Over the weekend, I purchased an old mugshot, dated January 1900. I had no idea who George Seymour was when I bought it and found, to my surprise, he was once one of the most famous criminals in the country. If we begin with his arrest in Pittsburg in January 1900, we can assume this was … More The Notorious George Seymour
Augustus Sherman was 27 years old in 1892, when he was hired by the Bureau of Immigration as a clerk at Ellis Island. The small island in the New York Harbor was the first American destination of millions of immigrants from all over the world, who had left their old lives behind to start over … More A Beautiful and Mysterious Legacy
On the afternoon of October 22, 1895, Guillaume-Marie Pellerin, the engineer of the Granville–Paris Express train, was irritable. He was behind schedule, though it was anyone’s guess why, since the train left Granville at 8:45 a.m., its usual time. Pellerin hated to be late. The speed of steam locomotive No. 721 may have been slowed by its cargo. … More The Montparnasse Derailment
