Connecticut western news., 1875-05-14
\ DRUNKARD,s WIDOWS CURSE.


 Some Cases of Denth in Orange, N. J., that
 are Superstitiously Regardod.--The AL
 eohoIic Exploit of Besottcd Henry Con-
 nors. &#kes #s About year ago, says the New York ,Stln, there lived in the town of Orange, N. J., MT. John Heieck, who, with MT. Venino, carried on the manufactory of hats in Orange valley. Among the many men in his employ were James Mitchell, the foreman of the factory, Henry Con- nors, a workman, and William Gardepe, boy of eighteen, who carried liquor for the men. These three men were hard drinkers, Connors being the worst drunkard of the lot.
 One day Connors entered the factory drunk, and said he would drink quart of beer if any one would pay for it. Heieck sent the boy Gardepe to saloon near by kept by John Crane. Connors drank it and said he would drink pint of "cat," /" as the village whisky was call sel if Heieck would pay for it. Heieck Mitchell, promised to pay the billif Con- nors failed: The pint was brought the vilest of vile whisky-and the drunk en fool drank every drop within seven seconds. He fell into drunken stupor and was left in the shop at night by the workmen. In the morning he was dead.
 Connors' home was about a mile from the factory. When his wife heard that he was dead and how he died she became excited, and the neighbors say her i'm precautions were awful. She went to the shopand kneeling on the ground in front of the building, prayed that God would curse every one who had any connection with her husbands death. rg E. 29 e
 Curses on >ye !'@ she cried. "May ivry wan o'ye die afore the year, an may ye die a idith as horrible as his. E
 She met Heieck several times on the streets, and each time "put the curse on him." This was in the spring of 1874. Not long afterward, Heieck dissolved partnership with Venino, and gossips said he was about to leave the place on account of tho widows curse. Others said he feared she could make him pay damages for her husband's s death. Then the case gradually became forgotten. Heieck was carrying on the hat business in Orange village, and "Connors' case was seldom thought of.
 | One night in midsummer the people who lived near the hat factory were startled from their sleep by the .shril factory whistle. Men hurried to the place thinking of fire, but all was quiet The factory was closed, no one was with in, and the cause of the whistle was { mystery. The next night it was blowr again at midnight, and then the super stitious said that Henry Connors' ghos was haunting the factory, and was blow ing the whistle. The story gained ere dence day by day, and was likely to re suit in an exodus of all the people iron the haunted neighborhood. The engi neer, practical man, found an easy ex planaion of the phantom whistle in { loose valve, and thus laid poor Connors ghost.
 In the fall Crane, the man who solo the beer that Connors drank, died o consumption. He probably had little tC do directly with the death of the man, for he would not sell the whisky that the boy subsequently asked for. But peo pie remembered the widows curse, anC whispered that cit was beginning tc work" On the 27th of February, 1875 William Gardepe, the boy who carried the liquor that killed Connors, commit ted suicide by taking paris green. This fatal act was the result of his own bad habits. He was hardly in his grave be- fore James Mitchell, the foreman in the factory, who made the wager with Heieck, died suddenly of pneumonia, the doctors said; of whisky, his neigh bors say. They say that he prophesied his death. "He was in here and took a glass of rum on Tuesday," said bar tender, "and said as he drank it that he shouldn't live the week out, and on the next Friday he was dead" This was the first of March. On the 4th day of April John Heieck, the proprietor of the shop in which Connors worked md died, and who paid for the liquor that killed him, died of congestive chills. He was well on Saturday, and came to New York. Or returning, he pain his men, went home, and died within twenty-four hours. There still remains Gillihan, who sold the whisky, but he looks likely to last many years, and he laughs at the "widow's curse" -