Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

The staff here at Strange Company HQ is ready for Halloween!

The light that remembers Lord Nelson.

The beatification of a murder victim.

That time they held a seance in a Toys "R" Us.

The attempts to assassinate the Duke of Wellington.

A doomed expedition to find a mythical land.

A 17th century ghost story.

A brief history of the Ark of the Covenant.

Pro tip: Faking your own death for insurance purposes rarely works out well.  Even if cobras are involved.

The era of penny dreadfuls.

A gruesome murder leads to a haunted hotel room.

Animals may have inhabited this planet far longer than we think.

So, what's the best gun for hunting werewolves?

Speaking of werewolves, Vikings were really into them.

Egyptian mummies are much older than we thought, too.

The varying accounts about how General Charles Gordon died.

Edgar Allan Poe in New York.

Insights into the "cult of the cross."

The backstory of "It was a dark and stormy night."

Never offend an undertaker.  They have their own ways of getting even.

Beautiful retouched photos of the Shackleton Expedition.

A peacetime naval disaster.

Luxury goods have been found in early medieval graves.

Teddy Roosevelt's embarrassing moment with a pitchfork.

So now you can lecture people about the difference between a cemetery and a graveyard.

18th century maritime quarantines.

Some ghostly statistics.

A.A. Milne's Hippotish.

Politics and a famous poltergeist case.

Descartes and his blasted skull.

A famous early 19th century ménage à trois.

If you want to learn how to dissect a poisonous fish so it (probably) won't kill you when you eat it, be my guest.  I'll be over by the stove fixing myself a grilled cheese.

An eccentric archaeological expedition in Jerusalem.

A brief history of tailgating.

Some of England's most haunted places.

The link between William Shakespeare and Calcutta.

The plane designed never to land.

Some fishermen may have discovered the Island of Gold.

Ohio's first serial killer.

The scandalous murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.

A look at a medieval charnel house.

When human skulls were medicinal.

A hero cat sounds the fire alarm.

Very cute 1,500 year old sandals.

The mystery of the "veiled murderess."

Why lords could be, well, "drunk as a lord."

A murderer's incredibly obtuse last words.

That's all for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a ghost's efforts to seek justice.  In the meantime, let's get Macedonian.

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

This Halloween ghost story with a twist appeared in the “Caledonian Mercury,” November 8, 1828.  (Via Newspapers.com)

A spiritual visitant, as was supposed, for some days lately afforded subject of wonderment to the natives of the port of Leith. In a house in the Kirkgate, there was heard the  most appalling and unearthly noises, succeeded by the tumbling-about of articles of furniture, after which a momentary, calm would ensue; but ere the inmates could set all to rights, the uproar would recommence with, increased vigour, yell following yell, and crash succeeding crash, till confusion was worse confounded in the devoted domicile. Friday se'en-night, being the high festival of spirits, witches, &c. (Halloween) the Leith ghost is said to have exceeded all former exploits. These cantrips, it is hardly necessary to add, occurred during the night; and when a neighbour, more venturous than wise, volunteered his service to assist in laying the goblin, he received a sound buffeting from an invisible but powerful arm. We have heard that ghostly advice was called in by the alarmed inmates, but without effect: for while two clergymen were engaged in devotions, they were assailed by a shower of missiles, one of which, a table knife, stuck into the floor close by them, but this of course, needs confirmation.  Certain it is, however, that crowds collected around the house where these doings were going on night after night  and the attention of the Police was at length directed to the subject. These guardians of the night were not to be frightened by deeds of darkness like ordinary daylight mortals; their presence soon laid the spirit, while their sagacity shortly discovered the mischievous goblin in the person of a female member of the house, who, in conjunction with a professor of the conjuring art, had been endeavouring to practice on the fears of her father, for a sinister purpose in which she and her assistant were mutually interested. She has, we are told, been sent to jail for 30 days.

Assuming this solution to the mystery is true, and this woman wasn’t being used as a scapegoat for a genuine poltergeist infestation, I'd like to know what that “sinister purpose” was.

Death in the Driveway: A Halloween Murder Mystery

"Staunton News-Leader," November 1, 1967, via Newspapers.com

The cold-blooded shooting of Dr. William Eugene Lynn is probably still the strangest unsolved murder in Rappahannock County, Virginia’s history.  What makes this seemingly completely senseless crime even more eerie is the fact that it happened on Halloween night, that traditional time for ghosts, demons, and other sinister creatures to freely walk the earth.  One has to wonder if the assassin chose the date deliberately.

