The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1891-04-17
THE ORIGINAL EUGENE ARAM.
He Began Life as an Usher and Was
Teaching School When Arrested.

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 real parsonage
and the most famous murderer of his
time. He was executed on the 9th of
August, 1859, and Bulwer. in an unpub-
lished preface to his novel, said that it
was founded upon "a very remarkable
murder by very remarkable man, half
q century ago. In short, upon the story
of Eugene Aram." .. y
The crime for which Aram suffered,
In company with his own strange his
tory, comb 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 I'LL, 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 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 a
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
and Latin scholar. In 1884 he gave up
ushering, and was engaged as steward
of an estate belonging to a Mr. Norton,
of Knaresborough. While in this posi-
ton he acquired thorough knowledge
of the Hebrew language, andeontracted
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 a story
among the friends that Mrs. Clarke
would soon receive large fortune
which she had inherited. Aram and a
fellow-conspirator, Richard Houseman,
decided to victimize the supplemented
shoemaker. and persuade him to make
display of his own money with view
toward impressing his wife's supposed
rich relations. Clarke was easily gulled,
and plunged into absurd extravagances.
Among other things, he borrowed and
bought on credit 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 a London firm.
He suddenly disappeared in February,
1745, and it was supposed that he had
gone to London to dispose of his plate
and iewelry.
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 walk
with them through the fields outside Of
Knaresborough on the night of Febru-
airy s, 1745. At small distance from
the town, in a 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
a 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
ot foreign languages. He learned
French and acquired Arabic, with sew
eral other eastern dialects. Admiral
Burney, who went to school at an es-
Enlistment 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 a highly peculiar fashion. As
he ceased to write 20 his Yorkshire
friends it was thought that he was dead.
In 1858 a man who was digging for
limestones near st. Roberts cave found
the bones of n 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 a
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
peniOus pieceS of reasoning that had owe