Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

It's time for this week's Link Dump!

Let's dance!

A Neanderthal glue factory?

Ice Age bespoke tailoring?

Neolithic seasoned focaccia?

A banjo becomes a murder weapon.

Perkin Warbeck's attempt to claim the English throne.

Everyone around the world hears loud noises, and scientists don't have a clue.

Letters from the front lines, WWI.

An unhealthy submarine.

Winston Churchill in contemporary newspapers.

When food was used for party games.

The menu of the first Thanksgiving dinner.

The story of the Eleanor Crosses.

The last of the Cromwells.

A fossil that rewrites human history.

Mysterious lights and a Neolithic tomb.

The time-traveling watch and the fake detective.

A look at 18th century stationary trade cards.

A UFO mystery in Australia.

The somewhat complicated origins of "beyond the pale."

The tragic Hilton sisters.

A member of the Georgian-era Establishment.

Thanksgiving at the poor house.

Ancient Alexandria's anatomists.

America's first prima ballerina.

The once-influential Sogdians.

In case you've been wondering why we have toenails.

Yes, we're still trying to find the identity of D.B. Cooper.  Aaaaand...it looks like this story has already been debunked.

The mystery of the quacking New Zealand coast.

Manuscripts you won't find in the British Library.

UCLA meets a poltergeist.

An 18th century captain of the East India Company.

The markets of Old London.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a sinister WWII ghost story.  In the meantime, take it away, boys:

Newspaper Clippings of the Thanksgiving Day

I always say, what better way to spend tomorrow’s holiday than by musing on the various ways your dinner can kill you?  The “Blue-Grass Clipper,” December 10, 1903:

Be careful when you go to kill your Christmas turkey. George Whitmore was scratched by the claws of the one he was preparing for his Thanksgiving dinner. Blood poisoning ensued which resulted in his death a few days later.

This next story can be summarized in two sentences:  Mrs. Frank T. Kuhen thought she knew how to properly can asparagus.  She didn’t.

The "Spokesman-Review," December 1, 1910, via Newspapers.com

The “Daily Milwaukee News” for December 1, 1866, noted that one Thanksgiving turkey nearly accomplished a fatal revenge:

Thanksgiving dinners, like all other events with which human agency is connected, are subject to catastrophes. On Thursday a gentleman residing in the Third Ward, having returned from service at the Union Baptist church, sat down with his family to accomplish the consumption of a turkey formidable in size and desperate to the last, as the conclusion very nearly proved. Having served the remainder of the family at table, he helped himself to a generous thank offering and proceeded to consume it.

While engaged in eating he attempted to swallow a mouthful which contained a fragment of bone. The hard substance lodged in the larynx and nearly produced death by suffocation. A physician was immediately sent for, and the bone extracted by a painful operation. The sufferer is now doing well, although yesterday morning his throat was so swollen that he could hardly speak.

Another Thanksgiving feast that ended prematurely appeared in the “Cincinnati Enquirer,” November 26, 1910:

Logansport, Ind., November 25.--Contrary to the advice of her physician and relatives, Mrs. Rose Blouser, aged 69, who has been bedfast for a year, insisted on sitting up and eating Thanksgiving dinner with the family. While at the table she collapsed and died a few minutes later.

This next story carries a moral: If one of your dinner companions appears to be choking to death, do not instantly assume they are joking.  The “Times and Democrat,” December 2, 1886:

Chicago, November 27.- -A fatal accident occurred Thanksgiving evening at the Centre House on Blue Island Avenue. A number of young men there were celebrating Thanksgiving dinner when one of them. Mr. Frederick W. Charlis, a French-Canadian, accidentally swallowed a part of the breast bone of a turkey. The young man's companions, observing his distress, but considering it more assumed than real, sent one of their number for a veterinary surgeon residing in the vicinity. The surgeon promptly responded, and taking a humorous view of the situation proceeded to apply a stomach pump, to the evident amusement of all present. Fred Sawyer, a half-brother of the afflicted young man, appeared upon the scene at this stage of the proceedings, and interposed an indignant protest against the method of treatment pursued by the surgeon, and that gentleman gathered up his instruments and beat a retreat.

