The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1876-03-10
WisreHaneu
A WOMAN'S PLOT.

In the Spring of 1850 the population
of Ashtabula, Ohio was increased by the
advent of tall, good looking Irishman,
apparently about thirty years of age
who gave his name as Dennis O'Reilley,
ond professed to be an experienced vet
erirary surgeon. If his stories were to
be believed, he had at one time been an
officer in the English army; but possibly
his commission in the British Dragons
was as mythical as the genealogical tree
showing him to be the lineal descendant
of an Irish King, to which he was never
weary of reverting.
But the fellow did know a good deal
about horses. OF that there could be
no doubt. He broke thorough bred
colt, which had been given up by doz-
en- others; he cured host of diseases to
which equine and bovine flesh falls heir
to; he even professed to have sure cure
for hydrophobia in dogs; but, to his
great regret, no opportunity was offered
for him to demonstrate his power in this
direction. but above all else, the fell
lows greatest ability was in ''blarney."
Why, he even fiattered our sour old
Deacon Bingham into a good humor,
and persuaded the cautious widow Spark
to let her only daughter go alone with
him to picnic.
Dennis had been in the community
about four moths when he was hastily
summoned out to the farm of Mr..
Henry E. Wilson, some five miles to the
North of Ashtabula, to lend his profes
sional skill to the saving of two valuable
mares, which were supposed to have
been poisoned. He succeeded in saving
the beasts; but to do so it was necessary
for him to remain all that day and night
at Mr.. Wilson's house. During this
short stay he found opportunities to ILL.,
gratiate himself into the good graces of
the farmers wife, Mrs Ethel Wilson, to
such an extent that, before he took his
departure, she returned with interest,
his amorous and meaning smiles, and
even went so far as to giant him hur-
ried kiss in the barn, when they happen
ed to be left alone together for a mo
ment.
After this occurrence, 10 was not at all
an unusual thing for "Dr." O'Reilley to
drive over to Wilson's farm two or three
times a week, either to make friendly
cal, or upon an excuse of business in the
neighborhood, and as most of his visits
were in daytime, when the man Of the
house was at work in the distant fields,
there was little or no restraint upon his
intimacy with the willingly guilty wife.
They had continued several months
without being dreamed of by the hus-
band-for husbands are proverbially the
last to suspect anything-when a short
series of events transpired which
brought about the perpetration of one
of the most hideous crimes ever known
in the State of Ohio. A young school
master, a Yankee, was appointed to the
charge of the budding Intelligenees Of
the neighborbood, and IN pursuance of
the time tonored custom in the rural
districts of the West, as soon as the win
ter quarter began, commenced "board-
ing round" or, in other words, residing
a stipulated length of time With the pa
rents of each Of the pupils in his school
| He was to stop with Mr.. Wilson, and the
welcome of Mrs. Wilson was so much
more than kind that it awoke the jeal-
| ousy of the veterinary surgeon, who was
by this time madly infatuated with the
woman. When they were alone he re-
| preached her bitterly for what he was
| pleased to term cher heartless faithless-
| ness"
She replied to him: "Dennis, you are
foolish, darling. You ought to know
| by this time that don't love anybody
but you. If you loved me half so well
| you might be with me all the time"
''Until your husband found us out, "
| he replied with an angry sneer, for her
honeyed words he'd no: removed his
| doubts
aThere is no need for him to find out
anything, "she whispered.
81 know what I'd do, if ! was in his
| place, 4" muttered he.
| Sand why shouldn't you be in his
| place-altogetheri" she murmured in