Little Falls transcript. [volume] (Little Falls, Morrison County, Minn.) 1876-1894, 1885-10-23
Murdered on q Sgedd ding Night.


Nv In Boone County, u. just below
Petersburg, on the bank Of the Ohio
md almost opposite the rollins-In at
Aurora, ! Ind stands a. deserted vacant.
trame dwelling, known far and wide an
the haunted house. So many stories
have been told about it that sturdy,
weather beaten and sun bronzed fish
ermen, while passing in their skiffs,
look upon it and talk about it as a
s'hanted place, and the boys and
girls from Aurora, while rowing for
pleasure upon the river IN the summer
moonlight evenings, cease their singing
and are inclined to pull away from the
Kentucky shore when approaching the
place. 49, a.. + .s..1-@ ".# ~ .i' II
This uninviting, Stunned and mystic
rlous housed is aframe, two stories high,
with two rooms below and two above.
It stands above the reach of foods
some fifty feet back from the high,
bluff bank. The fence which once sur
rounded it has long since fallen down,
and the yard is full OF high rank weeds
and creeping vines, where snakes and
lizards live unmolested. In the even.
ing hundreds Of swallows fly out OF
the old brick chimney, circle around
and settle back into:the dark funnel;
bats fly in and out of the broken win
dows and half open doors, and later
in the night is heard the owls dismal
boot from her perch upon the. roof
| The whole premises present scene OF
utter ruin, decay and desolation. =.
The house was built many years
ago, with the lumber and materials
taken down the river from Cincinnati
by a young man named West, whose
family were murdered among the
pioneers OF Boone County, all the
members of which were prominent and
respected citizens OF the community
The house was intended to be his fla-
ture home, and at the time of it's con-
struction was regarded as the finest
residence ON the Ohio, nearly all the
others being log cabins Of rude con-
struction. The young lady to whom
he was engaged to be married, and
whom ne expected to occupy his new
home as his wife was named Reed,
and lived upon the opposite side of
Ohio on the hills near Aurora, Ind.
She, too, was quite belle and an
heiress. In due time the marriage took
place at the home of the bride, and,
after the ceremony, their friends &C
companled the young couple to the
river and West rowed his wife over to
the newly built and furnished home,
reaching there just at dark. Their
friends watched them from. the oppo-
site shore till they entered the house,
and that was the last time either was
ever seen alive.
Late the following morning relatives
calling, and failing to receive any reply
to their repeated knockings upon the
door, opened it and entered the house.
Upon the bed in her night clothes lay
the bride OF q few short hours cold in
death, her face and throat showing
that she had been strangled or smoth-
cred to death, and the furniture in the
room giving proof by its disarranged
condition that terrible struggle had
taken place in the chamber Of death.
The husband could not be found and
! has never been seen or heard OF. Whetb-
er he killed his wife and fed has never
been known, but his relatives and
friends asserted most positively that
that could never have been the case,
as there was no motive Tor such a
deed. The most reasonable theory
is that some third person or
persons murdered them both, the
murderers having some grudge against
them, and then either concealed the
husbands body in the vicinity or car
ried it down with his clothing, and,
with rocks to hold them down, sunk
them in the river. Why the wife's
body was not similarly disposed of,
some say, is because the murderers
wished to leave it in the room, and,
the husbands body and clothes not
being found, the natural inference
would be that he had murdered her
and had fled the country, the perpe-
traitors of the double murder taking
this plan to divert suspicion from
themselves. But be that. as it may,
and whichever story concerning it be
! true or false, the house has never since
had an occupant for more than one
Schf