The Canton advocate. [volume] (Canton, D.T. [S.D.]) 1877-1897, 1880-10-21

the rough, or as it is called the larrikin
class, but by well dressed and apparent
ly respectable people, whom one would
never have suspected of entertaining
such sentiments
THE DEAD ALIVE.
\ Soldier Boy Comes Home to Look
at His Grave.
....- Akron, O., Tribune.
People talk glibly about ''truth being
stranger than fiction" but we very
much doubt whether the force of this
wise aphorism is fully comprehended
notwithstanding the best efforts OF
those newspaper fellows who devote
themselves entirely to writing up "long
losts,' live dead men, poverty stricken
counts, "Coal-oil Johnnies," and all that
sort of thing. When clever newspa-
per liar wants to make the gullible
public swallow his biggest yarn without
a grimace, he sticks up at the top of ii
this threadbare saw about truth and
fiction.
We don't propose to do this, but we
are going to tell a true story about a
man whose bones have reposed under
a pretty little mound at the Greentown
cemetery for sixteen years OF more,
but who, in spite Of this trihing OBJ
stacle, turned up on the streets OF
Akron, a few days since, to greet his
friends of two decades ago. Frank
Wise is the name of this interesting
parsonage, and the suns of full thirty
seven summers have done well their
work in bronzing his weather-beaten
countenance. He is of medium height
built on the Tanner plan, and has every
appearance of man who has "seen
life" in every phase and is happy in
''roughing it,"
In 1864 he enlisted as one of the hun
dred day men, went to the front, was
taken sick, went to the hospital, finally
died, and was sent home corpse to
his grief-stricken family at Greentown.
Owing to the long time which had
elapsed since death the coffin was not
opened, but funeral services were held
and discourse pronounced before a
large concourse of weeping friends,
and the body deposited in its last rest
ing place in the family burying- ground.
Sixteen years elapsed and presto! the
corpse, in a remarkable state of pres
ervation, and conducting himself very
much as live men ordinarily do, walks
into the auction-rooms of Mr.. Carey
Wright two weeks ago Monday, and
asks Mrs. Wright if She knows him.
'I am Frank Wise, your COUSIN" was
the greeting Of this healthy-looking
spectre. The voice, the name, and
the countenance did not belle the
speakers words. Mrs Wright recog-
nized him Immediately as Wise from
tip to toe. In the first few moments
Of recognition words came thick and
fast on both sides. But between
breaths the stranger managed to tell
how he read the account of his funeral
in the Canton papers which found
their way into camp, how he hadn't
died, but got well; how, when he read
that he was dead, be concluded to let
it go at that" and how, on leaving the
army, he shipped on Chinese trader,
and had knocked around as a sailor,
trader voyager, custom clerk, and what
not for fifteen years. He had been to
China, Japan, the Feejee islands,
Scotland, England, spain-in fact, he
had seen the whole big world At one
time he was employed as clerk in a
Spanish custom-house. this being his
last venture before returning. While
coasting around the Feejees in the
early part of his career he was taken
by the cannibals, and momentarily
expected to be converted into a
toothsome morsel for the rapacious
nav of the festive man-eater. His
leanness was all that saved him, and
he was contemptuously set aside for a
more juicy victim. His arms bear the
American coat of arms in tattoo, and
on his back is an excellent representa-
ton in india ink of the illfated ship
Pilgrim, whicl was burned some years
7'Why didn't you write to your folks?"
queried Mrs. Wright, after listening
to the wanderers tale for nearly an
hour
"Why, none of them wrote to me-"
was the answer.
"Why, how could you expect them
to write when they had buried you and
supposed you were dead"
This was a sort or q sumner. In fact
the pilgrim had not thought of it that
way, and didn't attempt to answer.
With the restlessness that prompted
all his wanderings, he excused himself,
after an all too brief talk with Mrs.
Wright, and promised to drop in again
in day or two, and "talk everybody
tired" with the tale of his wanderings.
He took his leave, saying that he want
ed to go down to Gr2entown to see his
brother. He and another brother liv-
ing in Indiana, and two sisters in Ohio,
are the surviving members Of the
family, the mother dying shortly after
the burial of her supposed son. The
stranger is also cousin of Mr.. jeff
Wise, of the Buckeye shops. Nothing,
however, has yet been heard of him,
and inquiry Of Greentown people elicits
no word of him in that neighbolhood,
so that his Akron relatives are at loss
what to think. Possibly the old itching
for adventure seized him and carried
hum away before the home of his
brother was reached