huron

The Huron Indians were part of the Iroquoian people who were named Hurons by the French in the 17^th century. Hurons, meaning "boar’s head," came from the Old French hure, which referred to the male Hurons’ bristly coiffure. The name also meant "rough" and "boorish." Although the French gave them this name, the Hurons called themselves Wendat, Guyandot, or Wyandot. These names are assumed to mean "islanders" or "peninsula dwellers." This is because there territory was bounded on three sides by water. The Huron name is usually referred to those who were of importance to the Canadians. The Wyandot name specifically refers to those Hurons who moved to the southeastern area of Detroit in the United States. As a matter of fact, the city of Wyandot, Michigan has a picture of the Wyandot/Huron Indians at the entrance of the city. Living between Lake Simcoe and the southeastern corner of Georgian Bay, 20,000 to 40, 000 of these Indians lived in 18 to 25 villages. Settling between Lake Huron and Lake Ontario, these Indians were significant to both the Americans and the Canadians. 

Just like the Miami Indians, the Huron Indians were divided into numerous clans. They consisted of the Rock Clan, the Cord Clan, the Bear Clan, the Deer Clan, and the One House Lodge. The Huron Indians looked up to the Iroquois and imitated their skills in building. They built their houses with elmbark and elongated them on high grounds near rivers and springs. They also copied the ways in which the Iroquois farmed by using the same crops, such as corn, beans, squash, sunflowers, and tobacco. Corn was a primary crop that was grown by the Hurons, however later the "three sister" crops of Amerindian agriculture, which included corn, beans, and squash, were grown together as a principal food source. Even though the women were in charge of planting and farming, the men would always be responsible for the tobacco plants, and the women would be in charge of all other crops. The Hurons had so many crops, one commented on the seven thousand acres saying "it was easier to get lost in the corn field" than in the surround forest. About eighty percent of the Indians feed came from their crops. The rest went to trade with others. When in came to hunting, the Hurons used bows and arrows to shoot deer, nets to catch beaver, and traps to catch bears. During the times in which they caught bears, they would keep them alive for two years, feeding them and fattening them up so they would produce a lot of meat for the tribe. They also liked to fish in lakes and rivers. Whitefish was the most common fish they caught. Unlike the Iroquois, however, they used canoes that were made of birchbark, like those of the Algonquian tribe. The nets they used to capture beaver were made from plants called nettles. They tied stones at the ends of the nets in order to keep them down once thrown over the animal. Other weapons consisted of harpoons made of bone hooks, and tomahawks made by the Europeans. 
Some of the clothing they wore consisted of deerskin shirts, breechcloths, leggings, skirts, and moccasin shoes. During the winter when it was cold, they used fur to trap in the extra heat. The Hurons were very decorative with their clothing. They often used a lot of painted designs and would fringe the edges of their leggings, skirts, and shirts. They also would use strips of fur as additional flare. When they painted their faces, they would use vegetable and mineral dyes mixed with sunflower oil or bear fat in order to produce the colors red, black, violet, and green. 
   It is also interesting to note the ways in which they cared for their children. The Huron Indians believe that their children were the future of the tribe. Taking full advantage of this notion, the children were educated at a very young age. The boys would go out every once in a while with the men and learn how to hunt and gather food, while the girls would learn how to plant crops, store food, cook, sew, make pottery, and weave baskets and nets. When the children were babies, mothers cared a great deal for their health and made sure that they could chew and swallow their food. In order to make it easier, mothers of the tribe would chew the food first to break it down, and then give it to the infant to digest easier.
   One of the most famous things the Hurons were known for is their involvement in the fur trade. Samuel de Champlain, founder of New France, developed a close relationship with the Hurons and they became trading partners. The Hurons would trade their fur with the French for European goods. Since beaver was a highly valued fur, the Hurons would run through their river routes and portages on a regular basis in order to capture enough beaver for the Europeans. The Europeans would use beaver pelts to make hats and coats, shipping them over to Europe to disperse in other countries. 
   Finally, another interesting aspect of the Huron Indians is the way in which they celebrated dead. When a member of their tribe passes away, they hold a feast for relatives and friends. Wrapping up the corpse in furs, they would place it on top of litter inside of the village and mourn. After several days, they would move the litter to a nearby cemetery where they would build a small cabin over the corpse. Inside of the cabin, the Indians would place food, oils, tools, and presents in order to help the person be on their journey into the spiritual world. Every ten years, the Hurons held a Feast of the Dead. During this feast, people would bring remains of their dead relatives back to the village, scrapped the bones clean of any skin and rewrapped them in furs. After this was done, as a tradition they would feast, tell stories about the dead, play sporting games, and give presents to their young.

