The Cambridge Curse - Coincidence Or Murder

 

Street festival in Cambridge, Illinois, circa 1907 (colorized postcard)

On January 13, 1907, the Sunday Record-Herald devoted its entire front page to the mystery everyone was talking about—the Cambridge Curse. They said, “Henry County, Illinois, suffers from an epidemic of murder and suicide unequaled in any rural community in this country.”

 

The paper reported that the city had become so accustomed to the “carnival of crime” that “a murder now is not more than a two-day wonder in Cambridge. We constantly wonder what will happen next.”

 

Things had gotten so bad that people were overheard asking each other...

 

“Who next?” “What next?”

 

And history was on their side. Over the past three years, Henry County had experienced ten murders, five suicides, two attempted suicides, and a bank robbery—statistics totally out of whack for a community of 1500. 

 

What surprised the reporter even more was that the authorities could find no connection between the murders and suicides. They just happened. Finally, the paper concluded that it was nothing more than a “gruesome and unfortunate coincidence.”

 

Still, the reports were alarming...

Monticello Home of Thomas Jefferson

 

Monticello (Harper's New Monthly Magazine. July 1853)

Thomas Jefferson spent most of his adult life building Monticello, and for much of that time the place was a construction site.

The first Monticello wasn’t the one on the nickel. It was smaller, taller, and fairly plain. Jefferson moved in, married Martha Wayles Skelton, started a family, and kept building.

Then life changed.

Martha died in 1782. Jefferson went to France, where he spent five years surrounded by buildings that made his Virginia house look old-fashioned. He wandered through Paris, traveled around Europe, studied architecture, filled notebooks, and came home wanting to start over.

Monticello was pulled apart and rebuilt around him. Rooms disappeared. Others grew. The house stretched sideways. Terraces reached across the mountain. The second floor was tucked away behind windows that made the building look smaller than it was.

Then came the dome. It was one of the first domes on an American house, and it turned Monticello into something people remembered.

Jefferson kept at it.

He built his bed into a wall between his bedroom and study, and installed dumbwaiters for wine. The clock in the entrance hall had weights that dropped through holes in the floor because the wall wasn’t tall enough for them.

Avis Linnell: Murdered At The Y.W.C.A In Boston

 

Avis Linnell (Tacoma Times. December 29, 1911)

Avis Linnell was nineteen when she died at the Young Women’s Christian Association building on Warrenton Street in Boston.

She was engaged to the Reverend Clarence V. T. Richeson. After they married, the couple planned on doing missionary work in the Orient, maybe in China or India.

Clarence Virgil Thompson Richeson came from a well-to-do Virginia family. His father ran a profitable farm near Lynchburg, and his brother, Dr. Walter A. Richeson, had a thriving medical practice.

Richeson was born in 1876. When he was fourteen, he traveled to Amherst and attended high school there. After that, he moved to Carrollton, Missouri, and attended the Carrollton Academy.

A friend described him as handsome, courteous, and proud, with black hair. The Boston Globe said Richeson was a “tall, handsome, smooth-faced, and smooth-voiced man.” His voice was “soft” and “musical,” almost too much for a pretty young girl to resist.

Richeson entered William Jewell College at Liberty, Missouri, developed his oratorical skills, then cheated on an exam. A smart man would have walked away. Richeson sued the school for slander and was forced to confess. The school agreed to hush everything up if he dropped the suit, so Richeson walked away scot-free.

He moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to attend the Southern Baptist Seminary. Along the way, he did some preaching at back-country churches. 

More Than A Sportscard, Baseball Legend Honus Wagner

 

Honus Wagner. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. December 17, 1916)

Honus Wagner and the Pittsburgh Pirates faced Ty Cobb and the Detroit Tigers in the 1909 World Series. Cobb was young, fast, aggressive, and already becoming a legend. Wagner was 35 and had been terrorizing National League pitchers for more than a decade.

Wagner hit .333 in the Series, drove in six runs, and stole six bases. Cobb hit just .231. Pittsburgh won in seven games, giving Wagner the championship that capped an already remarkable career.