54-year-old William Lynn appeared to lead an unblemished life.  He was happily married, had three well-adjusted children, and was a fine doctor.  Dr. Lynn was, in short, both well-liked and respected--a “real old-fashioned family physician,” according to a colleague. However, there was at least one person, who, for reasons still unknown to us, thought differently about the doctor.

On October 31, 1967, after an uneventful day at his Front Royal practice, Lynn and his wife Clydetta--a trained nurse who worked with him--drove home.  They arrived at about 6:30 p.m., amid near total darkness.  When Lynn rounded the curve of his driveway, he saw that his way was blocked by several large bushel baskets--some harmless holiday “trick,” they presumed.  Dr. Lynn paused the car to allow Clydetta to get out of the car and clear the path.

Clydetta had almost reached the baskets when a man suddenly appeared from behind a bush and fired a gun into the driver’s side window of Lynn’s car.  Mrs. Lynn immediately felt a sharp pain (later determined to be flying glass from the car.)  “Gene!” Clydetta cried.  “I think I’ve been shot!”

When she got closer to the car, she saw that she had not been the shooter’s target.  Her husband was slumped over the wheel, covered in blood.  Before she could do anything, Dr. Lynn’s foot slipped off the brake, sending the car rolling backwards down the driveway.  Fortunately, she was able to stop the auto before it went careening into State Route 522.  Clydetta did what she could to stop her husband’s bleeding, while blowing the horn and screaming for help from her mother and one of her daughters, who were in the house at the time.  It was all futile.  The doctor had died almost instantly.  By the time authorities arrived on the scene, the killer had plenty of opportunity to escape into the long darkness of that fall night.

This was one of those seemingly motiveless crimes that tend to baffle even the most acute detective.  Police did a searching examination of the dead man’s private life, hoping to come up with some reason why someone would assassinate him in such a particularly chilling fashion.  However, they came up empty.  William Lynn was that relative rarity in murder cases: someone who really was as nice and blameless as he seemed.  If he had a dark side, or unpleasant secrets, he kept them very well hidden indeed.

Although the Lynn case is still technically open, chances are obviously slim that his killer will ever be positively identified, let alone brought to justice.  However, a retired state police officer named Harry Will, one of the investigators of the murder, believed he had solved the mystery--to his own satisfaction, at any rate.  Many years after Lynn’s death, he told a reporter that he believed the doctor was murdered by an unnamed man who was currently serving a life sentence for a particularly vicious attack on a young woman.  Will suspected that this man had committed not only the Lynn murder, but several other unsolved slayings in the area as well.  This man had been seen in the general area of Lynn’s home, buying a box of shotgun shells.

Harry Will even believed he knew why this man had killed Lynn, and it is one of the more bizarre alleged motives on record.  Will’s suspect had originally lived in a neighboring county, but he fled after being accused of setting several fires.  He found refuge with an uncle who lived near Front Royal.  This relative not only gave him a home, but defended him, no matter what he did.  A few months before Lynn was shot, this uncle developed cancer of the penis, which necessitated a partial amputation of the organ.  Will explained, “Our suspect was a sex pervert and had voiced his opposition to having sex organs disturbed.”  Presumably, according to Will’s theory, the man took his outrage at the medical profession out on Dr. Lynn. 

As a postscript, there is a story which suggests that mere death did not mean the end of Lynn’s medical practice.  In the early 1990s, a Front Royal man was badly injured in an auto crash that put him in a coma.  Doctors did not believe he would survive.  According to Lynn’s daughter Patty--who heard the story from the patient’s mother--the man suddenly woke up and said, “I just saw Dr. Lynn and he gave me a shot.”  This man--who was only five when the doctor was murdered--described him as wearing clothing which was identical to items that Lynn wore in life.  After getting the “shot,” the man stunned everyone by fully recovering.

Perhaps the doctor wanted to save a life, to compensate for the one that had so suddenly and inexplicably been taken from him.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

This week's Link Dump is sponsored by the Strange Company Yacht Club!

Why the hell did so many Roman Emperors die violently?  Just do the math!

Afraid of witches?  We have a cake for that.

The British Army experiences some close-run things.

19th century children's book kills off an apple pie.

In which Michelangelo writes a poem crabbing about painting the Sistine Chapel.

Napoleon and suicide.

The County Clerk's office wants people to get married.

We're starting to know how little we know about ancient humans.

The days of professional scissor grinders.

The families who escaped East Germany in a hot air balloon.

The world's oldest known pet cemetery.

Eyewitness accounts of the bombing of Britain.

The legend of Mother Shipton.

In defense of George III.