camden town murder

The Camden Town Murder John Barber The Camden Town Murder was the talk of the country in 1907. It was on the front pages of all national newspapers and became a landmark case for future murder trials. Almost one hundred years later it remains one of the most famous unsolved murder mysteries. Owing to the interest of the American crime writer Patricia Cornwell, it has now been linked with Jack the Ripper and the artist Walter Sickert. The story began in 1907 when a young prostitute known as Phyllis Dimmock was found with her throat cut in St Pauls Road, near to Kings Cross in North London on the morning of 12 September. The police arrested a young designer by the name of Robert Wood. He was the last person to have been seen with Phyllis and had sent her a postcard on which he had asked her to meet him at a local pub. Phyllis was not her real name. She was born Emily Elizabeth Dimmock (which is what I will call her) on 20 October 1884. All accounts of the case, including that of Sir David Napley, a well respected British solicitor, have given her birthplace as Walworth, South London. Thanks to the efforts of my colleague Alan Stanley this can be now discounted. Her birth certificate shows that she was born in the village of Standon, Nr Ware, Hertfordshire and that at the time of her birth her mother Sarah was resident at the Red Lion, Standon. The census of 1881 shows a Dimmock family living in Lambeth now in South London, but then in Surrey. The father William is recorded as being a photographic artist from Bermondsey, London and mother Sarah, was from Great Hadham, Hertfordshire - a mile or so from Standon. An elder brother William Maynard Dimmock was born in Codicote, Nr Stevenage also in Hertfordshire and only a sister Esther Elizabeth was actually born in Walworth. It is possible that some investigators have confused the daughters and reported Emily as being born in Walworth rather than her elder sister. In Hertfordshire guide books it is mentioned that the Bell in Standon had a carpenter's shop attached in the nineteenth century. On Emily's birth certificate William Dimmock gave his occupation as journeyman carpenter so that it is likely that the Dimmocks were lodging at the Bell, Standon, where William was working. Emily was still a young girl when she left home to work in service in East Finchley, near Barnet in Hertfordshire. In common with so many she drifted to the Kings Cross area of North London, still in 2002 a magnet for prostitutes and drug dealers. By 1905 at the age of 21, she was lodging in a house at 1 Bidborough Street, just off Euston Road close to Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross stations. It was owned by a John William Crabtree. He was a small time crook who had previous convictions for street theft and horse stealing. He was arrested on and off during the next two years on charges of running a disorderly house. Whilst a tenant of Crabtree Emily appears to have made the acquaintance of a man called 'Scottie'. The latter had intimidated Crabtree with a cut throat razor and made abusive remarks to Emily about ruining his life and the effect it would have on his parents. Crabtree, who was in prison at the time of the murder, was less than forthcoming to the police but he was the first person that acknowledged the existence in 1905 of a friend of Emily's who was young, of medium build with artistic hands. The description given by Crabtree fitted that given in court of Robert Wood. The latter always stuck to his story that the first time he had met Emily Dimmock was on 6 September 1907, two years later. In the early months of 1907 Emily was living with her common law husband, a man named Bertram Shaw. They had began life as a couple in Great College Street and moved later in the year to St Pauls Road. The latter was himself only a young man, possibly as young as 19 and had proposed to Emily that they live as husband and wife on condition that she gave up her previous employment as a prostitute. Shaw was employed by the Midland Railway as a chef on the Sheffield Express that ran between St Pancras and Sheffield. He usually left home at about 4.15pm and arrived back in London at about 11.30am the following day. He most probably first met Emily after a days work, in a bar in Euston Road. On the night of September 11/12 Bert's alibi was that he was in Sheffield and had no involvement in her murder. My own interest began following the publication of an article I had written on the Old Bedford Music Hall that once stood in Camden High Street, North London. I was contacted by Alan Stanley. He had a personal interest in the murder as his great uncle was Bertram Shaw. He mentioned Emily and Bert's address which was 29 St Pauls Road. The case has always been known as the Camden Town Murder but St Pauls Road connects St Pancras Way in the south with York Way in the north, both popular routes to Kings Cross and St Pancras stations. It is now called Agar Grove. Perhaps because the area has no specific definition the murder was ascribed to Camden Town which is the closest geographical address in popular street guides. In 1907 Bert and Emily were living as Mr and Mrs Shaw in St Pauls Road. By day Emily was a dutiful housewife; once Bert had left for work she returned to her previous calling, apparently missing the entertainment provided by the many public houses in Euston Road, particularly the Pindar of Wakefield and the Rising Sun. It was certainly in the latter on Friday 6 September 1907 that Emily met Robert Wood. Other women noted the young man with the artistic hands and when a young hawker came in offering postcards for sale Emily was eager to buy one. She enjoyed collecting postcards as much as she liked playing the piano. On this occasion Wood pulled a postcard out of his pocket which he had brought back from a holiday in Bruges and wrote on it: "Phillis darling. If it pleases you to meet me at 8.15 at the (and here he drew an artists impression of a rising sun). Yours to a cinder." He signed it Alice so as not to arouse Bert's suspicions. This postcard was to be central to the prosecution's case. It was not posted until the early hours of Sunday morning - or Monday 9 September, some two days later than when it was written. Bert was still working his night shift on the trains, innocent of Emily's deception. Emily had taken another man home for three nights, a ships cook by the name of Robert Percival Roberts. On the night of Wednesday, 11 September Roberts was in the Rising Sun with a friend named Frank Clarke expecting to meet Emily again. She was in a local pub, the Eagle which was in Great (now Royal) College Street, close to the southern end of St Pauls Road. Here too, was Robert Wood. It was the last time Emily was seen alive. On that Thursday morning of September 12, Bert's mother came to visit Emily. Alan has told me that not surprisingly Mrs Shaw strongly disapproved of Bert's relationship with Emily and had not come all the way from Northampton on a goodwill visit. The family recollects that Mrs Shaw arrived early, well before the end of Bert's shift at 11.30am. We have subsequently put the time at about 11.00am. She recounts seeing a body in Emily's rooms. Some accounts say Emily and Bert lived in the basement, others say on the first floor. It was certainly the latter and the houses are built in such a way that the first floor is at ground level. She waited for Bert to arrive home and together they went upstairs where they discovered Emily's bloodstained body. The rooms had been ransacked, her postcard collection had been scattered around the room and two of Bert's razors were quite visible by the wash bowl. Someone had cleaned their hands of blood, probably the razors as well and the towel was also stained with blood. The police soon pieced together Emily's life without Bert. The postcard had been well hidden by Emily but was eventually found by Bert and published in many national papers, including the News of the World. Wood had tried to put together an alibi for the early part of the evening of September 11 by stating that he had been with a former girl friend Ruby Young. But Ruby had read the papers and had told a friend, who had a friend in the press, and as night follows day Wood was identified by Ruby and charged. Robert Wood designed glassware for the Sand and Blast Manufacturing Company in Grays Inn Road. Possibly on their account he was represented by a solicitor well versed in criminal causes celebres. Arthur John Newton later went on to represent Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. He secured the services of Edward Marshall Hall QC. Hall was to become a master of the criminal courts, revered as a pop star would be today. His style of oratory was quite often bizarre by modern standards but at the turn of the century the criminal courts were another form of popular entertainment and the crowd followed his every word. The public gallery of the Old Bailey was filled with the great luminaries of the day; actors, writers and artists jostled for the reserved seats. The general public filled the streets outside and before them paraded some of the most defiled sections of society to give evidence in the trial of Robert William Thomas George Cavers Wood. Many of Emily's friends and acquaintances were prostitutes, pimps, brothel keepers, thieves or general low life. The prosecution made much of Wood's statement that he had known Emily for no longer than a few days in September. It was apparent that either Wood was a consummate liar or that witnesses were eager to blacken his name. Marshall Hall's cross examining was brilliant, his summing up superb but even he believed that Wood's life still hung in the balance. The cornerstone of his defence was that Wood had asked for an alibi for a time before the murder had occurred. The judge appeared to be instructing the jury to convict Wood when suddenly he stated that he did not feel