processes. However, we must not carry speculation too far. All that we are certain of at this stage is that this is no ordinary fairy tale. Nobody who knows the boys disputes that it really happened.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump, where Strange Company HQ is still dealing with Thanksgiving leftovers.

Yet another case of jealousy leading to murder.

The latest studies about the "Wow!" signal.

In search of Michael Rockefeller.

The first blood transfusion.

The mysterious mathematics of art.

When turkeys get a bit of Thanksgiving Revenge.

A gold ring's possible connection to the Gunpowder Plot.

Some amazing new images of our Sun.

Why coins are left on gravestones.

A skeptic flees a haunted house.

The latest Easter Island research.

The life of Sir James Mansfield.

A Thanksgiving dinner turns deadly.

How do you salvage a submarine full of mines?  Very carefully.

A brief history of fashionable dogs.

The dancing plague of 1518.

A disappearing embezzler.

Why we sing Christmas carols.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when some kids will run into someone...odd.  In the meantime, it's oldie but goodie time!

Newspaper Clipping of the Thanksgiving Day

Via Newspapers.com

Just a little Thanksgiving enigma from days gone by, courtesy of the “Daily Florida Citizen,” December 11, 1895:

From the New York Sun. 

Just beyond the curve where the upbound Sixth-Avenue trains swing into West Third Street stands a three-story frame house. It is one of very few remnants of the early growth of the city in that district. Weather-beaten, paintless, and rotten from age, it shivers with the fear of falling in ruins whenever a train rumbles past. Almost on a level with the track is a queer dormer window with a dappling half curtain which in turn conceals the interior; a shadowy room furnished with a couple of rack-jointed chairs, washstand, and a cot, evidently somebody's home. Thousands of people traveling up and down town must have noticed that room, its ancient bareness open to the gaze. 

The occupant probably works all day and goes to bed in the dark. No one is to be seen in that room during the sunlight hours, and the window darkens with the setting sun. For reasons easily to be guessed from the nature of the curtain, the inmate of the room would not care to light up when retiring. Open as the room is to the public view, as a home it is a sealed secret, or was until last week. Then a sign appeared in the ancient window: 

One of the thousands who at one time or another looked in the window as the train slowed up for the curve is a Wall Street broker, who every afternoon at little after 4 takes the elevated at Rector Street, and rides to his home up town. Being fond of fresh air, he frequently rides on the platform, and because he is wide of eye and open of mind and imagination he spends his traveling hours taking an interest in what he sees. The old frame house with its quaint window had appealed to him for one reason, because his boyhood had thrived on the air that wafted in with the odor of apple bloom or sharp through just such a window, heavy with the odor of apple bloom or sharp with the frost of a merry Christmas and a frozen one. Then, too, the house and its neighbors were a little cluster of the slums, such as he saw nowhere else in his busy life, for there are slums in West Third Street as wretched and as wicked as any in New York. So he glanced into the window frequently as the train rattled past, and wondered who called the dark attic closet on the other side of it a home, until, with constant speculation, fortified by never a sight of life within, he came to regard it as a deserted bit in the midst of the teeming streets.  It was quite a shock to him, therefore, when the big sign appeared in the window. A personality had suddenly invaded his desert. 

The next morning, coming down on the train. a banker friend of his asked him if he had ever noticed that queer little house around the Third-Street curve.

"How do you know about it?" demanded the broker, with a feeling that he had been divested of his proprietary interest.

“One might suppose you owned that house from your tone,” said the banker. "I've had my eye on that window long before you ever saw it." 

"Nonsense." retorted the other, and they were still discussing it when two more Wall-Street men got aboard and joined in. Both of them had peeked through the little dormer window, as they confessed. and had frequently wondered who lived inside. Before the train reached Third Street there were seven financiers exchanging notes about the place, and all seven read the sign again as they rolled by. 

"Contributions received? Why shouldn't we contribute?" demanded the banker of his companions after the curve had hid the house from their view. It was all decided in a short time. The consensus of opinion was that $15 ought to buy a very good Thanksgiving dinner, so they put in $2 apiece and drew lots to see who should pay the odd dollar. On the day before Thanksgiving they were to go up together in the train, and the man who used to be a college baseball pitcher was to toss the money, tied up in a silk handkerchief, into the window. It was the suggestion of one of the younger members of the syndicate that a note be enclosed hinting that the beneficiary, by appearing at the window at 4:30 on the day after Thanksgiving and watching for the elevated train, might have the opportunity to thank the contributors.  This, he pointed out,  would show them what the inmate of that mysterious room was. In vain, did the broker object on the ground that he didn't want his mystery spoiled. 

