The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1891-07-18
NOT gLoPeD. Bur pgAp.
The Body OF = Young Woman Found Forty
Years After Her DIsappearance.


The Body OF . Young Woman Found Forty
Years After Her Disappearance.
Mary Ann Grier disappeared from her
fathers home, two miles south of Michigan
City. nearly forty years ago. "A few days
ago her body was recoyered in an aban
doned bog iron ore FftsStsftho out one svestiga
of change from the appearances 1T had
known in life. Ftie list sRredsof ciothiug
was long ago destroyedylBS the action Of
the water in which she had met her death, !,
but the same chemicals which removed the
garments preserved the fiesh. ~ -
Not only is the contour of the form per
feet as in life. but the color has remained
unchanged. The arms and shoulders are
as white as marble, the hands are brown,
but suffused with a ruddy flush, which old
settlers here will remember as one of the
girls chief charms, and, were it not for the
unsightly cavities that once contained the
eyes, that petrified frame which has lain
almost half a century in the soil would ap-
pear the peacefully sleeping figure of a
healthy, handsome young woman.
The story of Mary Ann Grier is easily
told. In the first place, it should be known
that this country is full of a kind of iron
called bog ore. In an early day it was ex-
tensively mined by the farmers and hauled
by them to Michigan City and South
Bend, where it commanded ready sale.
In many instances it was the one product
of the soil which brought in money ''
The iron is in small particles, much like
the ore from larger mines, and is excellent
in quality, though not rich enough in
quantity to repay the trouble of mining it
since the day of railroads and the develop
/ ment of Pennsylvania mines. None of the
ore has been. taken from these swamps
since 1850, although the swamp lands all
over northern Indiana are full of it.
Mary Grier was the eldest daughter of
| Nicholas Grier, and was a belle in those
old days of '1S45 to 1850. She was famous
all over the country, which was then new
and sparsely settled, and was sought in
marriage by many an excellent young
man. She was known a worker, as a
! good cook and as famous housekeeper.
and besides had had the unusual advan-
tage of a fair English education.
With the perversity.of her sex she had
chosen harebrained fellow named Whit
sci, and had told her parents she meant to
marry him Whitsel owned an OK team
and made living hauling ore from the
shallow mines to the forge at Michigan
| City. He was warned away from the farm
by Grier and his boys but persisted in his
attentions, and finally received a sound
drubbing from the old man.
The following day he started north with
q load of ore, and early in. the evening
Mary left the house, saying that she was
going to a neighbor to return some trifie
she had borrowed the day before She was
never again seen in life.
! Her parents and the neighbors believed
that Whitsel had decoyed her away, and
they followed him clear to Michigan City;
but they could find no trace of the girl.
Fearing to return to the neighborhood
Whitsel sold his oxen and left the country.
He has never; since been heard from. 1t
was known at the time that Mary Ann had
never reached the home of. the neighbor
for which She had started.
! In the light of events now known it is
i probable she meant to meet her lover, and
\ started across the lower prairie land to
meet him near the creek road. She must
have fallen into one of the pits from which
the ore had been taken, drawing down
; upon her as she fell an avalanche of the
loose but terribly heavy soil. There must
have been water in this pit, as was almost
invariably the case. and this, with the iron
must have produced a solution that tended
to preserve the body. = Cor. St. Louis
Globe-Democrat.