The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1877-08-17

I
SO many years without coming under
I their surveillance.
! Curiosity was aroused once more in
the neighborhood when it was proposed
to tear down the stone house.
The usual forms were observed, and a
suitable officer was detailed TO oversee
the solving of this mystery.
The doors were broken in very easily,
for decay had weakened them, and ere
long they would have fallen from the
eating of rust, damp and general decay.
Strange was the sight that met the
eyes of those who entered there. The
dust and mould were many inches deep
upon everything. Articles lay about as
they had done in every day use, but
coated with the deposit of years. The
close damp atmosphere was oppressive
and the stiffness onifnous-- Nothing had
been packed away as if for departure or
a temporary absence of the occupants.
There stood a table with the decayed
food in the dishes, the cups and saucers,
knives and forks and spoons, lying about
as though left there to be cleared away
before the next meal should be prepared
There was a strange and mysterious
guggestiveness of something TO be dis
covered in these signs which met the
eye at every turn.
Presently the officers went up the
dusty, creaking stairs, and into the first
room or chamber they came to.
All, what do they see that causes them
to start so, and hurriedly address each
other?
These men are accustomed to all man
ner of exigencies, but they almost trem-
bled with excitement now.
Upon the bed they beheld-One of
them having thrown open the barred
window-the skeleton of woman, half
clad in night dress, the whole under a
coating of mould The mystery was
about to be solved. Here was the evi-
dence of murder, too plain to be mis-
taken.
Other rooms were hurriedly visited
In that next to the one first examined
they found another skeleton half clothed
this one lying upon the floor near the
door, as if on the way to join the person
who had occupied the first room.
In the rear room, upon this floor, was
found still another skeleton lying cross
wise upon the bed, and partly clothed,
like the others.
These three skeletons were the only
occupants of the house The officers
called in some neighbors to question
them, and at last one or two were found
who remembered about Madam Brien-
vile and her family, and part of the
mystery began to be unravelled.
Here IN the first room was the moth.
er; in the second apartment we're the
bones of the daughter, the once lovely
Louise; and in the third chamber lay the
skeleton of the old domestic, Nannette
4 Evidences were soon found that showed
the house had been robbed, and these
women murdered. some ten or twelve
years since.
Further examination showed that the
robber, or robbers, must have entered
the house from the roof, as the only win.
dow or place of ingress and egress found
unbarred was that of a rear one in the
upper halfstory of the building. After
satisfying themselves upon this point, the
officials returned to the chambers where
the ghastly skeletons lay.
The bones alone were left,
The rats and other vermin had eaten
every particle Of the flesh from the
frames, years and years long gone by.
Alter proper official action had been
taken, the remains were decently ar
ranged and buried.
il wiis more than a nine days wonder
lhe authorities blamed themselves that
it was possible such crime could lie in
their midst, as it were, unsuspected for
50 long a period, and the few neighbors
who were left saw how stupid they had
/ been in not directing attention TO the
missing family. True, they had every
reason to believe they had gone to the
seaside, but then they should have
remembered that if this were the case
Madame Brienville and her daughter
would be sure ana return at the close OF
the summer. They saw this plain enough
now.
The march ofimprovement,meanti
was not stayed; the public laborers
cleared the house of its valuables, which
were turned over to the public receiver,
and then commenced to tear down the
old stone mansion.
This was not the work of one but
many days.
Gradually the structure stone by stone,
floor by floor, disappeared, and wascart-
ed from the spot
| The authorities had half forgotten the
crime which had so long ago been com
mitted within those stone walls, when
one day, as the workmen came upon the
foundation walls, the proper officer was
hastily summoned to the spot. Another
revelation was in store for him.
Another skeleton was found,
1t lay among the foundation stones
and was that of man, still clasping a
box in his fleshless arms, as though even
in death and the grave he would retain
his ill-gotten gains The truth was plain
at glance. This was all that remained
of the long-ago robber and murderer,
1t will be remembered that We spoke
of false wall which had been erected
to screen the rear part of the old house
it was between this and the main build
ing that the robbers body was found
In making his escape from the scene Of
the robbery and murder, by that lofty
back window, he had fallen between
those walls into living grave.
The box his skeleton arms still EN-
braced contained rich jewelry, gold and
diamonds, to possess which he had mur-
dered the three innocent occupants Of
the stone house in the Bois de Boulogne;
but providential justice had been meted
out to him in the very hour of his awful
crimes,
4 For years "LAwsoNs CURATIVE" has
given universal satisfaction, and every
day it is growing in popular favor 1t is
I an indisnansahla rannedv for fan,ilv uSa