"Probably it's a professional beggar," he said.

"Or a frizzled old maid," suggested the banker. 

“Or a practical joke."

“I believe it's a young and beautiful maiden wrongly restrained from her liberty and the princely family estate at Hohokus by the machinations of the false and dyed-in-the-wool-(meaning the mustache) villain who is keeping her in seclusion and trying to bully her into marrying him,” asseverated the junior member. “Anyway, I think we've a right to find out.”

They met on the day before Thanksgiving and went up on the train. The ex-pitcher, who had been practicing with bean bags in his front hall, hurled the packet true and straight in at the window as the train went by. Was it with the eye of imagination that the junior member saw a glint of golden hair in the ray of light that pierced the room? The banker said it was, adding reflections as to the unwisdom of hitting the wassail bowl before dinner.

Nevertheless, this rumor added to the eagerness with which the seven awaited the time set for the solving of the mystery. On the following Friday at 4:30 the platform of the up-bound elevated train carried seven Wall-Street men who took up so much room that the guard was fain to step inside. As the train neared the curve they pressed forward. The car turned, swung, and then there was a long, low whistle from the broker, and a long, low silence from the rest. In the window, hanging by its neck, was the clean-picked skeleton of a huge turkey bearing on its mighty breastbone a placard inscribed:

The mystery was unsolved. The junior member of the syndicate, who doesn't really believe that Sherlock Holmes is dead at all, is going to advertise him to come over here and see about it.

The Buried Treasure of Baltimore

"Baltimore Sun," September 1, 1934, via Newspapers.com

Two impoverished boys accidentally finding buried treasure sounds like something from “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” or a Robert Louis Stevenson tale, but, surprisingly enough, it was a real-life saga that played out in Depression-era Baltimore, Maryland.

On August 31, 1934, 14-year-old Theodore Jones and his friend, 15-year-old Henry Grob, went to the basement of a three-story house on 132 South Eden Street.  The two young entrepreneurs planned to turn the basement into the headquarters of a boys’ club which they planned to call the "Rinky-Dinky-Doos," with an admission price of 5 cents.

In a corner of the basement, the boys began excavating a hole in which to conceal any dues they might collect.  By the time the hole was about a foot deep, they spotted something shiny.  When the boys pulled it out, they were stunned to find they had uncovered a $20 gold piece. (The equivalent of nearly $500 in 2025 currency.)

Sensibly enough, the boys kept digging, and were soon rewarded with the discovery of an old copper pot containing thousands of gold coins of various denominations.  They split the loot as equitably as they could, and headed back to their homes to figure out what to do with their sudden wealth.

The boys assumed they could simply bring the coins to the bank and cash them in, but Henry’s brother-in-law advised them to forget the idea.  He pointed out that unfortunately for them, they had found their buried treasure over a year too late:  The U.S. had come off the gold standard, which required that all gold currency be turned over to the government by May 1, 1933.  Anyone possessing more than $100 in gold coins after that date could face a whopping fine and a lengthy stay in the local prison.  However, there was a legal exception for any gold coins which had “a recognized special value to collectors.”  As their coins were obviously quite old, they could clearly fit that category.  The brother-in-law advised the boys to bring their hoard to the police, and let the law decide what they should do.

The boys obediently walked to the nearest police station and gave the sergeant at the front desk the interesting information that they wanted to give him over $7,000 in gold coins.  The lads came back a short time later with $3542 more.  The nonplussed officer, not knowing what else to do, scooped up the loot and placed it in a safe.

Naturally, the press soon got wind of this seeming rags-to-riches story and swooped down on the boys--both of them from poor working-class families--to get details.  The boys both said they would turn over their wealth to their parents--after Theodore had bought himself a new suit and a washing machine for his mother.

Unfortunately, it soon appeared that taking possession of this fortune would not be as easy as they had thought.  Unpleasant legal questions soon emerged about who, exactly, was the rightful owner of the gold.  After all, somebody had originally buried the coins.  The problem was, nobody knew who that somebody was.  The house where the gold was concealed was quite old, with many different residents over its long history.  Or could the coins have been hidden by someone who never even lived in the house?  Naturally, the publicity about the amazing find brought out a shipload of people eagerly asserting that they were the ones who had hidden the coins.  (Presumably, they had secretly buried many thousands of dollars worth in gold and just forgot about it.  Little things like that tend to slip the mind.)