the prosecution had proven their case and it was their duty to acquit the defendant. After deliberating for only fifteen minutes the jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty". The case became a landmark in English Legal History in that it was the first time since the passing of the Criminal Justice Bill of 1905 that an accused man in a murder trial was able to give evidence on his own behalf. Despite Newton's reservations Marshall Hall bowed to the opinion of his junior Wesley Orr, and had called Wood to the witness box. The latter did not appear to impress the court. He had a diffident, nonchalant even vain side to his character and spent a lot of his time sketching the court, both counsel, the judge and witnesses. In the event his life was saved but the question remains as to who did kill Emily Dimmock. At first the police suspected Bert Shaw. He had the perfect motive - jealousy. Was the young boy pushed too far by Emily's continuing deception? Even Marshall Hall tried to incriminate him in court but his alibi was watertight. He had been in Sheffield. Emily had been with many men but suspicion fell next on the ships cook, Roberts. He admitted to sleeping with Emily on three previous occasion but on the night of the murder was back in his lodgings as testified by his close friend Clarke and also his landlady. The petty crook Crabtree recalled the dark, mysterious and malicious "Scottie". His real name was never uncovered. He had been seen to have threatened Emily. Crabtree testified that he himself had been intimidated by Scottie wielding a cut throat razor and whatever reasons Scottie had for hating Emily for the damage she had done to himself and his family he had kept to himself. Crabtree also mentioned a "Scotch Bob" whom he had often seen with Emily but his real name was Robert Mackie and appeared to have an alibi for the time of the murder. He was in Scotland. The dates he gave were subsequently found to be wrong but it was never pressed by Marshall Hall and no reason given for that decision. Two men, Sharples and Harvey who saw Emily in the company of a large man in the King's Cross Area around midnight on 11/12 September were only allowed to give witness statements, although their evidence was known to the prosecution who decided against cross examining them in court. Then there was Robert Wood. He maintained throughout that his reasons for keeping his love of pubs and loose women a close secret was to protect his father who was in ill health. In the event that the testimony of Crabtree and the other prostitutes, reformed or otherwise, was true then there is no doubt that Wood had lied on oath and possibly about everything else. He was an unreliable witness. He appeared to have known Emily for far longer than the couple of days that he claimed. He admitted to writing the postcard that was found by Bert Shaw when clearing out his possessions and was later published in the national press. He denied that he sent it to arrange a meeting. Equally incriminating was the charred remains of a letter found in the grate at Emily's lodgings. Roberts testified that Emily had shown the letter to him on the morning of 11 September along with the postcard and claimed that the writing proved that the sender was the same. The letter unlike the postcard was burned, but again it was asking Emily to meet the sender at the Eagle pub that Wednesday evening. It was signed Bert but neither Roberts, Wood or the police were able to decipher the exact words when called to the witness box. The court only had the testimony of Roberts to verify the message. It must be emphasised that Roberts was also interested in saving his own neck as if Wood was proved to be innocent then he would be the next logical suspect. It is easy to understand Roberts concern. Emily was a working girl and had probably taken many men back to her rooms. Her landlady Mrs Stocks maintained that she ran a respectable guest house and was unaware of Emily's night work. It was an understandable viewpoint. She most probably turned a blind eye but in any event Emily must have become adept at secreting men in and out of her rooms without alarming her landlady, or her husband. Both apparently retired early as he rose early to work on the railway. In the event that we exclude all of the above suspects we are left with two alternatives. One is that Emily left Wood at the Eagle pub, carried on walking into Kings Cross where she met a casual punter who robbed her, then murdered her and left her for dead as he slipped out of St Pauls Road. This may account for the man seen with her by Sharples and Harvey. The second alternative is to consider Walter Sickert. For many months I was unable to decide why this case had become so famous. It was, in the order of things, just another murder of a young woman in a quiet back street of a popular residential area. Then I discovered that the Old Bailey had only just been re-opened in February 1907 by Edward V11 and the occasion marked by the granting of a knighthood to the defence counsel who appeared opposite Marshall Hall, Sir Charles Mathews QC. Cinema was still in its infancy. Television was light years away and most common people found their amusement at the music hall, the pubs or the courts. A murder trial was a great theatrical event and drew all levels of society to sit and watch the court at work. The Camden Town Murder acquired a high profile, assisted by the appearance of Marshall Hall whose star was waning following a disastrous attack on Lady Beaverbrook in 1901. It has been linked again with the crimes of Jack the Ripper. There are few, if any similarities. The line of association begins with the assumption that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. This theory has many adherents especially now that Patricia Cornwell has published her book. I am not a Ripperologist and am as open minded as the next one as to his guilt in that case. However, one aspect of the Ripper crimes has been asked many times, and answered in many ways. Why did the Ripper stop? If the Ripper was an early serial killer then why in common with many others didn't he carry on until he was caught, or if he managed to escape detection die leaving the crimes unsolved? If Sickert was the Ripper and matched the profile of a serial killer why did he suddenly stop? And why start again after 19 years? And then, if this theory is to hold water, did he apparently stop as just suddenly once again? The next link to establish is the method. I must at this point state that much of this information has been handed down verbally through the family of Bert Shaw. After the murder he moved away and lived a quiet, unassuming life in Manchester until his death in the late 1960s at his sisters home on the south coast. He had a close family and quite naturally they were reluctant to discuss what had happened to him. After all, he narrowly missed being hung himself. My colleague Alan Stanley has respectfully and slowly found out about Bert's involvement by talking to the surviving members of the family and although much is still personal the facts as related below are as near to truth as can be. The family have read most books on the murder including Napley's account and state that this is as close as can be to the actual events. Mrs Shaw, Bert's mother had been invited down by Bert and Emily in order that the latter could effect some form of reconciliation. Emily was a month short of her twenty third birthday, Bert was just nineteen and in accordance with English law would have required his parents consent to marry. Therefore Mrs Shaw's approval to their relationship was vital. Mrs Shaw travelled down to London from Northampton and arrived at St Pauls Road about 11.00am. Her claim that she saw Emily from the top of the front steps must be accepted. She tried to raise Emily and unable to do so waited downstairs with Mrs Stocks the landlady for Bert to finish his shift. When Bert arrived home they went upstairs where they found Emily. First, it is still unclear whether the door to their rooms was locked or not. If it was unlocked Mrs Shaw may well have invited herself in. Therefore it may be that the room was locked. Emily's throat had been cut and there was plenty of blood but there was no mutilation. This is a significant departure from other Ripper victims. Elizabeth Stride suffered less severe injuries than the other victims although it is generally held that the Ripper was interrupted. There was no other marks on Emily. It appeared that she had been killed whilst asleep, that her head had been raised and her throat cut from left to right. The discovery was made at about midday. By 1.30pm the body had been removed and a post mortem carried out which determined death at about 5 or 6 am. Emily had ate a meal at about 2am and the remains of a meal for two were on the table. Despite newspaper reports the family do not recall, or have not mentioned anyone else apart from the police entering the house. An artist such as Walter Sickert appearing almost out of the blue to sketch the dead body would have been an event to remember. In any event it would have taken a while for him to have walked from Mornington Crescent, along Camden High Street and through the back streets to St Pauls Road even if he had been alerted to the discovery of a body at midday. If he had arrived earlier he would have been seen by either of the two women. The final departure from the serial killings of the Ripper and that of Emily Dimmock is in the way that the murderer tried to eliminate all evidence of his being there. He had washed his hands. The razors had been cleaned. However, the room was overturned in someone's anger at not being able to find something that might incriminate him. Possibly a postcard. The Ripper took great delight in cutting open his victims and leaving body parts lying around. There was no attempt at cleaning the area. The human carnage was almost