Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1874-01-02
MYSTERIOUS DEATH.

MYSTERIOUS DEATH.
4 WELL KNOWN AUTHORIZES FOUND
INA WELL-ANoTHER CASE FOR THE
LIFE INSURANCE PEoPLE-REBECCA
HARDING DAVIS DRowNED-HIsToRY
OF HER LIFE-THE DETECTIVES AT
WORK.
Mrs. Mary Stevens, better known as
g Rebecca Harding Davis,'' popular wri-
ter for the Youths Companion, ''New
York Weekly and other literary jour-
nails, was drowned on Christmas eve al
her residence at Ypsilanti, Mich, by fall
ing into a cistern from which she was
drawing water. She was 80 years OF age
and had two children, eleven and thirteen
wears old. Her maiden name was Mary
Barlow, and she was married when very
young to VIM. Stevens. Her death is
shrouded in mystery, and We copy from
the Detroit Gree Press'' some strange
particulars about it.
HER PAST HISTORY.
Her friends say that for some time after
in the United States detective service. OPP
Grating mostly in Ohio and Indiana. Since
some time last summer she had llved. with
her mother, Elvira Barlow, in Ypsllantl.
Before that, a year or SO. she live at Ann
Arbor, keeping house there and sending
her boys to school.
In the Spring of 1872, while she was
still, as her friends say, engaged in the de-
tective service, she became acquainted al
Coldwater, Mich, with man named VIM.
J. Robinson, clerk in the Watson House
at that place, who afterwards visited ner
at various places, and became engaged TO
her, and they were married four weeks
ago at her mothers house in Ypsllantl, by
Benjamin Todd, a Spiiritualist minister OF
that place. Robinson's home is at Centre
Ton, Ohio, and since she first became ac-
uuainted with him has been engaged IN
different occupations, and was last trav-
cling mercantile agent. They have not
kept house or lived together since their
marriage. He has, however, visited her
several times at her mothers in the inter
walls of his business engagements, and they
were intending to 60 to Texas to live in a
few weeks. About two weeks previous to
her death she was taken severely LII with
bilious fever, as the doctor who was called
pronounced it, and had been around the
house but single day before the evening
of her death.
She had been engaged in writing all day
Thursday, and although search has been
made. not vestige of the MS. can be
found. The cistern in which she was
drowned contained but three feet OF water,
which tends to lessen the belief in acclden-
tai drowning-the more so as a person
standing in the cistern could reach the top
readily enough.
ROBINsoN's STORY.
Robinson tells strange story about a
rival suitorfor her hand named A. f. Barr,
of Ohio, who had several times, through
jealousy, as is supposed, threatened her life.
On one occasion, while living at Ann Al
bor. Barr came there and shot at her with
a pistol. He also says on two other occa-
sions she had been shot at by some unknown
person and had told him she thought Barr
would continue until he killed her.
POLICIES OF INSURANCE.
1t was discovered at the inquest that
she had three different life insurance pol
icies of S.. 900 each in the Michigan Mu-
tual, New York Mutual, and Home, of
New York, insurance companies. These
were all taken out in September or October
last, and but one quarters payment OF the
premium laQ De6l ulduG.
HER WILL.
She had made will which she had de-
posted in the probate office at Ann Arbor.
By it's provision her mother was made ex-
ecutrix, and her husband guardian OF the
two children. The bulk OF her property
which consisted of considerable money, to-
gether with the life insurance policies, was
left to her children.
The people in Ypsilanti are divided in
opinion as to the real cause OF her death,
some thinking she was murdered by some
person unknown, and other persons incline
to the opinion that she committed suicide.
WOMAN OF TALENT.
Mrs. Robinson is described by those who
knew her as a remarkable woman in many
respects. One Of great intellectual ability
but yet strange and eccentric in her beha-
vior. There is something mysterious in
THE meagre details of her life, spent, as hel
Friends say, a good share of the latter por-
ton of it, in the detective service. She
was Spiritualist in belief, and sympathi-
sed to some extent with the theories OF
Victoria Woodruff.
sURANCE PEOPLE AT WORK.
The ''Free Press'' Of the next day an
nounces the arrival there of Life Insurance
detectives from Detroit to investigate. II
gives their theory as follows:
Mary Stevens Robinson, or as is claimed
ssRebecca Harding Davis,' a woman Of
admitted capacity and talent, had her nat
urally perceptive faculties developed by
wears of active duty in the United States
f<