Some of the Strangest Deaths in History

Fortunate people live their lives quietly and die quietly with dignity and then are remembered fondly by their friends and families.  Fate decrees, however, that other people die unusual deaths, without dignity and sometimes violently. This is a collection of deaths which I find particularly interesting, in some cases it is because there is still doubt about the precise course of events causing the death.  In other cases I find the cause of death interesting because of the sheer banality of it.  

 Allan Pinkerton  (The First “Private Eye”)

This is a real success story but not one that is particularly well known.  Allan Pinkerton was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1819.  He was a cooper to trade and hard working.  He was interested in politics and so joined the British Chartist movement which worked for political and social reform.  His activities brought about a warrant for his arrest so he and his wife, Jean Carfrae, headed for America in 1842.  The couple settled in Chicago and then in Dundee in Kane County where he opened a cooper’s shop.  His house was a staging post in the Underground Railway passing escaped slaves north to Canada.   One day, when cutting wood on an island he came across and later captured a gang of counterfeiters.  This and other similar feats led to his appointment as Deputy Sheriff of Kane County in 1846.  His career had taken off.  He became Sheriff of Cook County, working out of Chicago.

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Then, in 1850, he left the Chicago Police and set up the Pinkerton National Detective Agency and worked on many famous cases, including the capture of the leaders of the robbery of the Adams Express Company worth $700,000 in 1866.  The business logo was a wide open eye and underneath it was the slogan “We never sleep”.  This gave rise to the phrase we all know – “Private Eye”. He thwarted a plot to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.   He developed methods that are still in use today – shadowing,  undercover work, etc.  During the Civil War he worked for the Union.  He and his operatives worked undercover as confederate soldiers and sympathizers in order to gain military intelligence; the forerunner of the US Secret Service.