Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1893-11-04
vANDALS AT WORK.
Unknown Sooundrels Commit Pc
culiar Crimes.
Numerous Cemeteries in Illinois Towns
Invaded and Costly Monuments
and Tombstones Defaccd
by Them.
GHouLIsH DEEDS.

PRINCETON, Ill, OCJ. 20. - strange
ghouls are at work in the country
towns hereabouts. They haunt the
graveyards at night, overturning
stately granite monuments, breaking
urns and tombstones and defilihg the
graves themselves Schoolhouses
have also been visited, maps, books
and charts piled in heaps
and burned, desks broken and
walls defaced. The destroyers
move in rotation from one town to an
other, going as mysteriously as they
came, and leaving everywhere a trail
of sacrilege and desecration. Whether
the shameful work be that of single
man or of an organized gang of vandals
is uncertain. The absence of any pos
sible motive, however, makes it prob
able that only one person, and he a
dangerous crank, if not maniac, is in
volved.
The list of towns in which cemeteries
are known to have been devastated in
cludes Oneida, Kewanee, Yorkville,
Buda and Galva. Three counties, Bu-
reau, Henry and Knox, are covered in
the field of operations.
AT Oneida sixteen large monuments
of marble and granite were demolished.
AT Galva, in addition to depredations
committed in the cemeteries, the mar
BILE and granite works of Fred Viox
were visited and in one night twenty
five monuments were destroyed.
Near Kewanee the Garret Brown
Der of books and charts burned. The
- & H.,
house in the same vicinity. Twelve
tombstones were overturned and broken
in the cemetery at Neponset and twen-
ty in that at Yorkville.
The money value of the monuments
and tombstones destroyed aggregates
many Thousand dollars. But it is the
unexplained spirit of sacrilege lying
back of the vandalism which has aroused
the people of these towns to desperate
measures. In each of them placards
have been posted announcing a re-
ward for the capture of the supposed
maniac, and the officers carefully
watch and examine every stranger.
The city councils in several of the
towns visited have taken official action,
issuing proclamations and ordering
armed guards to be stationed in the
cemeteries.
ALI the known clews have been
worked and yet, with $500 offered as a
reward, no arrests have been made.
Every cemetery in the section is be-
ing guarded day and night Every
stranger who enters one of the small
towns which have been visited by the
vandals is taken either for criminal
or detective, and if he is wise he pro-
duces his credentials and informs the
town officials who and what he is and
why he is in the place.
Three weeks ago the ghouls began
their work at Princeton. From this
city they followed the line of the Chi
cago, Burlington & Quincy railroad to
the southeast, skipping a few places,
however, as they went along.
They do not seem to show
any discrimination in the grave
which they desecrate. The monuments
over the bodies of old and young, rich
and poor, are treated alike. Through
each cemetery the scourge passes IN the
night, leaving trail of broken marble
behind and doing an amount of work il
would take half dozen laborers two ol
three days in the daytime.