The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-07-11

my father Gilbert Mosher before his
e eteaI1, IL VIII clear up the mystery of the
nrst time the truth about the end of the
ELLSWORTH MOsHER."
In the summer of 1874 Gilbert Mosher
called upon Police Superintendent Walling
in this city and supplied evidence which
proved that the persons who had abducted
Charley Ross were his brother William
Mosher and Joseph Douglas. Before these
men were captured, however they were
killed in an attempted burglary at Bay
Ridge, leaving the fate of the missing boy
still unsolved. The last chapter in this
stfangest of modern romances is now made
public for the first time through the state
ment of Ellsworth Mosher, son of Gilbert
Mosher, to the Sunday Journal of this city.
IN which, now that Christian K. Ross is
dead he makes public the facts which his
father had never divulged to the police, and
settles once and for all the fate of Charley
Ross.
The mystery of the kidnapping of Charley
Ross is mystery no longer. Ellsworth
Mosher nephew of William Mosher. the
thief Of the desperate gang that kidnapped
the boy twenty-three years ago. and son of
Gilbert Mosher, the thug S brother, who put
the statement that the stolen child died or
was murdered in the house at So Grand
street or the adjoining house on the corner
OF South Fifth avenue. In the basement
OF this house the wife of the criminal chief
had a restaurant and sixteen years ago
Workmen, in tearing out the old basement
walls, found the skeleton of a boy. That
skeleton, Gilbert Mosher told his son. was
all that was left of Charley Ross, and Els
worth Mosher now for the first time dis
closes the statement. William Mosher and
his accomplice, Joseph Douglas, were killed
during a burglary. Gilbert Mosher is dead.
CHRISTIAN K. Ross, the father of the stolen
child, who spent his fortune in the search
for his boy, also is dead.
Ellsworth Mosher is an industrious Ia
porer, an honest man, according to his en-
ployers and neighbors, who feels keenly
the association of his family with the black
CRIME, and who would rather talk of any
thlng In the world than the stealing of
Charley Ross and his death To under
stand the authority with which this man
tears the veil from a mystery nearly a
quarter of a century old, it is necessary to
recount some of the awful circumstances
OF the crime that was meant to be the first
crime in system of brigandage through
OUT the country. The plans of the fiends
who stole and held the child for ransom
were never fulfilled
They neither gained the price they put
upon MS life, nor the example by which
they thought to terlorize other parents into
paying unquestionably for kidnapped chill
dren. The Nation was spared the infection
OF the horrid industry, and the child steal
ers were killed in committing another
crime. But the sacrifice for the Nations
immunity and the criminals punishment
were the life of the hazeI-eyed curly
headed child, the dissipation of a fortune.
and the gloOmng to ruin of a once happy
home. The hideous end of the story might
nave been known years ago, if it could not
have been averted. had the police needed
the advice of the undertaken whom the
widow of the arch-criminal sought out and
begged to take charge of the burial of her
guilty husband and his fellow burglar and
accomplice, Joseph Douglas, when the two
were shot to death by those they sought to
rob. This undertaken was John Henry
Mum, whose establishment is at 100 Ave
nue. d. He had years before worked in the
shipyard on the East river with the
MoSherS.