Inevitably, it was decreed that the whole mess needed to go to a court of law to decide ownership.  Inevitably, that meant the boys needed to hire a good lawyer.  Inevitably, that was going to cost them.  They enlisted the services of an attorney named Henry Levin, who would receive one-third of any money the court might award them.

After a brief period spent in winnowing out the obvious frauds, the judge allowed three other parties to present their claims.  The first group consisted of two aged sisters, Elizabeth French and Mary Findlay, who owned the land the house had been built on--although not the house itself.  The home was owned by one Benjamin Kalis, who paid the sisters a monthly lease for the land.  (Kalis was not eligible to join the lawsuit, as he had only recently purchased the house after its previous owner died.)

Then there was the family of a man named Isaac Chenvin, who had lived in an apartment in the house.  (Chenvin himself died just days before the gold had been discovered.)  Chenvin had been a successful jeweler before he lost both his fortune and his mind in 1915, after which he spent the rest of his life in a sanitarium.  Despite his bankruptcy, there were persistent rumors that he had managed to hide part of his money somewhere--in the form of gold coins, perhaps?

Rounding out our merry band of claimants were relatives of a long-dead man named Andrew Saulsbury.  Saulsbury was an extremely rich man who had owned the South Eden home from 1865 until his death in 1873.  He had the very pleasant habit of handing out gold coins as little gifts, leading his hopeful descendants to assert that he must have been the one who buried the stash.

The judge in the case quickly dropped the Chenvins from the competition.  The gold coins were very old--the newest of them dated from before the Civil War--and Issac Chenvin did not emigrate to the U.S. from Russia until 1908.  Besides, there was nothing to indicate he ever had a large quantity of gold coins.

Next to go were the Saulsbury descendants.  While the late Andrew had both the means and the opportunity to bury gold coins in his basement, his family could not provide the slightest smidgen of proof that he had actually done so.  That left the two elderly sisters and the two young boys.  After studying previous court rulings and scratching his head over the matter, the judge finally relied on the august legal principle known as “finders keepers.”  Theodore Jones and Henry Grob, the court ruled, were the rightful possessors of $11,427 in gold coins.  And the old copper pot which had held them.  The sisters and the Saulsbury descendants immediately appealed the verdict, but in the meantime, it was agreed that the gold could be sold at auction.

On May 2, 1935, the gold coins were sold for $20,000.  (The equivalent of very nearly $500,000 today.)  Exactly two months later, the Maryland Court of Appeals issued a split decision in the case, meaning that the judge’s original ruling still stood.  However, the boys and their families would have to wait for their wealth, as the judge had decreed that Henry and Theodore wouldn’t get a nickel until they turned twenty-one.

Despite this depressing setback, neighbors of the boys couldn’t help noticing that both families started showing signs of mysterious prosperity.  New cars.  Nice furniture.  Stylish clothes.  Chats with real estate agents about moving to more upscale neighborhoods.  It was a puzzle.

The mystery was solved on the evening of September 2, 1935, when Theodore’s family returned home to find that they had been burglarized.  When Theodore’s stepfather, Philip Rummel, reported the robbery to police, he said that the thieves had taken $3100 in cash and $500 in gold coins.  As Rummel had spent his life in poverty, the police showed a natural interest in how he had acquired the money.  After a bit of questioning, it finally came out that the boys had never turned over all the coins they had found.  Evidently not trusting the authorities to come through for them, they had kept back a secret stash of about $10,000 worth of gold.

This little surprise sent the whole matter back to the courtroom.  The two sisters wanted a new trial, on the grounds that the boys had lied in their original testimony.  Henry and Theodore’s lawyer, Henry Levin, was also displeased, as this meant he had been cheated out of his rightful one-third share of the gold.  Who was the rightful owner of this second treasure?  

On October 2, 1935, the judge ruled that he found no reason to overturn his previous decision.  The sisters again appealed, with the Appellate Court siding with the judge.

Undaunted, the two ladies filed a fresh lawsuit claiming ownership of this second stash of gold.  In December 1937, the judge in that case sided with the boys.  After over three years of battling, the Baltimore buried treasure was finally legally theirs.

