The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-01
JOHN ANDERsoN,s FANCY.

He Lived Forty Years Under the Impression
that He Was Suspected of Murder.
Special to the indianapolis Journal.
NEW YORK, Oct. 31.-The attempt to break
the will of the late John Anderson, the
ground that he was crazy, has been defeated
finally by Supreme Court decision that he was
not insane, although the evidence showed that
he was erratic. Judge Van Brunt ruled that his
firm belief u spiritualism was not proof of an
unsound mind. In other matters his mental
health was not seriously questioned The most
interesting fact in the case however, was only
limited at In the trial when witnesses testified that
Anderson thought that he frequently held COM
munication with the spirit of Mary Rogers.
These mentions of once celebrated murder re-
vived the discussion of an unsolved mystery,
and caused a quotation of Edgar Poes romance
concerning the fate of the pretty clerk
in Anderson's tobacco store; but no new
light was thrown on the known particu-
lars, which briefly were that Mary disap-
peared from her work, was missing several days.
and was then found dead on the shore of the
river, with indications that she had
struggled there against a fatal assault
A generally accepted conjecture was that
the body had been carried there, after she had
been killed elsewhere. and suspicion gradually
settled down on an unidentified army officer,
who had been seen in her company. A letter
from the Widow Anderson now residing in Lon
don, and written since the legal controversy
began over the will, says that John Anderson
lived for forty years under the mistaken belief
that he was suspected of numbering Mary
did CO 10 ond pof
the kind was hinted in the publications of the
period but he fancied that he was under the
shadow of the crime, and he used to reason out
theory that to the mind of an average thinker
would make him the slayer of the girl in his
store, and afterward the manufacturer of the
indications thai she was killed in boat on the
river. His second wife was a soubrette actress
of jovial, light-hearted disposition, and she
laoored to divert his mind from the subject In
that effort she was measurably successful for
awhile. But they both became converted to
spiritualism about fifteen years ago, and from
that time until his death he held daily
seances. Visitors to his handsome home
at Tarrytown were not usually invited to
friends were privileged. Two ghosts constantly
haunted these occasions. They were the spirits
OF Washington Irving whose residence when
alive, had been in the neighberhood. and Mary
Rogers. whose form the old man conjured up so
vividly, that, to his imagination, she conversed
with him like living person. 1t was the belief
of Anderson, supported by what he supposed
Mary told him, that she did not know her MUIR
derer: that she wandered to the place where her
body was found, because she was aggrieved by a
quarrel with her af6anced lover, Daniel Payne,
lwho,committed suicide soon after her death) and
desiSsd 70 be alone that she was sssaed without
warning by a powerful man, who left her lfeless
and that she spent her time subsequently in
searching, among the living and the disembod.
led, for the face of this ruffian. Anderson used
to have long consultations with Mary's appari-
ton. and he privately spent much time and
money in following fanced clews obtained from
this ghostly source. Washington Irving was
deeply interested in unraveling the mystery
and on his advice Anderson thought he was fire.
quenty acting Persons who know Mrs Ander-
son we'll say that she is as ardent Spiritualist
as he was and that she is hopeful of yet discover
ing the truth through nediumshin