South-eastern Independent. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1871-1871, 1871-11-17
A Double Suicide.


A Lewistown (Maine) paper says that
Mr.. Cobb saw two young ladies sitting
on the Auburn shore of the river, or
the very verge Of West. Fitch. Mr..
Cobb's daughter also noticed the girls,
and thought it very strange that
they should be sitting so near the
very dangerous place. The more notice.
able became the fact when he saw them
jump up and trip lightly, and carelessly
down the precipitous, rocky, and slip
perry bank, where they removed theil
outer garments. Miss Cobb then said to
her father that she believed theymedltat-
ed drowning themselves, and so possessed
with this idea was she that she resolved
to still watch them and see what they
were proposing to do. After removing
their outer garments, including theiI
hats, she saw the girls return to the spot
where they had been sitting and resume
their seats. In a few minutes, not faI
from l O'Clock, the train from Bangor
came laundering by, the track being
about 200 or 300 feet from where they
sat. Miss Cobb saws that while the
train was passing that point she saw the
girls rise, each throw her arms around
the others waist, and in this embrace
they, with apparently one consent, leap
ed from the shore into the falls. Miss
Cobb turned to her father, Father,
they have jumped together into the
falls" Mr.. Cobb, who a moment before
had seen them sitting on the shore,
looked at once out of the window, COM
handing a full view of the scene. No
girls we're to be seen-nothing bat the
garments they had left on the shore.
The facts speedily became known, and
crowds gathered in the vicinity of the
scene of the terrible tragedy, but moth
ing could be seer but the garments,
bearing silent and at the same time sad
witness Of the tragedy.
An examination by Mr.. Cobb, who
saw the movements of the girls, and by
one or two other gentlemen, who noticed
where the sat, but did not happen to see
them when they took the fatal leap, es-
tablished that the two suicides-as they
seemed to have leaped from the point
where they first sat down-threw them
selves from the fat rock which forms a
level platform close to the waters edge,
near the foot of the first descent of West
Pitch, which, as everybody hereabouts
knows, consists of two falls. The first
is a slight plunge upon a table-rock /;
then a light fall of q hundred feet, more
or less ; then a great cataract, with, at
present, q fearful fall of water, rolling
down into q chasm many feet from the
base of the first fall. Here, Just beyond
the base of the first fall, they seem to
have thrown themselves into the river.
Miss Cobb saw them no more. Late in
the afternoon, Miss Starbird, from Au.
burn, and others, identified the clothing
left by the suicides on the West Pitch
stone as belonging to Ada Brown of
Buckfeld, and Anna Wood of Hartford,
young girls IA and 16 years of age.
Miss Browns eldest sister has been at
work in the city, and is frantic with
grief at the sad tragedy. She left in the
afternoon to carry the sad news to her
parents. We understand both the Wood
and Brown girls were at Ada Browns
room, on the Bates Corporation, Thurs
day night, reaching there at ten p. m.
morning the elder sister of Ada
carried Ada's breakfast to her room,
where both the girls then we're. She
left Ada with the understanding that
she would be in the mill at ST o'clock.
Ada did not go into the mill as promis.
ed. As she did not make her appear
ance at dinner, the elder sister became
alarmed, and going out learned of the
of two girls, whom she at once
surmised might be Ada and Miss Wood.
party of lumbermen, in a batteaux,
dragged the river for the bodies Friday
afternoon, but discovered no traces of
them. The cause of the sad suicide is
only ~coniectured as being the old
but will bemore definitely known
when there shall be an inquest over the
bodies on their discovery.