By then, everybody in baseball knew what Wagner could do. He’d joined the Pirates in 1900 and quickly became their biggest star, even though he didn’t look like one. Wagner was stocky and bowlegged, with huge hands and an awkward running style. But he could hit, run, field, and throw with the best of them.

He won eight National League batting titles and routinely finished above .300 during an era when runs were scarce. He could steal a base, stretch a hit, and drive the ball when the Pirates needed it. Most of his career was spent at shortstop, though he could handle almost any position.

Wagner played his final major-league game in 1917. He finished with a .328 career average, over 3,400 hits, over 1,700 RBIs, and 723 stolen bases. Nearly all of it in a Pittsburgh uniform.

When the Baseball Hall of Fame chose its first class in 1936, Wagner went in with Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Walter Johnson, and Christy Mathewson.

Today people know Wagner mainly because of his famous T206 baseball card. In his own time, though, nobody needed a card to tell them who Honus Wagner was.

German-American Brewing Company Buffalo New York

(Buffalo Illustrated Times. February 28, 1904)

(This article is from excerpted from a section on local breweries published in the Buffalo Illustrated Times. February 28, 1904)

The German-American Brewing Company's product has been an important factor in making Buffalo's beer famous. The company was incorporated under the laws of the State of New York in the year 1883 with a capital of $150,000—a sum ample to operate the immense plant and its various branches.

The officers of the company are: C. A. Strangmann, president; George Dittly, vice-president; John F. Nagel, secretary; Carl J. Weideman, treasurer.

Lake View Brewery Buffalo New York Founded By Alois Schaefer

Lake View Brewery in Buffalo New York
(Buffalo Illustrated Times. February 28, 1904)

(This article is from excerpted from a section on local breweries published in the Buffalo Illustrated Times. February 28, 1904)

A little over 40 years ago, Alois Schaefer established the Lake View Brewing Company. It was, of course a comparatively small concern at its inception. But then Buffalo was but a little city. The growth of Buffalo during the forty years covered by the history of the Lake View Brewing Company has been little short of marvelous. It may in very truth be said that the eyes of the business and industrial world of America have been upon the Queen City of the Lakes, and the nation in general has been astonished at its tremendous growth. Greater as has been the growth of Buffalo, still greater has been the expansion of the Lake View Brewing Company. It now occupies a place pre-eminent among the breweries of the electric city.

Mr. Alois Schaefer, the founder of the brewery, conducted it with gratifying success for many years or until 1885 when the active management was taken over by his son, Philip C. Schaefer, who two years later succeeded entirely to the business and has since conducted it in a way to do credit both to the original founder and to the great and growing city of which the concern is so mean a part.

The annual output of the brewery, from a comparatively small figure, has been increased until there are 80,000 barrels of the pure, fine beer put upon the market every year.

President James K. Polk And The Stealing Of The Southwest

 

President James K. Polk (Munsey's Magazine. January 1897)

James K. Polk was probably the most unsociable, drab, stick-in-the-mud ever elected president. Fun was a four-letter word in his book. Sports, drinking, dancing, and anything to do with being around people didn’t make his A-list. Instead, he was short, scholarly, lived for his work, and avoided face-to-face conversations and confrontations.

The only thing Polk had going for him was his friendship with Andrew Jackson. Jackson’s support pushed Polk into the White House. The general ensured Polk understood his presidency’s two critical goals: annexing Texas and Oregon.

Four years, a war, and several treaties later, Polk would accomplish it all.

After Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836, most of the Lone Star State’s citizens favored annexation by the United States. However, Americans weren’t as sure about the idea. President Martin Van Buren worried the move could trigger a war with Mexico. In addition, the Democrats and Whigs feared it could cause a split in Congress over slavery in the new territory. As a result, annexation was a moot point until President John Tyler raised the issue in 1844.

The Senate voted annexation down in June 1844. Tyler brought the issue before Congress again in early 1845. It passed on March 1, and Texas became a state on December 29.