By this time the young man's condition became painfully apparent to his companions and a regular physician was hastily summoned, but before he arrived the young man died in the arms of his half brother.

One doctor’s involuntary contribution to medical science was reported in the “San Francisco Examiner,” December 9, 1906:

NEW YORK, December 8. Noting with professional interest every phase of his malady, Dr. Edward J. McDonough of 304 East Seventy-ninth street, died yesterday of acute indigestion, caused by injudicious eating of Thanksgiving dinner.

The physician, whose reputation, professional and charitable, was very high, ate heartily of turkey on Thursday. At 11:33 p.m. he returned to his home, and with his two sisters, with whom he lived, ate of the cold bird.  He then retired. Yesterday morning he was heard groaning. He could scarcely rise from bed.

At his request the sisters got his instrument case. Dr. McDonough diagnosed the attack, took his own temperature, and then sent for a colleague, who agreed with him that acute indigestion was the trouble. The physician bravely bore up, and until insensibility overtook him observed every symptom and reported to Dr. J. L. Wollheim, who had been called. Knowing that death was imminent, Dr. McDonough determined that his last acts should be directed toward furthering the knowledge of his profession.

After all these warnings about the dangers of eating turkey, you’re probably thinking you’ll be safe sticking to dessert, right?  Well, just to completely ruin your Thanksgiving, I present the most epic anti-holiday pie rant I have ever been privileged to read.  The “Santa Cruz Weekly Sentinel,” November 25, 1882:

Thanksgiving Day is the one national festival which is peculiarly and thoroughly American. Other nations undergo annual sufferings from noise and gunpowder which are analogous to those which are associated in our minds with Fourth of July. Christmas is the common property of the Christian world, although Russia celebrates her Christmas some weeks later than other nations, in order that Russians residing in foreign countries may obtain a double supply of Christmas presents. Thanksgiving Day, however, was the invention of the New England colonists, and though it has since been universally adopted by the American people, no other nation has imitated it. We alone express our annual gratitude by the sacrifice of turkeys, and it is, hence, greatly to be desired that the one exclusively American festival should be in all respects perfect and beyond reproach.

It is impossible to deny that in active practice our method of celebrating the day is open to one serious objection. In spite of the progress which we have made towards a higher morality than that of the last century, we still adhere, on Thanksgiving Day, to one barbarous and demoralizing ceremony. To a great extent the hot New-England rum of our forefathers is banished from our dinner-tables, but the no less deadly and demoralizing pie forms part of every Thanksgiving dinner, no matter how moral and intelligent its consumers may believe themselves to be.

The Thanksgiving array of pie is usually of so varied, as well as lavish a nature, that it seems cunningly devised to entrap even the most innocent palate. If mince-pie alone were set before a virtuous family, it is quite probable that many of its members would have the courage to turn in loathing from the deadly compound, but the Thanksgiving mince-pie is always accompanied or preceded by lighter pies, in which weak-minded persons think they can indulge without injury. The thoughtless matron—for thoughtlessness, and not deliberate wickedness, is indicated by the presence of Thanksgiving pie—urges her guests to take a little chicken-pie, assuring them that it cannot injure a child. The guest who tampers with the chicken-pie is inevitably lost. The chicken-pie crust awakens an unholy hunger for fiercer viands, and when the meats are removed, he is ready and anxious for undiluted apple or pumpkin pie. From that to mince-pie the transition is swift and easy, and in nine cases out of ten the man who attends a Thanksgiving dinner and is lured into touching chicken-pie abandons all self-restraint and delivers himself up to the thraldom of a fierce longing for strong and undisguised mince-pie. Hundreds of men and women who had emancipated themselves by a tremendous effort of the will from the dominion of pie, have backslidden at the Thanksgiving dinner, and have returned to their former degradation with a fiercer appetite than ever, and with little hope that they can find sufficient strength for a second effort towards reformation.

