Mercifully Brief – Today’s Clipping

“Was” Oswego Daily Times, June 11 1896

High Drama In Oneida!

WAS NO DOUBLE WEDDING BUT WERE WILLARD AND MARY MARRIED? Mrs. Adeline Niles Objected to Her Mary Marrying at the Same Time as Nellie, and Mary and Her Lover Went to Canastota in a Sulk Oneida, Dec 27. –Were Willard Merrill and Miss Mary Niles, well known young people of Oneida , married at Canastota

Mercifully Brief – Today’s Clipping

Who knew they get newspapers in the afterlife? This guy, apparently.

Hyde and Seek

On August 29, 1888, The Rome Semi-Weekly Citizen published an exposé of The Lion music hall/saloon, in Rome NY. The proprietors – Alderman Martin Hyde and Peter Wolff – responded by suing the Citizen for $10,000 in damages. Here is an excerpt of the Citizen’s response to the charges – in fluent legalese, with bonus

Mercifully Brief – Today’s Clipping

The old adage about “leading a horse to water” is apparently true. I claim no expertise whatsoever when it comes to horses, but doesn’t “leading” usually imply you’re in front?

“…Wait…..What…?”

“Mysterious Disappearance” “A Young Lady Gone with Charles Harrington – Foul Play Feared” With a headlines like that, you can bet the article in the Utica Weekly Herald of April 30, 1878 had my immediate attention. I got the internet shovel out. Dr. Ira D. Hopkins was a well-to-do physician as well as a deacon

Mercifully Brief – Today’s Clipping

I suppose this is why I will never be an entrepreneur. To me, this seems to be an idea not worth looking into. I mean, if it’s buried, what’s the point? If it’s not, are there really enough relatives who want to look at moldering remains to justify the investment? I’m guessing the Kickstarter failed.

A Serial Scumbag

Another Doubtful Pastor “In the Phoenix (NY) Register are the following apparently well-authenticated charges against a clergyman. In the fore part of 1877 Rev. John Foster—supposed to be the same gentleman who lectured on temperance in this place last winter, and who is at present occupying the pulpit of the Baptist Church at Gilbert Mills,

Mercifully Brief – Today’s Clipping

Holy hell, that’s harsh! No empathy here, whatsoever. “Utica rejoices in a young female laudanum drinker. Her dangerous sipping has been the cause of her near approach to the “gates ajar” several times, but a physician has saved her. Her parents should omit to summon medical aid for once, and doubtless a cure will be

Gottschalk Gets the Last Laugh.

The death of Charles F. A. “Hawkshaw ” Gottschalk was noted in the January 9, 1912 Syracuse Herald. Mr. Gottschalk, 56, died of heart disease and the Herald had this to say about him: “Mr. Gottschalk was a man of various avocations. In the yard attached to his little house in North Salina street was