The Opelousas courier., 1884-02-16
o CLARK AMBIER.
A Hitherto UmyvrisEen CIaaDter I'm
Murdered W0mamsN Htstovv.

a. M1theFtO UmwrlefeM Chapter Am n
Murdered W0man's History.
A letter from Wheeling, W. Va, to
the New York Times, says: In the ex-
clte1nent attending the mysterious MUIR
der OF Rose Amber in stratford, Conn,
no one would have supposed that the
rugged mountain county in the heart of
West Virginia had been the theatre in
which were enacted the opening scenes
OF the melodrama that eliminated in
that tragedy, but such is the case. In
the lower end of Pocahontas county. in
a beautiful basin of country watered by
Green Brier river, Rose Clark Amber
once played in girlish glee, and there her
young heart received the impress that,
made the whole current of her subsequent
life. Some years before the wal Sheldon
Clark, a brother of Captain Clark, father
OF Rose, wandered into Green Brier terri
tory. He was a native of the Wooden
Nutmeg State, and with Yankee shrewd-
ness was making a living by peddling
clocks. In his wanderings he made the
acquaintance of Miss Edith Lightner, a
young woman who had just come into
possession of her inheritance of a goodly
number of acres. In a short while Miss
Lightner changed her name, and Sheldon
Clark became proprietor of herself and
her estates. He became an extensive
stock-raiser, and in a few years found
himself on the high road to wealth.
When war came and temporarily ended his
operations he had amassed a fortune, and
it was about this time that Rose Clark
entered upon the stage.
In the summer of 1864, while the war
was at its height, Captain Clark, of Con-
necticut, came to visit his brother Shell
don, and brought his daughter Rose
with him. She was then a girl in her
teens, and is described as a bright,
happy, winsome child, who frolicked
about that wild and beautiful country as
free as the native deer she is said to have
hunted. She was standing then on the
verge of ~womanhood, waiting for the
first summons of love to cross its thresh-
old. A mimic ball at the battle of the
Wilderness brought the lover to COM
plete the play. Captain James Gelsthorpe,
of the Confederate army, received a bull
let in the chest at that battle and came
back to his home on the Green Brier to
recuperate. He and Rose met and the
soldier received another wound, much
more fatal than any inflicted by a Fed
eral bayonet. It came from Cupid's
bow, and was winged by glances from
Rose Clark's eye.
A short time after their acquaintance
began both were members of a boating
party on the Green Brier. Their canoe
was overturned, and Rose Clark made
her way to shore assisted by the arm of
the gallant officer, without which she
must have persisted. This incident
brought matters to a climax. A tale was
told beneath the spreading leather
woods, and when Rose shortly afterward
returned to the North, she wore on her
finger the ring that was a pledge she was
to redeem by becoming the bride of her
rescuer. The weeks sped by after their
separation, but the unfrequent mails that
found their way to the mountainous
country always brought a packet to the
captain and never failed to carry back
another. These letters breathed undying
love and devotion. Then came a change.
A mail came to Pocahontas without
a letter to Captain Gelsthorpe.
Again and again he wrote, but
mail after mail came and still no
letter. The Captain feared ne had
been forgotten and daily awaited the re-
turn of his ring. But it never came, and
finally he determined to go to Conneeti-
cut and learn the worst. In the mean
time, Rose Clark, too, had been waiting
in vain for tidings that never came. The
letters stopped, and soon hope and love
withered In her heart. But pride came
to her rescue and in pique she listened to
Norman Ambler's wooing and became
his wife. Then Captain Gelsthorpe came
upon the scene, and she learned, too late,
that both had been victims. Their let
tiers had been intercepted and two lives
ruined. The despair that followed col
cred her after life. Believing Am
bier to have been the miscreant
who. to further his own suit, had stopped
the letters, she hated him as only an in
iured woman can, and from that time
began the life that dragged her down.
Captain Gelsthrope returned to West
Virginia and found solace in close applica-
ton to his study of the law. Suisse
ouently he married, and he is nov at the
head Of d happy family. Fancy alone
can depict his thoughts when he read OF
the murder of his boyhood Gree, and
memory carried him back to the days
when Rose Clark heard his words Of love
under the sycamores that line the course
of the placid Green Brier.