The chief evil of the Thanksgiving display of pie is, however, its terrible influence upon the young. It is a well-known fact, however revolting it may seem when rehearsed in cold blood, that on Thanksgiving Day many a foolish mother has herself pressed pie to the lips of her innocent offspring. To the taste thus created thousands of victims of the pie habit ascribe their ruin. It is a common spectacle on Thanksgiving evening to see scores of children, mere babes in years, writhing under the influence of pie, and making the night hideous with their outcries. Physicians can testify to the appalling results of the pie orgies in which children are thus openly encouraged to take part. The amount of drugs which is consumed by the unhappy little victims on the day following Thanksgiving Day would fill the public with horror were the exact figures to be published. How can we wonder that children who are thus tempted to acquire the taste for pie by their own parents grow up to be shameless and habitual consumers of pie! The good matron who sees a haggard and emaciated man slink into a public pie shop, and presently emerge brushing the tell-tale crumbs from his beard, shudders to think that the unhappy wretch was once as young and innocent as her own darling children. And yet that very matron will sit at the foot of a Thanksgiving table groaning with pie, and will deal out the deadly compound to her children without a thought that she is awakening in them a depraved hunger that will ultimately lead them straight to the pie shop.

All the efforts of good men and women to stay the torrent of pie which threatens to engulf our beloved country will be in vain, unless the reform is begun at the Thanksgiving dinner-table. Pie must be banished from that otherwise innocent board, or it is in vain that we try to banish it from shops, restaurants, and hotels. May we not hope for a great moral crusade which will sweep pie from every virtuous table, and unite all the friends of morality in a vigorous and persistent attack upon the great evil of the land.

I hope this post has inspired all my fellow Americans to celebrate the holiday in appropriate style.  I think we’re allowed a few peas and a glass of water.

The Disappearances of James Cole

"Idaho Statesman," August 13, 1976, via Newspapers.com

It’s generally strange enough when a person mysteriously vanishes.  But when they pull off the feat of disappearing twice…

James Thomas Cole of Boise, Idaho, seemed to have a perfectly ordinary middle-class life.  He was 24 years old, married, and a father of a small son.  Since 1970, he had been working as a warehouse foreman at Mountain States Wholesale.  He was a good worker who was liked by everyone who knew him.  In short, Cole was one of the last people you would expect to see get into some very shady business.

Just after 4 a.m. on the morning of August 12, 1976, Cole drove a semi to the Boise Fruit & Produce Company, four blocks from his workplace.  It was expected that he would then walk back to work.  Instead, at around 4:30, a co-worker, Gary Anchustegui, got a startling phone call.  It was from an unlisted number.  A “jovial” sounding man informed Anchustegui that he had kidnapped Cole, and was demanding a $200,000 ransom.  Although Anchustegui assumed the call had to be some sort of childish prank, as a precaution he phoned the night supervisor, Ivan Edney, to check if Cole was there.  He was told that Cole had left for Boise Fruit an hour previously, and had yet to return.  When 8 a.m. arrived with no sign of Cole, police were called in.  When Albertson’s Food Centers, the parent company of Mountain States, was informed of what had happened, an emergency Board of Directors meeting was called, where it was decided that the company had no choice but to pay the ransom.

Around 5 a.m. the following day, the police received a phone call from none other than James Thomas Cole.  Cole said that as he was walking back to work after delivering the semi, someone had abducted him.  He was then drugged and taken to Mission Manor Apartments in nearby Nampa.  Later that day, police arrived at the apartment building to investigate a drunk and disorderly complaint.  Their presence so unnerved his captors, they again drugged Cole, and fled.  When Cole recovered his senses, he went to the Nampa Chief Motel three blocks away, where he contacted the police.

When officers searched the apartment where Cole said he had been held, they found a brand-new Honda motorcycle, as well as a new TV and a motorcycle helmet.  Cole told them that the men who abducted him had been driving a 1972 turquoise pickup truck with a white camper shell.  This was an identical description of Cole’s own car.  Odd, that.  The “odd” factor only increased when police found out that the registered owner of the Honda motorcycle was Gary Anchustegui.  Two employees of the shop where the motorcycle was sold identified the purchaser as James Cole.

But wait, there’s more!  Around the time Cole was abducted (although by this point, everyone was probably putting scare quotes around that word,) over $1600 disappeared from the safe at Albertson Food Center.  Both Cole and Anchustegui had access to that safe.  After the two men both failed polygraph exams, Cole was arrested on August 18 and charged with attempted extortion, embezzlement, and forgery.  (The last charge was because police believed Cole had forged Anchustegui’s name on the forms to buy the motorcycle.)  Police decided that there was not enough evidence to charge Anchustegui with any crime.

