Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1883-05-12
A TRUE STORY
Strange Results Of Remarkable Dream.
4 DREAMER ON THE WITNESS
STAND.

Among the Scotch Irish settlers in
Washington county, in 1913, was Il
family named Blymire, who occupied
comfortable farm and house Ra-
chel. the daughter, was engaged to a
young farmer in The neighborhOod.
On a Saturday evening in July, hay
ing finished her weeks work, she
dressed herself tidily and started to
visit her married sister, who lived on
farm about five miles distant, in
tending to return on Monday morn
ing. She tied mp her Sunday gown
anl hat in a checkered handkerchief
and carried her shoes and stockings
in her other hand, intending to walk
in her bare feet, and put them oa
when she came in sight Of her desti'
nation, after the canny Scotch fash
ion. She left home about seven
o'clock, in order to have the cool of
the evening for her walk. The road
to the farm was lonely and unfre-
quented. The girl did not return
home on Monday, but no alarm was
felt; as the family thought 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 not been at her sisters
The country was secured, but in vain
the alarm spread and excited de-
gree of terror in the peaceable domes-
tic community which would seem in;
explicable to city people.to whom the
newspaper had brought budget of
crime every morning since their
childhood To children raised6n those
lonely hamlets and hill farms, mur-
der was far Off. unreal horror; usu-
ally all they knew of it was from the
doings of Cain and Abel, set off with
hideous wood cuts in the family
Bible
The girl had left home on Satur
day night at seven o'clock. That
night, long before ten o'clock (farm
ers going to bed with the chickens), a
woman living in Greene county,
about forty miles from the Blymire
farm. awoke her husband in great ter
ror, declaring she had just seen a
murder done, and went on to describe
a place she had never seen before
hilly country with wagon road
running through it, and girl with a
bundle tied with checRered hand
kerchief, her shoes aud white stock
ings in the other hand, and walking
briskly down the grassy side Of the
road. She was met by ayoung man
the woman judged from their man
ner the meeting was by appointment;
they sat down on log and talked for
some time. The man at last rose,
stepped behind her, and, drawing a
hatchet, struck her twice on the head.
She fell back ON the wet, rotten leaves,
dead. Presently this young man was
joined 10y another, also young, who
asked. 'Is it done?" He nodded, and
together they lifted the body and car
ried it away out of her sight After
awhile they came back, found the
bundle ofSunday fnery and the shoes
and stockings. all of them stained
with blood. There was a ruined old
mill near the road; they went into it,
lifted a plank in the flooring. put the
bundle, shoes, etc, with the hatchet,
underneath, and replaced the plank.
They then separated and went
through the woods in different direc
tions. The farmers wife told her
dream to her husband that night; the
next day. Sunday going to a little
country church, she remained during
tue intermission between the morn
ing and afternoon services. The
neighbors, who had come from cir
cult of twenty miles to 80 to church,
gathered, according to their homely
habit, in tho churchyard to eat their
lunch'an exchange the news. Our
dreamer told her story again and
again, for she was impressed by it as
if it had been a reality. After the
afterroon services the Congregation
separated, going to theirwidely scat
tered homes. Ehsre were TINS many
witnesses readyto certify to the fact
that the woman had told the dream
the morning after the murder was
committed, at distance OF forty
miles, when it was absolutely impos
sible that the news should have
reached her. There were no tele-
graphs, we must remember, and no
railways. in those days not even
mail carriers in those secluded dis
tricts.
When the story of the girls disap
pearance was told over the country at
the end Of the 1ext week, the people
to whom the dream had been re-
peated recalled it. Now Il days, the
matter would only serve as good ma
terial for reporters, but the men of
those days still believed that God
took an oversight even of their
dreams. Might this not be a hint
from Him? TheRev. Charles Wheei-
er, a Baptist clergyman of Washing
ton, well known in Western Penn
sylvania and Virginia a generation
ago, and Ephraim Blaine, Esq, a
magistrate, father of the present SEN
ator from Maine, and as popular
man in his narrow circle, drove over
to see the woman who Had told the
dream. Without stating their pur
pose they took her and her husband,
on pretepse of business, to the Bly,
E. 4 4 A