St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-08-25
A Story of EARLY Days in
the North Dakota
WildS.
Georgius Mercer, the Re-
eluse, and His Horrible
Find on the Banks
OF the Ripping, Purling
Goose, Now in the Heart
Of a State.
The Love Of Twenty Years
Before Most Strangely
Brought to Life.

The nomination of John Flittie, of
Mayville, N. D., for secretary of state of
that charming territory, reminds me of
a story connected with the Goose river
valley. with which John is probably
quite familiar. In 1870, in what is now
known as the Newberg district of the
valley of the Goose. there lived hunt
Ell and trapper by the name of Georgius
Mercer. He was an eccentric individ-
ual. leading an isolated life and paying
no attention to the few whites who oc-
casionally invaded the land of the Sioux.
While he was On friendly terms with
the Pembina Indians and the Piegans
of the border, they. nevertheless, came
rarely to his cabin, and as rarely were
approached by him. Mercer was of
New England birth. having been
born in Worcester, Mass, and hay
ing relatives in Springfield, Hampton
and North Wiibraham. A disappoint-
ment i'll love in early years had driven
him into the wilds of the West. In 1862
he was trapper on the banks of the
Minnesota river, near Redwood Falls,
but after the Sioux massacre he crossed
the Red river. and finally found a
lodging place on the banks of the
Goose, then quite large stream. The
story told of him, and as mysterious in
its way as some deadly plot of Poess.
dates from the year 1870, when the
Red and the Missouri, and the bones of
the dead at Abercrombie had not vet
changed to dust. He came out of his
cabin one morning in September, just
at daybreak, and taking the trail that
led down the river, towards what is
now the Grandin farm, began to ex-
anime his traps and snares. The first
two that he reached were untauched,
but at the third, lying in the grass
close above it,
LAY A HUMAN HEAD.
He started back, old warrior that he
was, in horror. The eyes of woman
were looking up at him, and the flowing
locks of woman'S hair were falling
about the pallid face and hiding the
grim, red mark at the neck where some
sharp instrument had severed the mem.
Der from its trunk. 1t was some mo-
ments before he recovered his courage
and looked to find some trace of the
body, but there was none, nor were
there signs of struggle in the grass.
nor blood upon the ground, nor any indl-,
cation as to where the strange thing had
come from, nor to whom it belonged
He looked everywhere. but neither
mother earth beneath, nor the flowing
river, nor the wild prairie flowers,
nor the blue sky above, gave
him an answer. At last, discour-
aged for the moment, he lifted the head
carefully, concealed it in the grasses
aDd went on his way to the fourth trap.
and there he started back with almost
a scream upon his lips, for on the bank
beside it was lying the arm of a man,
clearly severed from some unknown
and unseen body. The hand of this arm,
was tightly clenched, and just above
the wrist was tattooed an anchor. MerT
Ger was man without physical fear,
but these ev licences of murder and OUT
rage most foul almost unbalanced him.
He was inclined to turn bak to his cabin
and let the remainder of his traps go
for day, but on second thought con-
Guided to go OH. The fifth trap was To-
Gated in bend of the Goose nearly OPP
posite to where the Grandin farm
house and its red barns now stand.
Mercer approached it with some eau
ton, warned by his previous experience,
and sick at heart with dread. AS he
pushed the bushes aside he saw moth
ing, and felt relieved, but when he bent
over the trap, he turned CHASTITY white
and clutched his gun with terrific grip,
for caught in the snare was
A WOMAN'S HAND.
It was not the hand of frontiers
woman; the sun had not burnt into it
heavy brown, nor had toll in sod hut,
or beneath roughly hewn logs, scared
or defaced It's beauty. 1t was soft, white
and plump, and upon the forefinger
shone a slender band of gold. The
veins had run like delicate tracery
under the skin, and the nails were white
and tapering. How long Mercer sat
there and looked down on that sad
momento of life, he never could
agony and woe told in the head
and arm behind him, and the delicate
hand that lay in the cool water before
him, that his own heart and mind
seemed to cease to act. He sat dumbly,
looking neither up nor down, emotions
long dead surging through him and
paralyzing action. The sun had climbed
high toward the zenith. and the morn
ing breeze had given way to hot bis
tering calm, when he came out of his
trance. Then he stopped over and took
the hand from the trap and retraced his
steps. He gathered up the arm and
last recovered the head, and, thus loaded
with CHASTITY burden, went to his
cabin. There he decentIy inferred
them, and without cooking his MONDAY
meal threw himself down ON his rude
bench and began to speculate. He
knew that at that time there
were no Indians near enough to
have done the deed, besides the
work had been too well executed to even
suggest Indians. From this line he
passed on to theory as to what woman
this head had belonged to, and from
what shapely arm that hand had come.
He imagined that those locks of light
brown hair had clustered above eyes,
of blue, and that the eyes of blue had
fashioned we'll with the rosy cheeks Of
maiden, and the half-parted lips OF.
youth. and the sensitive, Quivering nos
trils of high-spirited young girl. He i
imagined in his own way. that the face
as he remembered it, and the eyes,
which had no terror in their depths,
belonged to woman whom he could /
have loved; still more, as he thought
longer, he OWNED that there were
traces in them which reminded
buried back in the hills of Mas
sachusetts. These thoughts took a.,
tremendous hold upon his im-i
agination, they had him bound to his,
cabin, he found it impossible to be out,
of sight of the little mound of earth.
heaped over the grave which he had.
made. He was prompted to go to dis
tant settlements and arouse justice to n
FERRET OUT THE MYSTERY
of this tragedy but he had scarce moved
a mile when something seemed to call
him back, and he ran like mailman to
the cabin, and lay all of the day at its
door. The truth was that these incidents
had aroused in Mercer a train of
thought and class of emotions which
had held no sway over him for more
than twenty years. He was now pass
ing the prime of life, and the hard life
of the frontier had begun to make
marked ravages on his body and mind.
The tragedy, so strangely thrown
in his way, and rousing him
from the somnolecy of more than
two decades, had changed his entire be-
ing and made him another man. He
was no longer the hunter, eager upon
the trail, but heart-worn man, whom
n xx,on,op,c hond op1 q uomop;o faon