A ghost in Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Two cases of girls killed by their fathers.

In which Harry Houdini gets swallowed by a sea monster.

Ancient drinking games were weird.  And, frankly, pretty unpleasant.

Speaking of weird, let's talk cereal.

Some former Air Force officers are claiming that UFOs are messing with our nukes.

The mystery of the Pakistan mummy.

The diplomat who saved people from the Nazis.

An attempted assassination of King George III.

Some little-known "audacious women."

A ghost in the post-mortem room.

Are young British women being "spiked?"

The link between two 18th century portraits.

The lore of keys.

Turning a bunch of skulls into a "contemplative experience."

The world's oldest ghost.

A 19th century cinchona plantation in India.

Was the Jacobite Earl of Mar a secret agent?

Some tips on how to avoid being buried alive.

Yes, cats can see ghosts.  I know this for a fact, because I have a ghost cat in my home, and my (live) ones see him all the time.  Hell, I saw him the other night. 

A remarkable 500 year old shipwreck.

A brief history of the werewolf.

A brief history of wartime counterfeiting.

Al Capone still has his fans, for some reason.

The evolution of Victorian fashion.

The mysterious disappearance of Masterpiece the Poodle.

Old London as seen from the air.

There's evidence suggesting that Italian sailors knew about America way before Columbus.

A double murder in Michigan.

Ancient ways of toothbrushing.

The mystery of the Barabar caves.

More on the controversy over how to put milk in tea.  And here's why the Brits put the milk in at all.

A strange plane crash in the Andes.

Some ancient Halloween traditions.

Elizabeth I and Parliament.

Why ET might be a computer.

The strange case of the Ourang Medan.

A look at the short life of Stephen Crane.

A visit to Jervaulx Abbey.

That time the Earth flipped on its side.

The most haunted places in Los Angeles County.

An elephant's tombstone.

Margaret Tudor goes to Scotland.

Italy and the Battle of Britain.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a Halloween murder mystery.  In the meantime, here's an oldie from the glory days of Stiff Records.  (Bonus points if you remember Stiff's very NSFW slogan.)

Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

On December 3, 1890, the body of a young woman named Emma Pfitzenmayer was found in the Chester, Pennsylvania home she shared with her sister and brother-in-law, Caroline and Henry Schmidt.  She had died from multiple stab wounds.  Pfitzenmayer had been killed in her bedroom shortly after attending a ball where she had been "the gayest of the gay."  The following year, Caroline Schmidt was tried for Emma’s murder.  The defense put up a vigorous argument that the girl had committed suicide, and the circumstances of her death were just murky enough for “reasonable doubt” to take center stage.   Mrs. Schmidt was acquitted, leaving Pfitzenmayer’s death unresolved.

Well, if this sequel to the case is to be believed, how she died certainly was no mystery to Emma herself.  The “Philadelphia Times,” March 9, 1892:

One of the strangest manifestations known to occult science occurred in Chester last evening in the house in which Emma Pfitzenmayer lived with her sister and brother-in-law, and where she died by violence, either self-inflicted or at the hands of others. The mystery attending her tragic death was most effectually cleared up last night, so far as occult science can do it. 

The Rumford family, who do not believe in ghosts or any kind of spiritual manifestations,and who about one year ago rented the house in which Emma Pfitzenmayer met her fate, declare that for several months past at different times various members of the family have had their attention called most unwillingly to strange manifestations and occurrences, which, though not frightening them, have caused a great deal of perplexity as to their origin or purpose.

First Joe Rumford, tho 15-year-old son of Delaware Rumford, says he saw most distinctly the forehead, eyes and a part of the nose of the departed Emma as if peeping over a chicken coop in the yard just before dusk in the evening. This strange occurrence was commented on and laughed at by the family, which consists of three generations, all living under the one roof. A short time after, as Mrs. Delaware Rumford was passing through the room in which the girl was murdered, she was seized by the arm, but could see no one, and a voice. apparently in dire distress, asked her where her white dress was. Soon after this the spirit of  Emma Pfitzenmayer appeared at irregular intervals to every member of the family except the baby. No particular attention was paid to these strange and peculiar manifestations of an apparently disembodied spirit until about two weeks ago, when Miss Mattie Rumford, the 19-year-old niece of Mrs. Rumford, on going to the room occupied by the murdered girl, was startled to see a young woman dressed in ball costume, with a wealth of blonde hair flowing over her shoulders, rummaging in her bureau drawers.

