The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1898-09-22
WHERE Is THOMAS B. RICHEY.
Disappeared as If Engulfed in an
Earthquake.

From the Washington Post.
At 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening Aug
ust 20, Thomas Beall Richey, of Wood
stock, Va, walked out of the Howard
House, corner of Pennsylvania avenue
and Sixth street, and from that mo-
ment has never been heard of. He dis
appeared as utterly as if some
tremendous cataclysm had engulfed
him. He was cancelled as completely as
though convulsion of nature had bur-
led him. Nothing more mysterious has
ever occurred in Washington. A man
in the prime of life, a prosperous mer-
chant, a devoted husband, a sincere
Christian sober of high repute and in
fluential family connections, Thomas
Beall Richey passed from the Howard
House into antoccultation as absolute
as death itself. That such thing
could happen in the very heart of
Washington, at an hour when the whole
city was awake and under circumstan-
ces of perfect public order and tran
guilty, is as astounding as any ro-
nance ever concocted by Gaboriau or
Du Boisgobey. Indeed, it beggars ro-
nance and takes, rank with those ap-
pallng facts which prove to us how
tion is the simple truth.
There are details and collaterals
which go to intensity the mystery. Mr.
Richey stopped over in Washington for
the purpose of locating or tracing his
baggage, which had gone astray. He
had set out from New York, where he
had been purchasing a stock of goods,
leaving his wife to pay brief visit to
hnr fa M 10 nj
tai found that his trunk was missing.
On that account he put up at the How
ard House. awaiting the result of a
telegram to his brother-in-law in New
York, and, meanwhile, wrote to his
niece in Woodstock, advising her of his
detention. In the note he explained
that he was waiting for his trunk, and
| would take the train for home as soon
as it turned up. He closed his message
by saying it was so warm that he in
tended taking ride on the electric cars
probably into the suburbs, with a view
of enjoying the fresh air while the city
cooled off. The remarkable fact in this
connection is that while the letter it
self was in Mr.. Richey's well-known
handwritingl and exhibited not the
slightest sign of physical or mental
dressed in chirography totally unfamil-
lar to every one of Mr.. Richey' s
friends and relatives. The hotel sta
tiOnery was not used. There was moth
ing to indicate the locality from which
| il was sent. But the postoffice brand
on the outside showed that it had been
taken up somewhere in Washington at
23O a. m. Wednesday morning. The
is, thnrnfnra AT
Richey wrote the letter after leaving
| the hotel-possibly several hours af-
| terward-and that some one in whose
| company he then was undertook to ad-
dress and mail it. Another circum-
stance tending to complicate the mys-
terry is that inquiry subsequently made
at the Pennsylvania depot showed that
the trunk had reached where next day.
that the check had been presented and
the property removed. A telegram was
| received at the hotel after Mr.. Richey's
| disappearance. 1t was from his broth
er-in-law in New York, saying that
the trunk had been forwarded from the
Courtlandt street ferry office, and il
was opened by one of the lost mans
brothers. The telegram gave the num-
ber of the check. and so it was an easy
matter TO ascertain that it had been
taken up at the depot II is also a
logical conclusion that the person pre-
senting the check must have got ii from
Mr.. Richey. Could 1t have been the
same man who addressed the letter
which was stamped 2:30 a. m, August
| "a, and sent to Woodstock?
Altogether this strikes us as one of
the most remarkable episodes in the
history of Washington. Considering all
the circumtances-the time, the place
the well-known character of the man,
everything-it constitutes as profound
and perpleXing a mystery as ever fig
ured in song or story. Mr.. Richey dis
appeared on the night of Tuesday, the
23d-eight days ago-and up to a late
hour last night not a trace of him.
however faint, had been developed
| His friends have searched the city high
! and low. They have visited the hos
| pitals, the police stations, even the
morgue, Not a CLEAN of light has been
| thrown upon the case. Silence and