Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1881-12-17

her return the night was very stormy, and
the boat landed at the wharf about Ii O'CLOCK
at night. The Captain said he showed her
off the boat with lantern, aud handed her
her satchel, bidding her good night, and she
started for her sisters home, about i've blocks
distant Her sister said that about the hour
of IL, or half.past, she heard the front gate
open and some one come in on the plank walk
and upon the porch and knock at the door
This was her ster's custom on returning
from the city. She remarked to her husband,
"There comes Ann, and opened the door /;
but no one was there, nor has she been heard
from to this day. Q. L..
Blacks, December II, 1881.
EDS. RECORD. UNION: As you invite re.
lations of supernatural incidents, call your
attention to the recital by Rebecca Harding
Davis cousin to Secretary Blaine) 1t is one
OF the most extraordinary Of which | know.
have often heard the story related in my
boyhood days among my native hills. and in
maturer years have often refla cted upon it,
and sought to arrive at some correct solution
Of the matter. That great deal connected
with the story is legendary | have thought
true, for | know that recitals of the marvel
Gus never lose any of their mystical qualitits
by age or repetition. j. 5. Is.
Butte City (Colusa), December 7, 1881
The story referred to by j. S. B. is as fol-
lows:
RACHEL PLYMIRE's MURDER.
There is an inexplicable story-which,
believe. has never been published-among
the traditions of the fat, fertile hill country
of western Pennsylvania, the most unlikely
quarter in the world, 70 serve as breeding
place of mystery. 1t was settled almost
wholly by well-to-do farmers from the north
of Ireland, economical, Woodworking folks
God-feariDg, too, after the exact manner de-
scribed by John Knox, ana having little
patience with any other. Not likely people,
surely, to give credence to any fancitul super
stitions, and still less to originate them. The
story, indeed, has ?. bold, matter-of fact char
acter in every detail, which quite sets them
apart from relations of the supernatural. l
never heard it explained and it is the best
authenticated mystery within my knowledge.
Here it is in brief: Among the Scotch
Irish settlers in Washington county In 1912
was family by the name of Plynire who
occupied comfortable farm and house.
Rachel, the daughter, was engaged to a
young farmer in the neighborhood. On a
Saturday evening in July, having finished her
II,
started to visit her married sister, who lived
on farm about five miles distant, intending
to return on Monday morning. She tied up
her Sunday gown and hat in a checkered
handkerchief, and carried her shoes and stock
ings in her other hand, meaning to walk in
her bare feet and to pu5 them on when she
came in sight of her destination, after the
canny Scotch fashion She left home at
about Z 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 Monday,
bat no alarm was felt, as the family thought
her sister would wish to detain her for few
days ; and it was not until the latter part of
the week that it was found that she had never
been at her sisters. The alarm spread, and
excited degree of terror throughout the
peaceable, domestic community, which would
seem inexplicable to city people, to whom the
newspaper has brought budget Of crime
every morning since their childhood. To
children raised in these lonely hamlets and
hill.farms murder was farrell, unreal horror;
usually all they knew Of it was from Cain
and Able. set off with hideous portraits in the
family Bible.
The girl had left home on Saturday at
o'clock. That night, long before 10 o'clock
farmers go to bed with the chickens), a
woman, living in Greene county, about forty
miles from the Plymire farm, awoke her hus-
band in great terror declaring she had just
seen murder done, and went on to describe
a place she had never seen betore-a hill
country with wagon-road running through
it, and girl with buDdle tied in a handker-
CHIEF, her shoes and white stockings in her
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 by appGintment-they sat
down on a log and talked for some time.
The man rose and stepped behind her, and,
drawing out Ratchet, struck her twice on
the head. She fell back on the wet, rotten
leaves, dead. Presently the man was joined
by another. also young, who asked, :" Is it
done?" He nodded, and together they lifted
the body and carried it away out of her sight
After awhile they came back and found the
bundle OF shoes and stockings, all of which
were stained with blood. There was ruined
old mill near the road. They went into it,
lifted loose board in the flooring, put the
bundle, shoes, ETC., with the Ratchet, under
meath and replaced the board. Then they
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 little country church. she remained
during the intermisson between the morning
Il
had come from circuit of twenty miles to
church, gathered, according to their homely
habit, in the churchyard TO eat their lunch
and exchange the latest news. Our dreamer
told her story again and again, for she was
impressed by it as if it had been reality.
After the afternoon service the coDgrega.
ton separated, each going TO their widely
scattered homes. There were thus many
witnesses ready to certify to the fact that the
woman had told the dream the morning after
the murder was committed at a distance of
forty miles, when it was impossible that the
news should have reached her. There were no
teiegraphs, we mast remember, and no rail
ways in those days-not even mail carriers in
those secluded districts.
When the story of the girls disappearance
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 reporters, but the men of
those days still believed that God took an
oversight even of their Dreams Might this
not be hint from Him! The Rev. Charles
Wheeler, Baptist clergyman from Wash
ington, well known in Western Pennsylvania
and Virginia generation ago, and Ephriam
Blaine, magistrate, father of the present
Senator from Maine, and as popular 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 pretense of business, to the Ply
mire farm. 1t was the first time in her life
that she had left her own county, and she
was greatly amused and interested. They
drove over the whole of the road down which
Rachel Plymire had gone.
Have You never seen this neighborhood 2"
one of them asked.
Never" was the repIv
That ended the matter, and they turned
back, taking q little-used cross-road to save
time. Presently the woman started up in
agitation, crying: This is the place I
dreamed of"
They assured her that Rachel Plymire had
not been upon that road at all.
81 know nothing about her," she said,
shut the girl saw in my dream came along
here; there is the path through which the
man came, and beyond that turning you win
find the log on which he killed her"
They did find the leg, and on the ground
the stains of blood. The woman, walking
swiftly, led them to the old mill, and to the
board under which lay the stained clothes