a signature. There was no evidence of this at 29 St Pauls Road. If it was the work of a serial killer then after a hiatus of nineteen years he had changed his pattern and his trademark. It seems unlikely. The murderer would have had plenty of opportunity to do as he wished. Emily was seen in Kings Cross about midnight, she ate at 2.00 so that she must have slipped indoors without awakening Mr or Mrs Stocks or any of the other lodgers sometime shortly after 1.00am. She died at the latest 6.00am so that the killer would have had almost five hours to have killed her, mutilated her body and made his escape. He had plenty of time but it would appear that he waited until the last moment, possibly after sleeping with her and waking before her, then killing her, cleaning himself and then making his escape. With the progress made in forensic science it would have been possible today to have matched the blood samples found in the room with that of Emily, Robert Wood and any other suspect. This was a luxury the police at that time did not have. The existence of blood only served to prove that the assailant had tried to clean himself before leaving. The escape route was either through the house after locking the door behind him or out through the window. Bert Shaw told the police that three keys were missing along with a variety of small personal effects so it appears that the locked door theory is more possible. In the early hours there were people about, ordinary working men on their way to work. Anyone shinning down a drainpipe was taking a huge risk. Robert MacCowan testified to having seen a man fitting Wood's description in St Pauls Road at about 5.55am. Marshall Hall was able to discredit him when Arthur Newton found a witness named William Westcott who testified to being a boxer with an awkward gait and who could have been the man MacCowan saw. The latter also remembered seeing a bobby on the beat, a common sight in 1907 but not so much in 2002, but it underlines the point made above that acting suspiciously in 1907 was liable to bring attention on yourself. Something a murderer leaving a crime scene might not attempt. Much of the discussion on Sickert's involvement rests on his paintings. He lived and worked in what is now the larger Borough of Camden and he painted a series of pictures called the Camden Town Murders, based on the Ripper victims. One entitled 'What Shall We Do for the Rent' is thought to be modelled on Emily Dimmock. She was clear of debt. Mary Kelly the last victim of the Ripper did owe rent money. Another subject for many of his paintings was the Old Bedford Music Hall in Camden High Street of which I am sure Emily must have known and visited. For most of his life Sickert lived close to the shadowy underworld that was Camden Town and that was what fascinated him, as it did Robert Wood. Sickert was living in Mornington Crescent in 1907 and could not fail to have known of Emily's murder. It was reported in the papers and facsimiles of the postcard written by Wood were printed in many of them. It most probably inspired many of his works.  A Ripperologist Article  This article originally appeared inRipperologist No. 44, December 2002.Ripperologist is the most respected Ripper periodical on the market and has garnered our highest recommendation for serious students of the case. For more information, view ourRipperologist page. Our thanks to the editor of Ripperologist for permission to reprint this article. The Camden Town Murder John Barber The Camden Town Murder was the talk of the country in 1907. It was on the front pages of all national newspapers and became a landmark case for future murder trials. Almost one hundred years later it remains one of the most famous unsolved murder mysteries. Owing to the interest of the American crime writer Patricia Cornwell, it has now been linked with Jack the Ripper and the artist Walter Sickert. The story began in 1907 when a young prostitute known as Phyllis Dimmock was found with her throat cut in St Pauls Road, near to Kings Cross in North London on the morning of 12 September. The police arrested a young designer by the name of Robert Wood. He was the last person to have been seen with Phyllis and had sent her a postcard on which he had asked her to meet him at a local pub. Phyllis was not her real name. She was born Emily Elizabeth Dimmock (which is what I will call her) on 20 October 1884. All accounts of the case, including that of Sir David Napley, a well respected British solicitor, have given her birthplace as Walworth, South London. Thanks to the efforts of my colleague Alan Stanley this can be now discounted. Her birth certificate shows that she was born in the village of Standon, Nr Ware, Hertfordshire and that at the time of her birth her mother Sarah was resident at the Red Lion, Standon. The census of 1881 shows a Dimmock family living in Lambeth now in South London, but then in Surrey. The father William is recorded as being a photographic artist from Bermondsey, London and mother Sarah, was from Great Hadham, Hertfordshire - a mile or so from Standon. An elder brother William Maynard Dimmock was born in Codicote, Nr Stevenage also in Hertfordshire and only a sister Esther Elizabeth was actually born in Walworth. It is possible that some investigators have confused the daughters and reported Emily as being born in Walworth rather than her elder sister. In Hertfordshire guide books it is mentioned that the Bell in Standon had a carpenter's shop attached in the nineteenth century. On Emily's birth certificate William Dimmock gave his occupation as journeyman carpenter so that it is likely that the Dimmocks were lodging at the Bell, Standon, where William was working. Emily was still a young girl when she left home to work in service in East Finchley, near Barnet in Hertfordshire. In common with so many she drifted to the Kings Cross area of North London, still in 2002 a magnet for prostitutes and drug dealers. By 1905 at the age of 21, she was lodging in a house at 1 Bidborough Street, just off Euston Road close to Euston, St Pancras and Kings Cross stations. It was owned by a John William Crabtree. He was a small time crook who had previous convictions for street theft and horse stealing. He was arrested on and off during the next two years on charges of running a disorderly house. Whilst a tenant of Crabtree Emily appears to have made the acquaintance of a man called 'Scottie'. The latter had intimidated Crabtree with a cut throat razor and made abusive remarks to Emily about ruining his life and the effect it would have on his parents. Crabtree, who was in prison at the time of the murder, was less than forthcoming to the police but he was the first person that acknowledged the existence in 1905 of a friend of Emily's who was young, of medium build with artistic hands. The description given by Crabtree fitted that given in court of Robert Wood. The latter always stuck to his story that the first time he had met Emily Dimmock was on 6 September 1907, two years later. In the early months of 1907 Emily was living with her common law husband, a man named Bertram Shaw. They had began life as a couple in Great College Street and moved later in the year to St Pauls Road. The latter was himself only a young man, possibly as young as 19 and had proposed to Emily that they live as husband and wife on condition that she gave up her previous employment as a prostitute. Shaw was employed by the Midland Railway as a chef on the Sheffield Express that ran between St Pancras and Sheffield. He usually left home at about 4.15pm and arrived back in London at about 11.30am the following day. He most probably first met Emily after a days work, in a bar in Euston Road. On the night of September 11/12 Bert's alibi was that he was in Sheffield and had no involvement in her murder. My own interest began following the publication of an article I had written on the Old Bedford Music Hall that once stood in Camden High Street, North London. I was contacted by Alan Stanley. He had a personal interest in the murder as his great uncle was Bertram Shaw. He mentioned Emily and Bert's address which was 29 St Pauls Road. The case has always been known as the Camden Town Murder but St Pauls Road connects St Pancras Way in the south with York Way in the north, both popular routes to Kings Cross and St Pancras stations. It is now called Agar Grove. Perhaps because the area has no specific definition the murder was ascribed to Camden Town which is the closest geographical address in popular street guides. In 1907 Bert and Emily were living as Mr and Mrs Shaw in St Pauls Road. By day Emily was a dutiful housewife; once Bert had left for work she returned to her previous calling, apparently missing the entertainment provided by the many public houses in Euston Road, particularly the Pindar of Wakefield and the Rising Sun. It was certainly in the latter on Friday 6 September 1907 that Emily met Robert Wood. Other women noted the young man with the artistic hands and when a young hawker came in offering postcards for sale Emily was eager to buy one. She enjoyed collecting postcards as much as she liked playing the piano. On this occasion Wood pulled a postcard out of his pocket which he had brought back from a holiday in Bruges and wrote on it: "Phillis darling. If it pleases you to meet me at 8.15 at the (and here he drew an artists impression of a rising sun). Yours to a cinder." He signed it Alice so as not to arouse Bert's suspicions. This postcard was to be central to the prosecution's case. It was not posted until the early hours of Sunday morning - or Monday 9 September, some two days later than when it was written. Bert was still working his night shift on the trains, innocent of Emily's deception. Emily had taken another man home for three nights, a ships cook by the name of Robert Percival Roberts. On the night of Wednesday, 11 September Roberts was in the Rising Sun