Tragically, Henry Grob never lived to see this ruling.  Earlier that year, he died of pneumonia.  His share of the fortune went to his mother, Ruth.  After court fees, Henry Levin’s cut, and inheritance taxes, she received a total of $3601.

Theodore Jones received $5000 in May 1939.  In a final surprise twist to our story, he was only nineteen when he received his fortune. For years, he had added two years to his real age, which fooled the court into thinking he was twenty-one.  After his youthful adventure, Theodore spent a quiet life as a shipyard machinist until his death in 1977.

As for the vexed question of who originally owned the gold--and why they buried it in a basement--that will never be known for sure until the Last Trumpet, when all will be revealed.  However, some historians have an intriguing theory that the gold belonged to the Knights of the Golden Circle.

The KGC was a shadowy, quasi-military organization of former Confederates, who amassed an enormous amount of money with the hope of establishing a “golden circle” of slave-owning countries in the American South, Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean.  Legend has it that the KGC hid much of their loot in various places throughout America and Canada.  The Baltimore house where Henry and Theodore found the gold was once owned by Captain John J. Mattison, a slave-trader and probable KGC member.  Andrew Saulsbury--who bought the house from his friend Mattison--was also linked to the KGC.  It is entirely possible that strictly speaking, the gold did not belong to either of these men, but to the Knights.

Henry Grob and Theodore Jones may have uncovered not just enormous wealth, but a sinister bit of American history.

Weekend Link Dump

 

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

While you read, enjoy a free concert by the Strange Company Choir.

OK, so maybe 3I/Atlas isn't that weird.

Yet another trunk murder.

A murderous madam.

A monument to a mysteriously drowned governor.

Medieval people didn't exactly share their homes with livestock.

Young Robert Louis Stevenson wasn't the most fun guy in the world.

A gang war in 1857 New York.

A child's abduction and murder in 1882 France.

The Beast of Benvarden.

Bumblebees and Morse code.

It's looking like life on Earth began a lot earlier than scientists thought.

A killer ancient comet.

Old photos of London at night.

A Georgian-era child star.

A brief history of diplomatic dining.

The murder of a "child bride."

The airport that inspires conspiracy theories.

The political importance of Colonial American coffeehouses.

A baby's paper shroud.

The tree that grew...women?

A "Hansel and Gretel" cottage in New York.

The complicated issue of sleeping fish.

Calvin Coolidge once saved a raccoon from becoming Thanksgiving dinner.

Yellowstone's tamest grizzly.

How the ancients described wind.

In search of sea serpents.

The origins of kissing.

The cat who was Louis Wain's muse.

What's inside the Moon.

That wraps it up for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll find some buried treasure.  In the meantime, here's some English folk.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

Sometimes, it's just one of those days.  The "Miami News," December 5, 1951:

As the wife of Ben Grenald told him on the telephone, it was a riot.

There was a monkey in a tree.

Grenald was at the Moderne pharmacy at 555 41st St., Miami Beach.  He owns it.

The wife, Selma, telephoned from her home at 5130 Alton Rd.

"Come on home, Ben," she said.  "This is a real riot.  You'll die."

Patrolman John Ward was called by Mrs. Grenald, too.

He was dancing around under the tree with a bunch of bananas trying to get the monkey down.  The monkey was swinging around like Tarzan.

All the kids in the neighborhood were around whooping and laughing.

That was when the Grenalds' boy, Douglas, got into the red ants.  Two-year-old Douglas screamed.

So did his sister and his little cousins and the kids from the neighborhood.

Grenald dunked him in the tub.  Then he and Mrs. Grenald and Douglas went back to watch the monkey.

That was when the house caught fire.

Smoke started pouring out the kitchen windows.  Mrs. Grenald had left a frying pan full of grease on the stove.  It set fire to the curtains and the woodwork started to burn.

Grenald finally put out the fire with salt.

The smoke made him sick.

Mrs. Grenald put all the rags they had used to clean up the mess in the washing machine.  She nursed Grenald and one of the kids opened the door of the washing machine.

That was how the house came to be flooded.

When they noticed the water it was four inches deep in the kitchen.  The monkey got in the tree about 4 in the afternoon.

The Grenalds finished soaking up the water at 1 a.m.

The maid was sick and went home.

Grenald doesn't know what became of the monkey.

I do admire a family that shows the true Strange Company spirit.