Thursday, April 28, 2011

Spring Festival this Saturday!

Visit the Louisiana Boardwalk this Saturday, April 30, from 9am - 1pm for Bossier Parish Library's Spring Festival! There will be something for everyone: games, crafts, face painting, performers, Build-a-Bear mascot, technology, Bossier history, water safety, railroad safety, door prizes - fun for the whole family!

The History booth will feature photos and information about the steamboat era along the Red River. We will also help you make your very own "Steamboat in a Cup" craft to bring home!

The festival will be under the Texas Street Bridge and it's FREE! Hope to see you there!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Talley murder

We've spent some time digging deeper into the newspaper account of Elias O'Neil's murder in Shreveport. Martin Talley, Jr. shot O'Neil in April of 1871, an act of retribution for O'Neil's murder of Fred Talley, Martin's father. Fred Talley's murder occurred just 8 months earlier, in August of 1870.

Fred Talley has a violent history of his own, with the Ouachita Telegraph reporting on Talley's killing of EB Huff in November of 1866. "The difficulty originated at a gaming table." Fred Talley had nine children, but his third daughter, Lou, died at age 9 on August 10, 1870, just 7 days before Talley was fatally shot by O'Neil. Talley's wife, Elizabeth M. Fite, was left to raise her remaining 8 children alone.

According to the memorial obituary for 39 year-old Talley placed in the Southwestern on 24 August 1870, "Though fearless and calmly resolute in danger, it could never be said of him that he was a quarrelsome man; and it was a source of consolation to him in his last moments to know that he had received his death wound while acting the peacemaker."

Elias O'Neil, was confined upon the charge of killing Talley, but was supposedly too unwell to be brought into court right away. The Southwestern reports that "in the difficulty, he was several times struck on the head by a large walking cane, and as erysipelas [infection] has supervened, his physicians regard him in a somewhat critical condition." This diagnosis did not stop the trial and on the 30th of August, O'Neal was "brought before Judge Levisee to undergo a preliminary examination upon an application for bail."

According to the Southwestern's 7 Sept 1870 article, within the week, "the application to be admitted to bail by Mr. Elias O'Neal, charged with murder in killing Mr. FW Tally, was finally argued yesterday, the examination of witnesses having occupied three days. The arguments of cuonsel, pro et con, were able and exhaustive, though not so ornate and flowery as usual, being limited in time. After a lengthy, impartial, and thorough investigation, Judge Levisee decided that the accused be admitted to bail in the sum of $20,000."

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Gale news

Have you been using the free Gale trial to search for Bossier City or Shreveport news? We have! Here is one of the articles that we were able to find that ran in the Daily Evening Bulletin of San Francisco, CA on April 28, 1871:
TERRIBLE MURDER IN SHREVEPORT,LA.
A Young Man Kills His Father's Murderer

A correspondent of a New Orleans paper writes from Shreveport, under date of April 8th as follows:
Our usually quiet, very orderly and law abiding city was thrown into great excitement to-day about dinner time, by the discharge of two shots from a double-barreled shotgun in the hands of a wild young man, eighteen years of age, named Martin Talley, Jr., on Market Street, about a square from the Brooks House. Coming from an alley, he approached very near without speaking a word to his victim, Elias O'Neil, of Bossier Parish, and fired one barrel into his face killing him instantly; but after O'Neil fell, put the gun to his head and discharged the other barrel, charged with buckshot, completely tearing his head to pieces. By the first shot, he, it is feared, also mortally wounded Dr. L.S. Fisher, who was conversing with O'Neil, blowing out one eye and horribly disfiguring him. Dr. Fisher has recently moved here and is not as well known here as O'Neil, who was almost forty-five years of age, and long a resident of the neighboring parish. Mr. O'Neil, last August, near the same place where he was murdered, killed the father of his murderer in a gambling difficulty, and this retribution has come to him. Young Talley attempted to escape, but was captured at once and conveyed to prison. It is a sad event viewed from any point...especially it is sad in regard to Dr. Fisher, who was innocent in every respect, and it is to be most sincerely hoped he may recover.


We will be checking our newspaper collection to see what locals had to say about the murder.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Free Access to Gale for National Library Week

Gale will offer their vast historical newspaper collection for National Library Week this year for a full two weeks Apr 10 to 24th. Click below or to the right to browse through the historic newspapers for the following categories!


Gale NewsVault — The definitive cross-searching experience for exploring Gale's historical newspaper and periodical collections — with access to more than 10 million digitized pages.

Global Issues in Context — Empower your users with the tools they need to understand today's world issues from a truly global perspective.

GREENR (Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources) — From the green-collar economy to questions of energy and resource management, GREENR is the foremost online reference portal for sustainability and environmental studies.

Powerspeak Languages — The perfect language learning resource teaches users how to immerse into cultural authenticity. New languages include ESL Mandarin, Italian, Japanese, Russian and Korean.

Science in Context — From global warming to space exploration, students are drawn into the subject by integrating pure information with today's headlines and videos — showing how scientific disciplines relate to real-world issues.

Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive — The largest, most ambitious collection devoted to the study of slavery. In its entirety, it will consist of more than 5 million cross-searchable pages. Part I: Debates over Slavery & Abolition available now.