with a friend named Frank Clarke expecting to meet Emily again. She was in a local pub, the Eagle which was in Great (now Royal) College Street, close to the southern end of St Pauls Road. Here too, was Robert Wood. It was the last time Emily was seen alive. On that Thursday morning of September 12, Bert's mother came to visit Emily. Alan has told me that not surprisingly Mrs Shaw strongly disapproved of Bert's relationship with Emily and had not come all the way from Northampton on a goodwill visit. The family recollects that Mrs Shaw arrived early, well before the end of Bert's shift at 11.30am. We have subsequently put the time at about 11.00am. She recounts seeing a body in Emily's rooms. Some accounts say Emily and Bert lived in the basement, others say on the first floor. It was certainly the latter and the houses are built in such a way that the first floor is at ground level. She waited for Bert to arrive home and together they went upstairs where they discovered Emily's bloodstained body. The rooms had been ransacked, her postcard collection had been scattered around the room and two of Bert's razors were quite visible by the wash bowl. Someone had cleaned their hands of blood, probably the razors as well and the towel was also stained with blood. The police soon pieced together Emily's life without Bert. The postcard had been well hidden by Emily but was eventually found by Bert and published in many national papers, including the News of the World. Wood had tried to put together an alibi for the early part of the evening of September 11 by stating that he had been with a former girl friend Ruby Young. But Ruby had read the papers and had told a friend, who had a friend in the press, and as night follows day Wood was identified by Ruby and charged. Robert Wood designed glassware for the Sand and Blast Manufacturing Company in Grays Inn Road. Possibly on their account he was represented by a solicitor well versed in criminal causes celebres. Arthur John Newton later went on to represent Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen. He secured the services of Edward Marshall Hall QC. Hall was to become a master of the criminal courts, revered as a pop star would be today. His style of oratory was quite often bizarre by modern standards but at the turn of the century the criminal courts were another form of popular entertainment and the crowd followed his every word. The public gallery of the Old Bailey was filled with the great luminaries of the day; actors, writers and artists jostled for the reserved seats. The general public filled the streets outside and before them paraded some of the most defiled sections of society to give evidence in the trial of Robert William Thomas George Cavers Wood. Many of Emily's friends and acquaintances were prostitutes, pimps, brothel keepers, thieves or general low life. The prosecution made much of Wood's statement that he had known Emily for no longer than a few days in September. It was apparent that either Wood was a consummate liar or that witnesses were eager to blacken his name. Marshall Hall's cross examining was brilliant, his summing up superb but even he believed that Wood's life still hung in the balance. The cornerstone of his defence was that Wood had asked for an alibi for a time before the murder had occurred. The judge appeared to be instructing the jury to convict Wood when suddenly he stated that he did not feel the prosecution had proven their case and it was their duty to acquit the defendant. After deliberating for only fifteen minutes the jury returned a verdict of "Not Guilty". The case became a landmark in English Legal History in that it was the first time since the passing of the Criminal Justice Bill of 1905 that an accused man in a murder trial was able to give evidence on his own behalf. Despite Newton's reservations Marshall Hall bowed to the opinion of his junior Wesley Orr, and had called Wood to the witness box. The latter did not appear to impress the court. He had a diffident, nonchalant even vain side to his character and spent a lot of his time sketching the court, both counsel, the judge and witnesses. In the event his life was saved but the question remains as to who did kill Emily Dimmock. At first the police suspected Bert Shaw. He had the perfect motive - jealousy. Was the young boy pushed too far by Emily's continuing deception? Even Marshall Hall tried to incriminate him in court but his alibi was watertight. He had been in Sheffield. Emily had been with many men but suspicion fell next on the ships cook, Roberts. He admitted to sleeping with Emily on three previous occasion but on the night of the murder was back in his lodgings as testified by his close friend Clarke and also his landlady. The petty crook Crabtree recalled the dark, mysterious and malicious "Scottie". His real name was never uncovered. He had been seen to have threatened Emily. Crabtree testified that he himself had been intimidated by Scottie wielding a cut throat razor and whatever reasons Scottie had for hating Emily for the damage she had done to himself and his family he had kept to himself. Crabtree also mentioned a "Scotch Bob" whom he had often seen with Emily but his real name was Robert Mackie and appeared to have an alibi for the time of the murder. He was in Scotland. The dates he gave were subsequently found to be wrong but it was never pressed by Marshall Hall and no reason given for that decision. Two men, Sharples and Harvey who saw Emily in the company of a large man in the King's Cross Area around midnight on 11/12 September were only allowed to give witness statements, although their evidence was known to the prosecution who decided against cross examining them in court. Then there was Robert Wood. He maintained throughout that his reasons for keeping his love of pubs and loose women a close secret was to protect his father who was in ill health. In the event that the testimony of Crabtree and the other prostitutes, reformed or otherwise, was true then there is no doubt that Wood had lied on oath and possibly about everything else. He was an unreliable witness. He appeared to have known Emily for far longer than the couple of days that he claimed. He admitted to writing the postcard that was found by Bert Shaw when clearing out his possessions and was later published in the national press. He denied that he sent it to arrange a meeting. Equally incriminating was the charred remains of a letter found in the grate at Emily's lodgings. Roberts testified that Emily had shown the letter to him on the morning of 11 September along with the postcard and claimed that the writing proved that the sender was the same. The letter unlike the postcard was burned, but again it was asking Emily to meet the sender at the Eagle pub that Wednesday evening. It was signed Bert but neither Roberts, Wood or the police were able to decipher the exact words when called to the witness box. The court only had the testimony of Roberts to verify the message. It must be emphasised that Roberts was also interested in saving his own neck as if Wood was proved to be innocent then he would be the next logical suspect. It is easy to understand Roberts concern. Emily was a working girl and had probably taken many men back to her rooms. Her landlady Mrs Stocks maintained that she ran a respectable guest house and was unaware of Emily's night work. It was an understandable viewpoint. She most probably turned a blind eye but in any event Emily must have become adept at secreting men in and out of her rooms without alarming her landlady, or her husband. Both apparently retired early as he rose early to work on the railway. In the event that we exclude all of the above suspects we are left with two alternatives. One is that Emily left Wood at the Eagle pub, carried on walking into Kings Cross where she met a casual punter who robbed her, then murdered her and left her for dead as he slipped out of St Pauls Road. This may account for the man seen with her by Sharples and Harvey. The second alternative is to consider Walter Sickert. For many months I was unable to decide why this case had become so famous. It was, in the order of things, just another murder of a young woman in a quiet back street of a popular residential area. Then I discovered that the Old Bailey had only just been re-opened in February 1907 by Edward V11 and the occasion marked by the granting of a knighthood to the defence counsel who appeared opposite Marshall Hall, Sir Charles Mathews QC. Cinema was still in its infancy. Television was light years away and most common people found their amusement at the music hall, the pubs or the courts. A murder trial was a great theatrical event and drew all levels of society to sit and watch the court at work. The Camden Town Murder acquired a high profile, assisted by the appearance of Marshall Hall whose star was waning following a disastrous attack on Lady Beaverbrook in 1901. It has been linked again with the crimes of Jack the Ripper. There are few, if any similarities. The line of association begins with the assumption that Sickert was Jack the Ripper. This theory has many adherents especially now that Patricia Cornwell has published her book. I am not a Ripperologist and am as open minded as the next one as to his guilt in that case. However, one aspect of the Ripper crimes has been asked many times, and answered in many ways. Why did the Ripper stop? If the Ripper was an early serial killer then why in common with many others didn't he carry on until he was caught, or if he managed to escape detection die leaving the crimes unsolved? If Sickert was the Ripper and matched the profile of a serial killer why did he suddenly stop? And why start again after 19 years? And then, if this theory is to hold water, did he apparently stop as just suddenly once again? The next link to establish is the method. I must at this point state that much of this information