Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1891-06-03
THE ORIGINAL EUGENE ARAM.
He Began Life an Usher and Was
Teaching School When Arrested.


While nearly every school boy in the
land has read or recited Tom Hood
poem, THE Dream of Eugene Aram,"
and Bulwer's novel of the same title is
well-known among their elders, few
are acquainted with the fact, perhaps,
that Eugene Aram was a real parsonage
and the most famous murderer of his
time. He was executed on the 9Th of
August, 1859, and Buiwer, in an unpub-
lished preface to his novel, said that it
was founded upon "a very remarkable
I murder by very remarkable man, half
! a century ago. In short, upon the story
of Eugene Aram."
! The crime for which Aram suffered,
in company with his own strange his
! tory, combined to make his trial, while
! it lasted, the reigning sensation of En-
| gland One of his ancestors had been
| high sheriff of Yorkshire, in the reign
of King Edward Ill, but the family
having been gradually reduced Aram's
father was almost a pauper. The son,
| however, was sent to school near Rip
| pom, where he became expert in writing
and arithmetic, and then went to Lon
don as a merchants clerk. After two
| years in that city he was seized with
the smallpox, recovered and went back
to Yorkshire for the improvement of his
health. There he secured the situation
of usher in public school, but owing
| to his limited education received only
scant salary. His will was indomitable
and his memory phenomenal; so devot-
ing all his leisure time to hard study,
he at last became an excellent Greek
u nAs, ,1ln L.
ushering, and was engaged as steward
of an estate belonging to Mr.. Norton,
of Knaresb orough. While in this posi-
ton he acquired a thorough knowledge
of the Hebrew language, and contracted
a marriage which resulted most unhap-
PLY.
Among Aram's acquaintances at
Knaresborough was shoemaker named
Daniel Clarke. who married soon after
Aram, and Immediately spread story
among the friends that Mrs. Clarke
would soon receive a large fortune
which she had inherited. Aram and a
fellow-conspirator Richard Houseman.
decided to victimize the simple minded
shoemaker, and persuade him to make
display of his own money with view
toward impressing his wife's supposed
rich relations. Clarke was easily guided,
and plunged into absurd extravagances
Among other things, he borrowed and
bought on credit a large quantity of
| silver-plate, with jewels, watches and
rings, telling the people from whom he
purchased these articles that he was
acting as the agent for London firm
He suddenly disappeared in February,
1745, and it was supposed that he had
gone to London to dispose of his plate
| and jewelry.
Aram and Houseman had been keep
ing an eye on these goods, and finally
agreed to murder Clarke and share the
! booty. With this end in view they in
duced the shoemaker to take a walk
with them through the fields outside of
knaresborough on the night of Febru-
airy 8, 1745. At a small distance from
t!Ie town, in stretch of open ground.
was "a grotto known as st. Roberts
cave, and when it was reached Aram
and Clarke crossed the hedge and went
| toward it together Houseman testified
at the trial that when they were within
few yards of it he saw Aram strike
| Clarke several times, telling him to the
ground. As soon as life was extinct in
| the shoemaker the murderers went to
his house, found the treasure and
divided it, Houseman burying his half
In his garden. A year afterward he
took it to Scotland and sold it. Aram
took his share to London, disposed of it
and became an usher again at an
academy in Piccadilly.
During the next twelve years he
drifted from school to school, teaching
the higher branches and indulging in
his leisure in his fondness for the study
| of foreign languages. He learned
French and acquired Arabic, with sew
eral other eastern dialects. Admiral
Burney, who went to school at an es-
adjustment where Aram was usher
subsequent to his crime, said Aram was
generally liked by the boys, and that he
often used to discourse to them about
murder in highly peculiar fashion. As
he ceased to write to his Yorkshire
friends 1t was thought that he was dead.
In 1858 man who was digging for
| llmestones near st. Roberts cave found
the bones of human body 1t was
conjectured that they were the remains
of Clarke, and that he had been muir
dered.
Houseman, having been in the com
pany with Clarke shortly before his dis
appearance, was arrested on suspicion
and locked up in York Castle, where he
was severely questioned after looking
at the bones eXhumed by the limestone
digger. He denied that the bones were
those of Clarke, but pointed out the
spot where they were buried The
skull found with them was fractured.
and was entered as an important piece
of evidence at the trial Officers went
on the trail of Aram, and found him at
the town of Lynn, in Norfolk, where
warrant was secured for him. He was
| arrested while teaching his class, taken
to York Castle and imprisoned with
| Houseman. At the Lent Assizes fol-
| lowing the public prosecutors were not
ready to go on, and Aram was remanded
| till the summer term, when he was
! brought to trial. Aram wrote his own
defense, which he read in court, and
Judge Noel, who presided at the trial,
remarked that it was one of the most in
| genious pieces ofreasoning that had ever
| fallen under his notice There are on
record perhaps few more able and>con-
| vincing addresses to court and Jury
| from a criminal than Aram's, and it al
most won for him an immediate acquit-
tai The public belief in his innocence
was strong and would have remained
so, despite the adverse verdict, had he
not made full confession in letter to
his attending clergyman. This letter
was written when Aram had deter
mined to cheat the rope by committing
suicide, and it was melodramatic com
position. When he finished it he had
cut his left arm above the elbow and
near the wrist with a razor, but missed
the artery. Precautions to prevent con-
demned criminals from doing away
with themselves were not taken in