Cole initially pleaded “not guilty,” but he eventually admitted guilt to extortion, in exchange for the other charges being dropped.  However, he continued to insist that he genuinely had been kidnapped.  In August 1977, Cole was sentenced to three years in prison (although he only served 30 days) and a $3,000 fine.

So far, we have nothing more than an idiotic petty con gone wrong.  But a year later, Cole’s life took another, even weirder turn.  In March 1978, Cole told people that he had been phoned by someone who claimed to know who had kidnapped him in 1976.  On March 13, Cole was seen going to a pre-arranged location where he was to meet his mysterious informant.

After that, Cole disappeared again--this time for good.  Considering that his car was found abandoned at the Boise Airport, and that he had taken out a $25,000 life insurance policy just one month before he vanished, it was generally assumed that Cole had left voluntarily, but as he was never heard from again, his fate remains unknown.  (After seven years, Cole’s wife was able to have him declared dead, and she finally collected the insurance money.  She remarried, and went on with her life.)

There is a postscript to this case, one that deals with another mysterious event.  On December 4, 1982, a man walked into the Sacred Heart Church in Boise.  He seemed to want to use the confessional, but it was already occupied, so he merely sat silently in a pew.  A few hours later, as parishioners began to gather for the 6 p.m. mass, they were stunned to find the stranger lying on the ground, dead.  It was later discovered that he had swallowed cyanide.

The man was young, dressed in Western attire.  His wallet carried no identification--just $1900 in cash and a note reading:  “In the event of my death, the enclosed currency should give more than adequate compensation for my funeral or disposal (prefer to be cremated) expenditures.  What is left over, please take this as a contribution to this church.  God will see to your honesty in this.”  The note was signed “Wm. L. Toomey.”

No record could be found for anyone by that name, and as it was also the name of a company that manufactured ceremonial clothing for priests, it was presumed the man was using a pseudonym.  Police were unable to trace any of the man’s relatives, or even anyone who knew him, so the church had no choice but to bury him under the name of "Toomey."  (The permission of relatives would have been needed to cremate him.)

There is one haunting clue that may solve the twin mysteries of the disappearance of James Cole and the identity of “William Toomey.”  In 2021, an anonymous letter was sent to the “Idaho Press" about the Toomey case.  The writer suggested “This man may be James Thomas Cole who went missing in 1978.  Compare his picture to that of ‘William Toomey’ and compare the resemblance.”

Some believe that the police sketch of “Toomey” does bear a resemblance to James Cole, and it is not implausible that after four years of being away from his old life, Cole felt he had had enough of a solitary existence.  All one can say is that if Cole was indeed “William Toomey,” he certainly paid a terrible price for his 1976 escapades.

"William Toomey"

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

This seemed like a suitably Strange Company way to anticipate Thanksgiving.

Al Capone and greyhound racing.

The Meierhoffer murder.

A plethora of American dragons.

A brief history of olive harvesting.

What it was like to be an ancient Roman gladiator.

Harvard and the body-snatchers.

How mistletoe became associated with Christmas kissing.

An art detective.

The zebra rock of Mars.

The mystery of the Bocksten Man.

A quadriplegic meets High Strangeness.

The philosopher satirized by Voltaire.

A visit to St. Botolph Without Aldgate.

An ancient Jewish kingdom in Africa.

The Capuchin catacombs.

The man who may have really been the first to circumnavigate the globe.

The earliest known "Jesus is God" inscription.

The earliest known alphabetic writing.

How Aztec Death Whistles affect your brain.

Neanderthals may have collected fossils.

The mysterious signal that preceded a massive volcano explosion.

The 1471 Siege of London.

The birth of marathon races.

Civilizations simultaneously collapsed during the Bronze Age, and we're not sure why.

A stuffed bird and an Arctic murder mystery.

More on near-death experiences.

Britain's Imperial Camel Corps.

The Earth could wind up ruled by octopuses.  They couldn't possibly do a worse job than we have, and probably a whole lot better.