She was about to speak to the strange intruder, when the blonde turned and seeing Miss Mattie, gave a heart-piercing shriek and suddenly seemed to become enveloped in a peculiar cloud of white smoke. Miss Mattie was so overcome that she fainted and fell down the stairs and when picked up by her sister was bleeding profusely at her mouth and nose. After this strange occurrence the family assembled and discussed the strange manifestations from every possible standpoint, but no definite mode of future procedure was decided upon. 

Soon after the story was made public Mr. and Mrs. J. Jeanes, who keep a photograph gallery and stationery store next door, at 702 Edgemont avenue, and who are well-known Spiritualists, suggested that a competent clairvoyant be brought to the house and that a seance be held in the room in which the girl was murdered.

After considerable persuasion on the part of the Jeanes family it was finally agreed to adopt that course and Mrs. Phillips, wife of Dr. H. S. Phillips, who together have a suite of rooms on the first floor of the Hotel Plunkett at 510 North Eighth Street, and who claim to practice the healing art under the title of magnetic physicians, were engaged to come down and give a seance with the intention if possible of finding out why the spirit of Emma Pfitzenmayer continued to reappear in her old home to trouble the present occupants of the dwelling. 

Last evening was selected as the time to try the gruesome experiment, and what happened at the seance if not calculated to fully convince the most skeptical, was full and varied enough in its features to satisfy the most exacting. Mrs. Phillips has considerable reputation as a platform speaker, besides being considered by the fraternity of Spiritualists as a clairvoyant medium of full power and ability. On the advice of their next-door neighbor, Mr. Jeanes, a small cabinet had been made and put up in the second-story front room, which, however. Mrs. Phillips declined to use, saying she was opposed to all kinds of quackery.

Shortly after 8 o'clock fifteen persons, including the baby, assembled in the room facing the cabinet. Among the party were three patriarchal-looking old men, who have each passed the three score and ten mark. At the suggestion of the clairvoyant Delaware Rumford produced a violin and his son seated himself at the organ. Several well-known melodies were played. All enjoyed the music, but there were no manifestations until the enlivening strains of a waltz floated over the room, when suddenly Mrs. Phillips full into what she terms a trance and exclaimed: "That's It, that's it; it is the last waltz I ever danced!" Her husband, Dr. H. S. Phillips, kindly explained that Mrs. Phillips was now practically no longer herself spiritually and that her body was now actuated and dominated entirely by a spirit of some one not possessed of a living physical body.

"Oh, where is my white dress?" cried Mrs. Phillips, as she got up and walked across the room. As she tried to open the door the knob came off, when she exclaimed: "Not been fixed yet; it was always this way." Proceeding she entered the bedroom formerly occupied by the Pfitzenmayer girl and began rummaging around, all the time asking if any one knew where her white dress was. "Oh, I want my dress; I must have my white dress," and she began to cry in a most realistic manner. Soon she wended her way to the identical room where the tragedy occurred, and a series of performances there occurred that beggars description. The whole scene of the frightful tragedy was rehearsed as if by the living Emma, and if put on or assumed, was certainly artistically done and calculated to fully deceive anyone not entirely bereft of sense or feeling. 

After a time she became more calm and finally returned to the second-story front room. After a long period of silence she suddenly exclaimed: "He put it there; he hid it." 

"Hid what?" was asked by Mr. Jeanes. 

"Why, the dress.”

"Whose dress?" 

"Her dress, her ball dress, the one she wore at the ball that evening." 

"Where did he hide it?" 

"Down by the river, between the boardwalk and the water, in soft mud, and it is there now." 

Prompted by Dr. Phillips, Mr. Rumford asked why she came back to trouble the living? Her answer was, "I did not do it, I was not a bad girl. I did not murder myself and I am troubled because a cruel world has cast a most unjust blight on my character.  I did not kill myself." When asked by gentlemen present if she had ever appeared to her sister, she replied, "Yes, I saw her last week and I will her again soon, but I no longer care to look at her. She suffers worse than I suffer and her tortures are those of the damned. She drinks heavily, but it brings her no relief and when I try to speak to her she shrieks and covers her face with her hands and runs away. I have forgiven my sister, but I no longer love her. No, since the night of the ball, when she told me she would dance with Harry oftener than I and she took Harry away from me." 

"Did Harry cut your throat?" she was asked. 

"No, Harry did not do it." 

"Did you do it?" 

"No, I should not have come back to earth except to tell the world that it has done me an unjust and cruel injury to ever think so." 

