The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1880-03-17
Subdued
A STRANGE DREAM-STORY.

1
believe, has never been published
among the traditions of the fat, fertile
hill country of Western Pennsylvania, the
most unlikely quarter in the world to
serve as breeding place of MYSTERY. It
was settled most wholly by well.to-do
farmers from the north of ireland. eco
nomical, hard working -God-fearing
! too, after the exact manner described by
John Knox, and having little patience
with any other manner. Not likely
people, assuredly, to give credence to any
tanciful superstitions, and still less to
originate them. This story, indeed has a
bold, matter fact character in every
detail which quite sets it apart from re-
lations of the supernatural T have new
er heard it explained, and it is the best
authentical mystery in my knowledge.
Here it is IN brief: Among the Scotch
Irish settlers in Washington County in
1912 was family named Plymire, who
occupied comfortable farm and house.
Rachel, the daughter, was engaged to a
young farmer in the ne1ghberhood. On
Saturday evening in July, having finish
ed her weeks work, she dressed herself
tldily and started TO visit her married sis
ter, who lived on farm about five miles
distant, intending to return on Monday
morning. She tied up her Sunday gown
and hat in checkered handkerchief, and
carried her shoes and stockings in the
other hand, meaning to walk In her bare
feet ana to put them on when she came
insight of her destination, after the canny
Scotch fashion. She left home about
seven o'clock, in order to have the cool
evening for her walk. The road to the
farm was lonely and unfrequented.
The girl did not return home on Mon
day but no alarm was 1elt, as the family
thought that her sister would probably
wish to detain her for few days; and it
was not until the latter part of the week
! that it was found she had never been at
her sisters. The country was secured,
hut IN vain; the alarm spread, and exclt.
ed degree OF terror in the peaceable do
mestic community which would seem in
expl1cable to city people, to whom the
newspaper has brought budget of crime
every morning siuce their childhood. To
children raised in the lonely bamlets and
| hlll-tarms murder was far-off, unreal
horror; usually all they knew of it was
from the doings of Cair and Jael, set off
in the family Bible.
The girls get home on Saturday at sew
en- o'clock. That night, long before ten
O'Clock Farmers go to bed with the
Oh. ckens), a woman living in Green Coun-
ty, about forty miles from the Plymire
farm, awoke her husband IN great terror,
declaring that she had just seen murder
done. and went on to describe place
she had never seen before "a hill country
with wagon road running through and
girl with bundle tied in checkered
handkerchief, her shoes and white stock
ings in the other hand, walking briskly
down the grassy side of the road. She
was met by young man-the woman
judged from their manner the meeting
was oy appointment they sat down on
/ log and talked Tor some time.
The man ut last rose, stepped behind
her, and drawing out Ratchet, struck
her twice on the head. She fell back
ward on the wet, rotten leaves, dead.
| Presently the man was joined by another,
| also young, who asked, sis it done?" He
nodded, and together they lifted the
body and carried it away out of her sight.
After while they came back, found the
bundle of Sunday finery, and the shoes
and stockings, all of which were stained
with blood. There was a ruined old mill
near the road; they went into it, lifted
loose board in the flooring, put the bun
die, shoes ETC., with the Ratchet, under
meath, and replaced the board. Then thew
separated and went through the woods
in different directions.
The farmers wife told her dream to
her husband that night; the next day
Sunday going to a little country church
she remained during the intermission be-
tweenIthe morning and afternoon services.
The neighbors, who had come from cir
cult OF twenty miles to church, gathering
according to their homely habit, in the
| churchya1d TO eat their lunch and ex-
change the news. Our dreamer told her
story again and again, for she was i'm
pressed by it as if it had been reality.
After the afterl Don service the congre-
cation separated, going to their widely
scattered homes. There were thus
many witnesses ready to certify to the
fact that the woman had told her dream
the morning after the murder was COM
mitted at distance Of forty miles, when
it was absolutely impossible that the news
should have reached her. There were
no telegraphs, we must remember, and
no railways, in those days-llot even
mail. carriers IN those secluded districts.
When the story of the girls disappear
ance was told over the country at the end
of the next week, the people to whom
the dream had been repeated recalled it.
Nowadays the matter would only serve
as good material for the reporters, but
the men of those days still believed that
God took an oversight even of their
dreams. Might not this be hint from
him? The Rev. Charles Wheeler, Bap-
fist clergyman OF Washington, we'll
known in Western Pennsylvania and Vir-
ginia generation ago, and Ephraim
Blaine, Esq, a magistrate, father Of the
present Senator from Maine, and as popu-
lar man in his narrower circle, drove
over to see the woman who had told the
dream. Without stating their purpose,
they took her and her husband, on pre-
tense Of business, to the Plymire farm.
It was the first time in her life that she
had le1t her own county, and she was
greatly amused and interested Thor