has been handed down verbally through the family of Bert Shaw. After the murder he moved away and lived a quiet, unassuming life in Manchester until his death in the late 1960s at his sisters home on the south coast. He had a close family and quite naturally they were reluctant to discuss what had happened to him. After all, he narrowly missed being hung himself. My colleague Alan Stanley has respectfully and slowly found out about Bert's involvement by talking to the surviving members of the family and although much is still personal the facts as related below are as near to truth as can be. The family have read most books on the murder including Napley's account and state that this is as close as can be to the actual events. Mrs Shaw, Bert's mother had been invited down by Bert and Emily in order that the latter could effect some form of reconciliation. Emily was a month short of her twenty third birthday, Bert was just nineteen and in accordance with English law would have required his parents consent to marry. Therefore Mrs Shaw's approval to their relationship was vital. Mrs Shaw travelled down to London from Northampton and arrived at St Pauls Road about 11.00am. Her claim that she saw Emily from the top of the front steps must be accepted. She tried to raise Emily and unable to do so waited downstairs with Mrs Stocks the landlady for Bert to finish his shift. When Bert arrived home they went upstairs where they found Emily. First, it is still unclear whether the door to their rooms was locked or not. If it was unlocked Mrs Shaw may well have invited herself in. Therefore it may be that the room was locked. Emily's throat had been cut and there was plenty of blood but there was no mutilation. This is a significant departure from other Ripper victims. Elizabeth Stride suffered less severe injuries than the other victims although it is generally held that the Ripper was interrupted. There was no other marks on Emily. It appeared that she had been killed whilst asleep, that her head had been raised and her throat cut from left to right. The discovery was made at about midday. By 1.30pm the body had been removed and a post mortem carried out which determined death at about 5 or 6 am. Emily had ate a meal at about 2am and the remains of a meal for two were on the table. Despite newspaper reports the family do not recall, or have not mentioned anyone else apart from the police entering the house. An artist such as Walter Sickert appearing almost out of the blue to sketch the dead body would have been an event to remember. In any event it would have taken a while for him to have walked from Mornington Crescent, along Camden High Street and through the back streets to St Pauls Road even if he had been alerted to the discovery of a body at midday. If he had arrived earlier he would have been seen by either of the two women. The final departure from the serial killings of the Ripper and that of Emily Dimmock is in the way that the murderer tried to eliminate all evidence of his being there. He had washed his hands. The razors had been cleaned. However, the room was overturned in someone's anger at not being able to find something that might incriminate him. Possibly a postcard. The Ripper took great delight in cutting open his victims and leaving body parts lying around. There was no attempt at cleaning the area. The human carnage was almost a signature. There was no evidence of this at 29 St Pauls Road. If it was the work of a serial killer then after a hiatus of nineteen years he had changed his pattern and his trademark. It seems unlikely. The murderer would have had plenty of opportunity to do as he wished. Emily was seen in Kings Cross about midnight, she ate at 2.00 so that she must have slipped indoors without awakening Mr or Mrs Stocks or any of the other lodgers sometime shortly after 1.00am. She died at the latest 6.00am so that the killer would have had almost five hours to have killed her, mutilated her body and made his escape. He had plenty of time but it would appear that he waited until the last moment, possibly after sleeping with her and waking before her, then killing her, cleaning himself and then making his escape. With the progress made in forensic science it would have been possible today to have matched the blood samples found in the room with that of Emily, Robert Wood and any other suspect. This was a luxury the police at that time did not have. The existence of blood only served to prove that the assailant had tried to clean himself before leaving. The escape route was either through the house after locking the door behind him or out through the window. Bert Shaw told the police that three keys were missing along with a variety of small personal effects so it appears that the locked door theory is more possible. In the early hours there were people about, ordinary working men on their way to work. Anyone shinning down a drainpipe was taking a huge risk. Robert MacCowan testified to having seen a man fitting Wood's description in St Pauls Road at about 5.55am. Marshall Hall was able to discredit him when Arthur Newton found a witness named William Westcott who testified to being a boxer with an awkward gait and who could have been the man MacCowan saw. The latter also remembered seeing a bobby on the beat, a common sight in 1907 but not so much in 2002, but it underlines the point made above that acting suspiciously in 1907 was liable to bring attention on yourself. Something a murderer leaving a crime scene might not attempt. Much of the discussion on Sickert's involvement rests on his paintings. He lived and worked in what is now the larger Borough of Camden and he painted a series of pictures called the Camden Town Murders, based on the Ripper victims. One entitled 'What Shall We Do for the Rent' is thought to be modelled on Emily Dimmock. She was clear of debt. Mary Kelly the last victim of the Ripper did owe rent money. Another subject for many of his paintings was the Old Bedford Music Hall in Camden High Street of which I am sure Emily must have known and visited. For most of his life Sickert lived close to the shadowy underworld that was Camden Town and that was what fascinated him, as it did Robert Wood. Sickert was living in Mornington Crescent in 1907 and could not fail to have known of Emily's murder. It was reported in the papers and facsimiles of the postcard written by Wood were printed in many of them. It most probably inspired many of his works. Much of my correspondence with Alan Stanley occurred before we had learned of the publication of Patricia Cornwell's book. The name of Walter Sickert never arose in our talks, nor was it mentioned by any of his family. In David Napley's account of the trial there is no mention of Sickert either by the author or from any of the witness statements. I read Melvyn FaircloughÕs conspiracy theory in Ripper and the Royals and he mentions the involvement of the solicitor Newton in the Cleveland Street scandal. It is a strange co-incidence that nineteen years later the names of Newton and Sickert are linked again. One the representative of Robert Wood and the other a suspect. It is a teasing piece of information. As a final byword my parents moved into 10 Agar Grove (as St Pauls Road is now) when they married in 1940. My mother died last year at the age of 91 having lived in Camden Town most of her life. It is odd that she never mentioned the Camden Town Murder at all, nor did she talk of Walter Sickert. My father who was a true cockney having been born and bred in Hoxton knew all about the Ripper theories, but he never mentioned Sickert either. I believe that the Camden Town Murder must remain a mystery. It is a sad, sorry affair of a young woman drawn to the bright lights who met a brutal end. It is unlikely that she was the victim of a serial killer, or of Jack the Ripper be he Walter Sickert or not. It is more likely that she was the victim of a jealous lover or a man enraged. It is perhaps ironic that the last word must be Emily's. Her death certificate states as cause of death: "loss of blood from injuries to throat inflicted with some sharp instrument. Wilful murder against Robert William Thomas George Cavers Wood." Much of my correspondence with Alan Stanley occurred before we had learned of the publication of Patricia Cornwell's book. The name of Walter Sickert never arose in our talks, nor was it mentioned by any of his family. In David Napley's account of the trial there is no mention of Sickert either by the author or from any of the witness statements. I read Melvyn FaircloughÕs conspiracy theory in Ripper and the Royals and he mentions the involvement of the solicitor Newton in the Cleveland Street scandal. It is a strange co-incidence that nineteen years later the names of Newton and Sickert are linked again. One the representative of Robert Wood and the other a suspect. It is a teasing piece of information. As a final byword my parents moved into 10 Agar Grove (as St Pauls Road is now) when they married in 1940. My mother died last year at the age of 91 having lived in Camden Town most of her life. It is odd that she never mentioned the Camden Town Murder at all, nor did she talk of Walter Sickert. My father who was a true cockney having been born and bred in Hoxton knew all about the Ripper theories, but he never mentioned Sickert either. I believe that the Camden Town Murder must remain a mystery. It is a sad, sorry affair of a young woman drawn to the bright lights who met a brutal end. It is unlikely that she was the victim of a serial killer, or of Jack the Ripper be he Walter Sickert or not. It is more likely that she was the victim of a jealous lover or a man enraged . It is perhaps ironic that the last word must be Emily's. Her death certificate states as cause of death: "loss of blood from injuries to throat inflicted with some sharp instrument. Wilful murder against Robert William Thomas George Cavers Wood."

napoleonics in plastic

THE LAST BLOOD OF THE CONFEDERACY

Ode to the Confederate Dead
by Allen Tate
Row after row with strict impunity The headstones yield their names to the element, The wind whirrs without recollection; In the riven troughs the splayed leaves Pile up, of nature the casual sacrament To the seasonal eternity of death; Then driven by the fierce scrutiny Of heaven to their election in the vast breath, They sough the rumour of mortality. Autumn is desolation in the plot Of a thousand acres where these memories grow From the inexhaustible bodies that are not Dead, but feed the grass row after rich row. Think of the autumns that have come and gone!-- Ambitious November with the humors of the year, With a particular zeal for every slab, Staining the uncomfortable angels that rot On the slabs, a wing chipped here, an arm there: The brute curiosity of an angel's stare Turns you, like them, to stone, Transforms the heaving air Till plunged to a heavier world below You shift your sea-space blindly Heaving, turning like the blind crab. Dazed by the wind, only the wind The leaves flying, plunge You know who have waited by the wall The twilight certainty of an animal, Those midnight restitutions of the blood You know--the immitigable pines, the smoky frieze Of the sky, the sudden call: you know the rage, The cold pool left by the mounting flood, Of muted Zeno and Parmenides. You who have waited for the angry resolution Of those desires that should be yours tomorrow, You know the unimportant shrift of death And praise the vision And praise the arrogant circumstance Of those who fall Rank upon rank, hurried beyond decision-- Here by the sagging gate, stopped by the wall. Seeing, seeing only the leaves Flying, plunge and expire Turn your eyes to the immoderate past, Turn to the inscrutable infantry rising Demons out of the earth they will not last. Stonewall, Stonewall, and the sunken fields of hemp, Shiloh, Antietam, Malvern Hill, Bull Run. Lost in that orient of the thick and fast You will curse the setting sun. Cursing only the leaves crying Like an old man in a storm You hear the shout, the crazy hemlocks point With troubled fingers to the silence which Smothers you, a mummy, in time. The hound bitch Toothless and dying, in a musty cellar Hears the wind only. Now that the salt of their blood Stiffens the saltier oblivion of the sea, Seals the malignant purity of the flood, What shall we who count our days and bow Our heads with a commemorial woe In the ribboned coats of grim felicity, What shall we say of the bones, unclean, Whose verdurous anonymity will grow? The ragged arms, the ragged heads and eyes Lost in these acres of the insane green? The gray lean spiders come, they come and go; In a tangle of willows without light The singular screech-owl's tight Invisible lyric seeds the mind With the furious murmur of their chivalry. We shall say only the leaves Flying, plunge and expire We shall say only the leaves whispering In the improbable mist of nightfall That flies on multiple wing: Night is the beginning and the end And in between the ends of distraction Waits mute speculation, the patient curse That stones the eyes, or like the jaguar leaps For his own image in a jungle pool, his victim. What shall we say who have knowledge Carried to the heart? Shall we take the act To the grave? Shall we, more hopeful, set up the grave In the house? The ravenous grave? Leave now The shut gate and the decomposing wall: The gentle serpent, green in the mulberry bush, Riots with his tongue through the hush-- Sentinel of the grave who counts us all! In 1899, John Orley Allen Tate was born in Winchester, Clarke County, Kentucky. He attended Vanderbilt University and graduated magna cum laude in 1922. He married the novelist Caroline Gordon in 1924. Tate was a founding editor of The Fugitive, a magazine of verse published out of Nashville, Tennessee, from 1922 to 1925. The magazine was named for theFugitives, a group of Southern poets which included Tate and several of his colleagues from Vanderbilt, including John Crowe Ransom,Robert Penn Warren, Donald Davidson, and Merrill Moore. The Fugitives were practitioners and defenders of formal technique in poetry and were preoccupied with the defending the traditional values of the agrarian South against the effects of urban industrialization. Tate published his first book of poems, Mr. Pope and Other Poems, in 1928. His early work reflects the influence by Baudelaire, Corbière, Edwin Arlington Robinson, and Ezra Pound. In 1922, Tate read T. S. Eliot and discovered a kindred spirit. He admired Eliot's adherence to literary tradition and found Eliot's social and political concerns were similar to his own. Tate taught at several colleges and universities and was editor of The Sewanee Reviewfrom 1944 to 1947. He had a great influence not only as a critic but as a mentor to such younger poets as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Randall Jarrell. From 1951 until his retirement he was a professor of English at the University of Minnesota. He died in 1979.

atlantic self firing robot

DEADWOOD

 the settlement of Deadwood began in the 1870s and has been described as illegal, since it lay within the territory granted toNative Americans in the 1868 Treaty of Laramie.  treaty had guaranteed ownership of the Black Hills to the Lakota people, and disputes over the Hills are ongoing, having reached the United States Supreme Court on several occasions. 

hickock

However, in 1874, Colonel George Armstrong Custer led an expedition into the Hills  announced the discovery of gold on French Creek near present-day Custer, South Dakota. Custer's announcement triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush  gave rise to the lawless town of Deadwood, which quickly reached a population of around 5,000.