After a lapse of considerable time, during which silence reigned, the medium, in the voice of the departed Emma, suddenly pointed her finger to the aperture of the cabinet and said: "She did it!  She did it! It was she who did it all! Poor Harry was asleep on the lounge at the time, and she did it. " 

All strained their eyes toward the cabinet, but to the eyes of ordinary mortals only the dark aperture was visible. After this forcible speech, in which an unseen spirit was denounced as her murderer, the supposed spirit of Emma Pfitzenmayer left the corporal body of Mrs. Phillips, and, with convulsive shudder, she regained consciousness and the seance was at an end.

Well, this was all very entertaining stuff, but just try introducing it in court.  If Caroline Schmidt did indeed murder her sister, she never paid for the crime.  Officially, at least.

A Witch Trial and a Shape-Shifting Apparition: An Obscure Bit of The Weird

The "Memoirs" of Sir John Reresby (1634-1689) contain a reference to a minor witch trial which somehow morphed into one of the oddest "ghost" sightings on record:

Leaving the public affairs for a while, at this untoward pass, I would venture to take notice of a private occurrence which made some noise at York.

The assizes being there held on the 7th of March, 1686-7, an old woman was condemned for a witch. Those who were more credulous in points of this nature than myself, conceived the evidence to be very strong against her. The boy she was said to have bewitched, fell down on a sudden before all the court, when he saw her, and would then as suddenly return to himself again, and very distinctly relate the several injuries she had done him: but in all this it was observed, the boy was free from any distortion; that he did not foam at the mouth, and that his fits did not leave him gradually, but all at once; so that, upon the whole, the judge thought it proper to reprieve her, in which he seemed to act the part of a wise man. But though such is my own private opinion, I cannot help continuing my story. One of my soldiers being upon guard about eleven in the night, at the gate of Clifford Tower, the very night after the witch was arraigned, he heard a great noise at the castle, and going to the porch, he there saw a scroll of paper creep from under the door, which, as he imagined by moonshine, turned first into the shape of a monkey, and thence assumed the form of a turkey-cock, which passed to and fro by him. Surprized at this, he went to the prison, and called the under-keeper, who came and saw the scroll dance up and down and creep under the door, where there was scarce an opening of the thickness of half a crown. This extraordinary story I had from the mouth of both the one and the other: and now leave it to be believed or disbelieved, as the reader may be inclined this way or that.

You have to admit, this is not the sort of thing that happens every day.

Weekend Link Dump

 

"The Witches' Cove," Follower of Jan Mandijn

Now that all the posts for this week have been completed, the Strange Company staff is getting ready for the weekend.

Shropshire's lesser-known ghosts.

The mystery of Easter Island writing.

A house that really let a burglar down.

It says something about Beate Uhse that being a WWII pilot was the least interesting thing about her.

A greengrocer stands trial for murder.

The biggest whiskey-drinking contest ever.  Warning: just reading about it may make you tipsy.

That time New England got hysterical about vampires.

A new film is based on a real-life medieval rape trial.

In which we learn that Winston Churchill was a firebug.

The Prince of Joinville: an artist and a sailor.

The diary of a "lumber Jill."

A murderous rag-picker.

The world's most expensive garden gnomes.

A tale of a funeral coach.

Spring-heeled Jack visits Sheffield.

An ancient luxury toilet in Jerusalem.

The myths surrounding Victorian post-mortem photography.

The Jacobean trade in peerages.

The 1920s spiritualism fad.

The Nazi-hunting femme fatales.

When Oscar Wilde was a golden boy.

The world's earliest known acrobats.

The Demon Wall of Norway.

18th century naval artists.

The shipwreck and the weird sea creature.

Nothing to see here, just some unknown Thing sending radio waves from the center of our galaxy.

On the difficulty of writing a biography of a court fool.

A triple murder in 1924 Pennsylvania.

A disappearance in the Arizona desert.

Nine surprise military attacks.

The Rational Dress Society.

The murder of "Joe the Quilter."

In which a cobra becomes a murder weapon.

There was a mass extinction about 30 million years ago, and we're only now finding out about it.

In which a woman wakes up to find she's sharing her bed with a space rock.

Isabella of Woodstock, medieval princess.

Caroline Norton fights injustice.

Five writers who predicted WWI.

Kirkstall Abbey and Shakespeare's ghost.

So, let's talk screaming skulls.

A look at an 18th century debtor's prison.

The oldest known footprints of pre-humans.

An art model turned painter.

The world's hardest cheese.

Four audacious women.

Meet the dog who just got into the Guinness World Records.

That's it for this week!  See you on Monday, when we'll look at a short, but very weird ghost story.  In the meantime, our Strange Company HQ staff is here to entertain you: