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The Moon Ghost

Long time no blog! I came back for the best time of year, spooky season, for at least one more ghost story. While I was in between working on some other projects and spinning my wheels, I went on an exploratory mission in Virginia Chronicle to see what new things might be worth sharing. I came across mention of a Moon ghost that seemed like a poltergeist, and of course I went off to investigate.  The most extensive coverage of the ghost took place in the Scottsville Register, which does not appear to have been digitized yet in Virginia Chronicle. The accounts, however, were of enough interest other papers reprinted the Scottsville coverage, with varying degrees of credulity. Until the Register is fully available, here's what I could find: The Location The haunting occurred at a farm called Church Hill near Scottsville, owned by the Moon family. It was situated "[t]welve miles southeast of the city of Charlottesville, near the road leading to the town of Scottsville, on the sum...
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Halloween Harvest Art Pack

I slipped one last Halloween-adjacent pack into the shop this week! This is predominantly a simple line art pack, with many images pulled from an image scavenger hunt page for children circa 1919.  A divider bar from the pack, featuring three black cats and mice. This pack also includes of my favorite full page magazine covers I had seen from The Pacific Printer, a trade magazine for printers, publishers, and editors. Their November 1916 edition featured very organic, almost psychedelic pumpkins. I have removed the text, so now the page is more adaptable - it would be a fun greeting card cover or one-page invitation form, especially when paired with an Art Nouveau or 1960s style sinuous font. A completed teaser image for this pack, featuring a frog, rat, two spiderwebs, and a gnome tickling the leaves off a tree.   You can snag your pack at Ko-fi starting at $2!
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Thanksgiving Feast Artwork

While I missed Canada's Thanksgiving this year, this next pack of 20 PNGs should give the US friends plenty of time to design invitations, place settings, or greeting cards. A turkey bears an invitation to Thanksgiving, suggested as a place card for the Thanksgiving table, circa 1919. This batch is a mixed bag from different artists and time periods, and even publications. The oldest images are circa 1869, sourced from newspaper "specimen books" to show off typefaces and ornaments. About half of the images are from homemaking magazines like Good Housekeeping, either as illustrations to stories or as divider bars or section titles. The three hand-lettered versions of the word "Thanksgiving" were all part of a school workbook, showing examples of classroom activities around 1920. A few images in this batch were even sourced from a sales book for pottery! I selected this batch to focus more on the people, food and cooking aspects of Thanksgiving; if this doesn'...
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Halloween Creatures Clip Art, 1919-1921

Long time no post! I've been busy on the art side of things this summer, and after getting burned out on researching the Little family, I decided to revive one of the things I love doing this fall: harvesting art that's fallen into the public domain and sharing it. Like my previous clip art post , I'm happy to share a new batch of images sourced from several magazines around 1919 to 1921. This set primarily features "grotesques" designed by Louise D. Tessin for use on "Hallowe'en programs and invitations." While there was a high focus on black cats and owls, it also contains witches, a dog, a moon, jack-o'-lanterns, and a grumpy person shooing away bats. A sample of the basic art in the pack with some minor edits to repair a malformed face. Her ink and watercolor art was printed in grayscale with some heavy paper textures, an inconsistently-lit scan, and a few original images show errors we'd likely think of as "AI problems" - six ...
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Eyes of Brown and Blue

After our lengthy visit to Clarke County, it seems fitting to take a short break with some poetry, this time printed in the Staunton Spectator, 29 August 1894 . The poem appears to have been written quite some time before it made its way to Staunton, with the earliest sighting found to date being in 1860 in the New York Saturday Press .  Unfortunately, the author's name has been anonymized with very common initials and a plain last name, and we've been unable to track down this poem printed in another location to help us hone in on the complete name for more in-depth research. This means we've also been unable to find any other examples of this poet's work, so at the end of the day we'll have to consider this still a case of "author unknown" despite being signed. Like our earlier Valentine stories, this poem should be out of copyright in the US, so the entire poem is reprinted here. Enjoy this glimpse of the 19th century! EYES OF BROWN AND BLUE.  Out of ...
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A Fratricide in Clarke County: Part Four

If you're just joining us on this long and twisting tale, you can catch up with Part One , Part Two , and Part Three . Today's entry should be our final entry into the saga of the Little family, and it will not have any detailed medical testimony (just in case you're squeamish). To quickly recap where we left off, the first trial for Lycurgus Little was held over two weeks in October of 1873 in Berryville, with Judge Turner presiding. At the end, Lycurgus was deemed guilty of second degree murder. Lycurgus' Sentencing The sentence was proclaimed on the following Saturday, around 3 PM. Lycurgus was said to be pale but composed, "though a few tears were shed." According to the Winchester News : Judge Turner then proceeded to pronounce the sentence of the court, in conformity with the decision of the jury. When the Judge mentioned the term of imprisonment, the prisoner interrupted him by asking. “How long, Judge?" “Fourteen years,” replied the Judge; “bu...
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A Fraticide in Clarke County: Part Three

If you're just joining us for the first time, you can catch up on Part One and Part Two before diving in. Since it's been about a month since our last post, let's quickly recap where we are in this story. After initially being on board with a punishment for Oscar and Lycurgus in the death of Clinton, the other Little family members, seemingly spearheaded by Columbus' press tour in Washington D.C., wanted to back off and drop the case. However, the indictment was deemed a "true bill" at the July court session, and the trial was scheduled for the October term. Columbus' press tour caused some feuds between the Richmond Enquirer and the Winchester and Clarke papers, but by the end of the summer, it seemed the press had largely come to acknowledge that the original statement and reporting in the Winchester papers was accurate. The state and the prisoners both secured all-star law teams.  As this section of the story is heavy on medical testimony from the doc...
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