In early 1876, frontiersman Charlie Utter and his brother Steve led a wagon train to Deadwood containing what were deemed to be needed commodities to bolster business. The wagon train brought gamblers and prostitutes, resulting in the establishment of profitable ventures. Demand for women was high, and the business of prostitution proved to have a good market. MadamDora DuFran would eventually become the most profitable brothel owner in Deadwood, closely followed by Madam Mollie Johnson. Businessman Tom Miller opened the Bella Union Saloon in September of that year.

The town attained notoriety for the murder of Wild Bill Hickok, and Mount Moriah Cemetery remains the final resting place of Hickok and Calamity Jane, as well as slightly less notable figures such as Seth Bullock. Deadwood became known for its wild and almost lawless reputation, during which time murder was common, and punishment for murders not always fair and impartial. Hickok's murderer, Jack McCall, was prosecuted twice, despite the U.S. Constitution's prohibition against double jeopardy, because of a ruling that Deadwood was an illegal town in Indian Territory and thus lacked the jurisdiction to prosecute or acquit McCall. This decision moved McCall's trial to a Dakota Territory court ("Indian Court"), where he was found guilty of murder and hanged.

Another saloon was the Gem Variety Theater, opened April 7, 1877 by Al Swearengen who also controlled the opium trade in the town. The saloon was destroyed by a fire and rebuilt in 1879. It burned down again in 1899, causing Swearengen to leave the town.

As the economy changed from gold rush to steady mining, Deadwood lost its rough and rowdy character and settled down into a prosperous town. In 1876, a smallpox epidemic swept through the camp with so many falling ill that tents were erected to quarantine the stricken. On December 13, 1959, the ABC/Warner Brothers western television series Colt .45 aired the episode "Calamaity", a dramatization of the event. Dody Heath was cast as Calamity Jane and Joan Taylor as a woman doctor, Ellen McGraw. In the story line, series character Christopher Colt, played by Wayde Preston, hires Calamity Jane to drive the stagecoach containing Dr. McGraw and the vaccine needed to fight the epidemic. Colt is at first unsure if Calamity can handle the job because miners and Indians seek to steal the valuable medication.

In 1876, General George Crook pursued the Sioux Indians from the Battle of Little Big Horn on an expedition that ended in Deadwood and is known as the Horsemeat March. The Horsemeat March of 1876, also known as the Starvation March, was a military expedition led by General George Crook in pursuit of a band of Sioux fleeing General Custer's  at the Battle of Little Big Horn. In September, after the battle of Slim Buttes, the Sioux burned the grass behind them, and the American cavalry traveled with reduced rations to allow faster pursuit. As a result, the cavalry had no food for men or horses, and the soldiers eventually had to shoot and eat their horses as they became lame or injured. The Horsemeat March ended in Deadwood, South Dakota. Many of the cavalrymen were said to have gone insane as a result of the march. Homestake Mine in nearby Lead was established in 1877. For years, it was the longest continuously operating gold mine in the United States. It is now open to tourists.

On September 26, 1879, a fire devastated Deadwood, destroyed more than three hundred buildings, and consumed the belongings of many inhabitants. Many of the newly impoverished left town to start again elsewhere without the opportunities of rich untapped veins of ore that characterized the early days of Deadwood.

A narrow-gauge railroad,  Deadwood Central Railroad, was founded by Deadwood resident J.K.P. Miller and his associates in 1888, in order to serve their mining interests in the Black Hills. The railroad was purchased by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad in 1893. A portion of the railroad between Deadwood  Lead was electrified in 1902 for operation as an interurbanpassenger system, which operated until 1924. The railroad was abandoned in 1930, apart from a portion from Kirk to Fantail Junction, which was converted to standard gauge. The remaining section was abandoned by the successor Burlington Northern Railroad in 1984.

Some of the other early town residents and frequent visitors included Al Swearengen, E. B. Farnum, Charlie Utter, Sol Star, Martha Bullock, A. W. Merrick, Samuel Fields, Calamity Jane, Dr. Valentine McGillycuddy, the Reverend Henry Weston Smith, and Wild Bill Hickok.

Another major fire in September 1959 came close to destroying the town. About 4,500 square miles (12,000 km²) were burned and an evacuation order was issued. Nearly 3,600 volunteer and professional firefighters, including personnel from the Homestake Mineand Ellsworth Air Force Base, worked to contain the fire, which resulted in a major regional economic downturn.

The entire town was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1961. However, the town underwent additional decline and financial stresses during the next two decades.Interstate 90 bypassed it in 1964 and its  were shut down after a 1980 raid. A fire in December 1987 destroyed the historic Syndicate Building and a neighboring structure. The fire spurred the "Deadwood Experiment", in which gambling was tested as a means of revitalizing a city center.At the time, gambling was legal only in the state of Nevada and in Atlantic City.

Deadwood was the first small community in the U.S. to seek legal gambling revenues as a way of maintaining local historic qualities. Gambling was legalized in Deadwood in 1989 and immediately brought significant new revenues and development.The pressure of development may have an effect on the historical integrity of the landmark district.

The gold rush attracted Chinese immigrants to the area. Their population peaked at 250. A few engaged in mining; most worked in service enterprises. A quarter arose on Main Street, encouraged by the lack of restrictions on foreign property ownership in Dakota Territory and a relatively high level of tolerance. Wong Fee Lee arrived in Deadwood in 1876 and became a leading merchant.  was a community leader among the Chinese Americans until his death in 1921.

The quarter's residents also included African-Americans and Americans of European extractionstate sponsored an archeological dig in the area during the 2000s..

In the summer, there are numerous trails for hiking, mountain biking, and horse back riding.  northern end of the George S. Mickelson Trail starts in Deadwood and runs south through the Black Hills to Edgemont. Several man made lakes, including Sheridan Lake, provide fishing and swimming. Spearfish Canyon to the north has many places to rock climb. In early June the Mickelson Trail Marathon and 5K, as well as accompanying races for children, are held.

During the winter there are two ski areas just a few miles outside of nearby Lead, SD – Terry Peak and Deer Mountain.

"The Midnight Star" casino in Deadwood is owned by American film actor Kevin Costner. International versions of many of his films' posters line its walls.

Deadwood's climate varies considerably from the rest of the state and surrounding areas. While most of the state receives less than 15 inches of precipitation per year, annual precipitation amounts in the Lead-Deadwood area reach nearly 30 inches. Most of these 30 inches fall in the winter as snow, although snow can occur as early as September and last until late May. Spring is brief and is characterized by large wet snow storms and periods of rain