The CIA and the Martians.

The life of Simon Bolivar.

The papers of a Viceroy of India.

A look at Jacobite rings.

When the Moon had water and volcanoes.

The feminist who inspired "The Wizard of Oz."

Mysterious iron structures in Australia.

The opening of New York's Fifth Avenue.

The Welch family murders.

The Law goes after Luddites.

A woman's unsolved murder.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a man who disappeared twice.  In the meantime, here's for all you fans of recorders.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This sinister little ghost story--with hints of murder and spectral vengeance thrown in--appeared in the “Garnett-Journal Plaindealer,” May 6, 1887:

New York, May 2. A New Haven, Conn., special says: Charles L. Beecher, who committed suicide Sunday, is now believed by many to have been driven to his death by a belief that he was haunted by the ghost of his wife.  The fact that he took so much pains in preparing for his death is thought to indicate that his mind had given way. He first shot his pet dog, and then seated himself in an easy chair and took aim through the medium of a hand-mirror, and put a bullet through his head. He had previously told some of his neighbors that he could not live in the house, owing to the frequent appearance of the spirit of his wife, who died about three months ago. He said her figure, increased to twice its natural size, appeared to him on the wall of his room very often.

The vision always seemed to be carrying a baby in its arms, and this, he said, was the figure of an infant that his wife had lost. Corroboration of the ghost story was given by a 16-year-old girl named Collar, who lives in the house adjoining the one occupied by Beecher. This girl, together with a servant employed in the house of L.L. Camp, nearby, went into Beecher's house one evening at his invitation to see the ghost.

Miss Collar says that a huge figure like a shadow did appear on the wall, carrying a babe in its arms. Beecher sat in his chair and pointed to the apparition, exclaiming: "There she is; there's my wife!" Miss Collar says that she ran up to the wall and slapped the vision, but when she did so it moved off to another portion of the wall, and when she repeated the slapping operation the same thing took place. The servant girl who was with her says that she, too, saw the figure. Beecher has been seen moving things out of the house of late. Some say that he did not treat his wife well toward the end of her life.

When she died one of the neighbors went to Medical Examiner White and told him the case would bear investigation, but nothing ever came of it. Beecher was once a very well-to-do boot and shoe dealer here.

The Cursed Subdivision

When you move into a new home, it’s expected that there will be one or two unpleasant surprises.  Maybe the plumbing isn’t all that it should be, or the neighbors throw a lot of noisy parties, or, oops, your couch won’t fit through the front door.  What you don’t expect to deal with are a bunch of corpses in the backyard that hold a grudge against you.  But, as you will see, such things sometimes happen.

In the early 1980s, developers completed a housing subdivision in Newport, just outside of Houston, Texas.  It was designed for upper-middle class families wanting a quiet, scenic refuge that still provided an easy commute to the big city.  Among the first people to move in were Ben and Jean Williams.  From the moment the couple settled into their home, they felt an inexplicable sense of unease, as if they were being watched by an unfriendly presence.  There also were more tangible difficulties: toilets that flushed themselves, flickering electric lights, a garage door that opened and closed on its own, and a yard that was always full of poisonous snakes.  The couple began sensing shadowy figures just beyond their peripheral vision.  Adding to the atmosphere of quiet menace was the fact that a tree in their backyard was dotted with peculiar markings--downward pointing arrows with slash marks underneath them--and the ground was covered in rectangular sinkholes.  The Williams’ neighbors told them that they were experiencing the same uncanny problems.

The source for the subdivision’s strange woes remained a mystery until 1983, when two other Newport residents, Sam and Judith Haney, began building a swimming pool in their backyard.  The excavation uncovered two very old coffins containing the remains of a man and a woman.

This disturbing discovery caused the Newport families to do a bit of detective work about their properties.  This led them to an elderly retired gravedigger named Jasper Norton.  He informed them that their neighborhood was built on top of an old cemetery called Black Hope.  Underneath their beautiful, well-maintained homes were at least sixty bodies, most of them former slaves.  Norton informed the Haneys that they had accidentally disinterred the remains of Betty and Charlie Thomas, who had died in the 1930s.

