News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1885-03-05
A REAL LIFE NOVEL.
HE 9AS NEITHER MURDERED NOR a
MURDERER.
A Mystery of the Pennsylvauin Lumber
Woods Unexpectedly Solved.

Capt. c. Cutler, of Clarion Mills, Pa,
purchased ticket for Omaha, and as he
did so said
"That ticket" said he, sis for man
who for twenty years has believed him
self to be a murderer fleeing from JUS
tice, and whose friends, on the other
hand, have for twenty years thought he
was the victim Of the man whom he him
self believed he had murdered. His
name is Alexander Baer, and it was only
a few weeks ago that he found out that
| he was not murderer.
'Baer worked for me in 1868. He
was paying attention to a girl named
Hathaway, and I think they were en-
| gagged to be married. She was a SER
want at the lumbermen's boarding-house.
In the fall of that year a good-looking
young Scotchman by the name of Gray
Cameron came to my mills to work.
He belonged somewhere in Steuben
county, New York. He soon cut Aleck
Baer out with the Hathaway girl, and
the result was that the two became
bitter enemies. They worked in the
same logging camp.
zone day in the winter of 1864 Cam
eron came to the settlement with
bloody face. He said that he and Baer
had got into a quarrel over the Hatha-
way girl and had come to blows. Baer
! had knocked him senseless with a club,
and when he came to he was unable to
find his rival. Baer had not appeared
in the settlement, and was not seen again
about any of the camps. As Baer had
nearly 5000 due him from our company,
and had left 800 in his trunk at the
boarding house, his disappearance had
an air of mystery about it that puzzled
US. The suspicion was pretty general
that in the fight between him and Cam
eron, the Scotchman had killed his rival
and, fearful of the consequences, had
secreted his body. Cameron was aware
of these suspicious, and offered to pay
for the fullest investigation of the affair
and all the expenses of a search for the
whereabouts of the missing lumberman.
He employed an officer to follow every
| possible clue he could find that might
lead to the clearing up of the mystery,
but nothing could be learned.
"When the ice broke up in the spring,
some boys who were fishing for suckers
in the north branch of the river were at
tracted by peculiar-looking object that
came along with some ice, and they
drew it into the shore with pike pole
On dragging it out they saw that it was
the half-clothed body Of a man. They
hurried to the lumber camp and told the
men at work there what they had found.
! The flesh was entirely missing from the
face and head of the dead man, and rec
. ocnition of the features was impossible
There were remnants of a plaid coat, o
iacket, ON the body. Alexander Bae
vas the only one il the region who hat
, 9-orn such a coat. The plaid was made
3 bv broad stripes of green and black.
An inquest was held, at which the re-
mains were declared to be those of the
missing lumbermau. The finding oi
the dead body aroused anew the suspi-
ci ms that he had been killed by Cam
eron. The verdict of the Coroner's jury
was that the man had come to his death
in o manner unkn own.
''Baer's friends demanded the arrest
of Cameron. A warrant was issued, and
! Cameron ran away. Every one then be-
iieved he was guilty of Baer's murder.
He was pursued and captured. but while
he was being taken to the county seat he
escaped from the officer and was never
!: recaptured. 1t was believed that he ell
listed in the army, and soldier in the
r3ixty.seventh Pennsylvania Regiment
sent home the news in 1865 that he had
seen the dead body of Cameron among
those who had died in Libby prison. At
all events, nothing else was ever heard
of the alleged murderer, and the incl
dents connected with the tragedy were
0 gradually forgotten.
"A few days ago a stranger appeared
/ at the Clarion Mills and asked for me-
q To nv great surprise he told me he was
o the missing Alexander Baer, and he sue
n ceeded in establishing his identity be
G yond doubt. He told singular story.
r He said that Cameron's version of theil
fight was true. When he knocked Cam
eron senseless with the club. he became
frightened and tried to revive him. Fail
r ing in this, he believed he had killed bis
= rival, and, without thought of any
e thing else, fed from the place to escape
s the consequences OF his crime. He me-
# on the edge of the camp man named
n Perry, who was in the habit of making
occasional visits to the lumber regions
for the purpose of buying up waste anC
rags of all kinds. The man was yer.
drunk. Knowing that if he was adver
tised his conspicuous plaid coat woul'
>. lead to his detection, Baer traded 1t OF
to Perry for cast-off coat he was wear
: ing. Perry had told Baer that he wa
going to cross the ice at the eddy abov
. on his way to Crotty's Mills. He ha
undoubtedly broken through or stepped
into an air-hole and was drowned, ant
his body, with the remnants of Baer,
,, plaid coat on, was the one the boy
found the next spring.
;. ''Baer went to Pittsburgh, where h
8 enlisted in the army, under an assume
q name. After the war he went to Californi
=, and other Western States, never havin
heard a. word from the mills or settle
ment since he fled until the latter part {
last December Then he met, in Der
yer, a man named Philip Craig. who wa
J working for me at the time of the SUP
. posed murder. They recognized one an
= . other, and Craig told Baer the story
Z the affair, greatly to his astonishmer
! and relief. Baer worked his way gradr
. ally East, to revisit the old scene an
10 set things right. The Hathaway CIR
over whom the two men quarreled, wa
married in 1867, and died last year. He
70 son, a strapping chopper, seventee
10 years old, works for me at the mills nov
u Baer worked day in the old place, bu
~ concluded he preferred to go bac
Vi Vast and he's poino on this ticket"