The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1891-08-24


Search parties were organized. Tnspec
ton Of the doctors premises brought &c
light that hisgig was stained with blood.
his horse bearing the appearance Of hav-
ing been hardly driven the night before.
bat DIR. Hoff accounted for these sus-
picious facts with complete GOODNESS. A
long drive. an amputation after a severe
accident Further inquiry ELECTED that
there bad been an accident at a distance,
that the doctor had been there. that ht
had performed just the operation that be
claimed to have performed
No evidence. So S1as Beavers dis
appearance remains to this day a mys-
terry.
It may be that the iron tracks Of the
great railway rested on their sleepers
above the murdered mans hidden re.
mains. for what so easy as to hide the
likely victim Of passion under the great
banks Of appraised soils 1t may be that
amid some tangle Of wood and vine.
rock and fern, the missing man was laid
away. hidden forever from earthly eyes.
Time went on; suspicion slept, watch
fulness abateds but never again did the
feet of Silas Beaver cross the threshold
Of his own door.
Then n night there was a lurid glare
lighting the tree tops Of the gorge. A
farmhouse, barns and all their contents
were one great pitiful bonfire. Oh. fol
the toll Of weeks, Of months, the slow
gathering Of harvest. the pinching and
saving to obtain stocki Only a black.
ened ruin. a hopeless prospect
The victim had been at enmity with
DR.. Hof. 1t was he who had been fore
most in the search for the missing maI
Beaver. The doctor had been heard tc
threaten him repeatedly. So Dr.. Hof
was arrested and lodged in Jail, but be
fore the day of trial came be escaped
and the neighborhood knew him nc
more.
Silent and deserted stood the house OF
the edge Of the gorge, until one night
when the storm ragged and the lightning
flashed and glistened in the leaden skies
the fame shot up from its lonely timber
and We'd with the flashes of its kinder
the electric bolt. When morning came
the sun rose over a heapof charred ruins
and forest birds piped a requiem over the
scorched trees and flowers.
He who lived in the homestead on the
verge of the gorge had been stormy anc
passionate; fit ending to his dwelling t.
perish by the fury and the passion of thu
storm.
Over the gorge now. By the hand o.
the axman shorn Of its pristine beauty
on its tracks of steel, supported by then
mighty trestles, hour by honr pass the
trains with slackened speed and painting
breath of steam in curb.
Down below, deprived Of the gratefu
shade Of its verdant friends, the foresi
trees, the little brook ripples and gurglei
bravely in the garish sunlight. Alas
no wary trout sport in its once cool, darl
depths. No timid deer bend their grace
full heads to drink of its waters, but few
I birds quench their thirst in its now luke
warm shallow ripples. The beautiful.
gorge, the cool, deep brook are things o.
the past. Like the homestead which
once overlooked them and its passionate
tempered dweller, like the great eagle
which built its nest on the crags near by
like the deer and the myriad fores
birds. it remains but a memory, a rem
iniscence of long ago, told in an hour O
retrosPection BY the "oldest inhabitant.'
Does any one ask what befel the poo
young wife of DR.. Hoff? This is what the
soldest inhabitant" told to satisfy tn,
visitors curiosity On that point: 1t wa
supposed by many people that it wa
Mrs. Hoff who aided the doctor in hi
escape from jail; however that may be
she disappeared at the same time he did
The lonely little grave in the corne o
the clearing no longer had a mourner
never again did posies of fen and howel
deckits tiny appraised mound Then Their,
came a day when sorrow and indignation
mingled in the hearts of those who had
known and loved the gentle English lady
who had led such a sad life in the home
stead by the gorge. A certain DR.. Hof
who had lived for some years in Canada
but who had lately returned to England
was on trial for his life for the murder
Of his wife, neal London. so the papers
recorded. Later on was sent the new
far across the water that DR.. Hoff hac
expiated his abominable crime on the
scaffold.