The Haneys--not knowing what else to do--decided to rebury the couple in their yard.  Unfortunately, this does not appear to have placated Mr. and Mrs. Thomas.  The Haney house was immediately plagued by some very annoyed ghosts.  The Haneys would hear spectral voices and footsteps throughout the hallways.  A clock--unplugged at the time--began to glow and shoot sparks.  One night, Judith was alone in the house when she heard the sliding glass doors open and close.  She assumed it was Sam returning from work, but when she went downstairs, nobody was there.  The next morning, she found a pair of her shoes resting on top of Betty Thomas’ grave.  Before long, the entire subdivision was facing similar supernatural menaces.  Unsurprisingly, the neighborhood became nearly deserted, with many people preferring foreclosure over phantoms.

The Williamses and the Haneys were among the few families who opted to stick it out.  They would soon regret this.  Both families began suffering inexplicable health problems.  Those ominous rectangular sinkholes kept reappearing in their yards, no matter how many times they would add dirt to them.  The disembodied footsteps continued to march through their rooms.  One night, Ben Williams saw a spectral figure floating over his sleeping wife.  When the Williams' eight-year-old granddaughter Carli visited them, she would talk to "the dead people" in her sleep.  "They don't want us here," the girl told her elders.

The Haneys sued the neighborhood’s developer for not disclosing the seemingly relevant fact that the subdivision was built over a cemetery.  The jury awarded them a settlement, but this was reversed by a judge.  The development company then counter-sued the Haneys for harassment.  The exhausted couple felt they had no choice but to declare bankruptcy and abandon their new home.   The Williamses, on the other hand, were determined to stick it out.  They too wanted to sue their developer, and were anxious to find additional evidence against the company.  When in 1987, an old-time resident of the area told them that the odd arrow marks on their tree indicated the site where two sisters had been buried, Jean got a shovel and began to dig.  Later that day, Jean’s daughter Tina, who had come by for a visit, suffered a heart attack which led to her death three days later.  She was only thirty years old.

"The Missoulian," June 9, 1991, via Newspapers.com

After this tragedy, the Williams family just wanted to get as far away from the--literally--damned house as they could.  They were convinced that moving on top of the cemetery had released “something evil.”  The couple abandoned the property and moved to Montana.  Curiously, Tina’s death appeared to mark the end of the subdivision’s haunting, leaving the remaining residents to live in peace.  Perhaps the unquiet ghosts of the old cemetery felt they had finally gotten their revenge.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Welcome to this week's Link Dump!

Or, as we like to call it here at Strange Company HQ, "The Catty News."

Faking your own death seldom works out well.

The Carbondale UFO incident.

The Manhattan alien abduction.

The education of a 15th century Italian girl.

This week in Russian Weird: One of their spy whales is on the lam!

Britain's Great UFO Hoax.

Some revolutionary spinning pebbles.

One really freaking big fungus.

Here's your chance to play 17th Century Death Roulette!

In case you're wondering how scientists spend their days, they are teaching rats to drive.

Eggs and shee-spies.

The world's first seed bank.

A goofy around-the-world hoax.

Before you hire lawyers, make sure they know which side they're on.

The whip-poor-will, omen of death.

A naked man commits some particularly gruesome murders.

Always make sure your spouse is dead before they're buried.  It would avoid embarrassing complications.

All hail the scarlet tanager!

Places where you can travel back in time.

Descriptions of Early Modern natural catastrophes.

Memories are not just in our minds.

Whaling and the 19th century cosmetics industry.

England's Vagrancy Act of 1824.

The German-Soviet talks of 1940.

The saint who just couldn't stop levitating.

A needlework sampler with an export bar.

The Spanish vs. the Incan Empire.

Restoring Bernini.

The pubs of Old London.

Geology and aerial photography.

The legendary flights of Thomas Fitzpatrick.

The origins of the word "cheeseparing."

Elephants may like practical jokes.

Do we owe life on Earth to plate tectonics?

The mystery of the bamboo wagon in the glacier.

A beach I do not recommend visiting.

A woman's five-year pregnancy.

The return of medicinal leeches.

A letter from Joan of Arc.

Was there a silver lining to the Black Death?

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at some really bad real estate.  In the meantime, here's an old English country dance tune.