The Milan exchange. (Milan, Gibson County, Tenn.) 1874-1978, 1875-07-29
Old Pierre Berdeau and the Jewelry
Peddler.


msrciaL writes from Lancaster, o.:
Sugar Grove, quiet, lazy, old-iasbioned
little village, situated about eight miles
south of Lancaster, on the banks of the le-
gendary Hockhocking, has a sensation.
For the past fifty years the good deni
Zens of this prosaic and diminutive Dor
Ough have had most unqualified faith in
the visitatiors of representative of the
sweet By and-by, aid many of them have
been frightened out of their seven sens"s
by actual reEcounters with this supernat-
ural gentleman, and have supplied Us with
accurate and detailed descriptions of the
apparition.
The facts of the case are these: Years
ago-Over half century-when the pleas
ant little village of Sugar Grove cOmpris
ed but log cabin or two, one dark, stormy
night. when the wind was hOw!ing
through the hoarSe wilderness, and the
sky was full of ominous clouds. a jrwelry
peddler stopped at the cabin of a settler
named Pierre Btrdeau, little, weaZen-
faced old man OF Gallo extraction, whose
miserable domicile stood on what is now
the farm of r. l. Sharpe, Esq, just where
the family burial ground is situated. This
nOmadic purveyOr solicited a nights lodg-
ing for himself and horse, and, as was Gus
tomary i'll those good old days, was I'M
hesitatingly and heartily accommodated.
In the morning the peddler of cheap jew
els turned up missing, which, however,
Occasioned no very great alarm, a. it was
supposed that he had left during the night
to avoid the little compensation old Pierre
might properly expect for his hospitality.
The pedder's disappearance had already
been forgotten, when, late in the after
noon, a neighboring farmland found his
horse, with its throat cut, lodged against
a fiOod-gate across curvature in the
HOckhockiDg, when the startling intelli-
gence was scattered abroad, and diligpnt
search was instantly instituted Tor the
missing traveller, but to no avail. Not the
slightest trace bur pool of blood, back OF
the Frenchman's cabin, near the base of
hill. where bubbles forth spring of cold
water, could be found. Years flew round,
and the story of the missing peddler and
the dark pool of blood became a tradition,
but the weird spot about the Frenchman's
cabin was ever after thought 20 be haunt
ed, and the hunters who stopped in their
wanderings to slake tier thirst at old
Berdeau's spriug, gave 1t the name OF
"ugly water" on account of the peculiar
odor that arose from it and its bitter taste,
which name it bears to this day.
Many night, when the sky was hidden
by The clouds, and the wind sougbed and
moaned lugubriously around the hill, has
the passing cOunlryman seen the ghost of
the missing peddler, which would fit
along in front of the horses until the
spring was reached, when it would van
ish. app rtntly int the bowels of the hill.
That the old jewelry peddler had been
murdered ana robbed, no one had the
least doubt, and that his troubled spirit
had taken this mode to scare the murderer
into confession and repentance, they al
so firmly believed. Strange to say, no
there is nothing strange about 1t either
for old Berdeau was kind-hearted, inOf-
fensive farmer, and he was never sus-
pected as having committed the horrible
crime, or being accessory thereto, until
the dav of his death, when he confessed
the deed. but would not-dvulge the spot
where the body had been concealed.
However, almost his last words were:
Under the house, and on searching
there the peddler's clothes and pack of
Jewels were found, decayed and cOrrOded
by time, but no evidences of the body or
bones. Thorough investigation was
made, the whole hut demolished and torn
away, and the foundations upheaved, but
no signs of the object for which they
worked were ever brought to light.
The confession and demise of the wicked
little Frenchman. however, did not soothe
the ruffled spirit of the victim of his treach-
ery, and off and ON the tall, white, weird
and frightful figure would make its APP
pearance before the startled vision of some
passing farmer, and the spot was finally
given up as hopelessly the ghosts, and a
detour of two miles many a courageous
man has made, to avoid the place after the
sun had Withdrawn its benign rays from
over the earth. 1
Much speculation has been INDUCED in
as to what disposition the old Frenchman
made of the traveller, but no definite or
conclusion could be arrived at
until a few days since, after lapse OF
nearly seventy years, the whole tragedy |
was made plain. Mr. Robert sharp, in |
building his new residence, concluded TO |
convey water for common usage from the |
spring at the hills base, around which had |
hung a dark mystery. to his house by !
means of subterranean pipes. To accom- |
plish this the 'spring had to be greatly en- |
larged. and while at work here in digging |
out ''ugly water.' the skeleton Of a man |
in perfect preservation was exhumed from |
beneath the rocks, which corresponded |
exactly in stature with the missing and |
murd, red peddler. No one who knows |
the facts of the case has any doubts what /
ever but that the murdered peddler had |
been buried in the spring and carefully |
covered withroeks by lhs canning French |
nan. aud now thar his bones have been |
given a Christian burial. it is hoped tha' |
ne will lie qui. and docile until the grea |
10y. when adj alike, the quick and the 1
lead, shall rise and be judged.
A,MAN went into furniture room al |
Hankato the other day and ar Gown on a /
bottOned char. Heimme 'ia'Ply
rose and danced AID howlcd Ike the
xilae,t kind OF Il 'ieryis h. The pr.g rietOI
lnxpHlsly inquired II he had aB attack OF
lny Kind. "a lack! yele,l the man.
| should say so; ard the COMPOUNDED |
hing stood on its head, too"