The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1900-01-16
CURSE CLUNG TO HIN
u nheard-of Woes of an Old
Louisiana Planter
WHO SLEPT ELEVEN YEARS
Mari iage to His Own Sister
The Growing Horror

the dea tn of Colonel Marcus S. Stone, Of
willow Grove, La. 1t adds that he, was
aged II. and has been asleep for eleven
years.
So nu Oh for the consciseness Of the
wire er orts. Behind this statement Hes
a tire, .1volune novel of pathos, tragedy,
beauty, incident, and wondrous adven-
ture. 7 80 hear those who know tell it as
they ha We been telling it for the last elev-
en- year along the banks Of the Bayou
Teche, ind under the hanging Spanish
moses tong the sides of the sAtchafa-
laya is o hear tale that makes the
blood ere sp up and down the spine and
ones hair stand Upright from the roots.
This is 20 child's legend that the SUI
perstitious darkies tell or. that the emo
tionaI CreoS We veriffes. It is a tale part
Of which c IN be- endorsed by great legal
minds of tn e state of Louisiana, and by
no less cello Hbrated specialists than Dr.,
Johann Ber. genis,r, Of Berlin, who hes
been in New Orleans watching the case
this year.
To say that Colonel Stone has Keen
asleep for eleven years is to tell the
truth, and to give a fact that is wonder
full enough in titse If. But the cause that
made Colonel Sta ne go to sleep is one
of those tragedies which, when put into
a novel, make tn reader say 'Pshaw!
What an unreal bi t of hysterfcs!''
1t was no less ,an incident that this:
That after having been the father of ten
children by Mrs. 81 one, and having come
to the age of 50 years, and after hav-
ing lived together as man and wife for
twenty years in d great old mansion on
40 de wahY plantation, Colonel Stone
found he had Married his own sister.
The extreme shock, and the terrible
fears which followed for the sanity of his
children, and the martial separation from
the woman he LOWED, ana who had borne
his name for ne;L rly a qIElrter of a CEN
fury threw him into a comatose condi-
ton from which h ? never recovered. For
tunately for this martial alliance, the ten
children died. Tive two last died after
Colonel Stone had fallen into his sleep,
These were not the only tragedies in
the Stones life. although sufficient for
any one family.
Fearful sorrow fell upon the elder Mar
Gus Stone in the be ginning OF his plar-
ried life, and It was the consequences of
this that led up to THE horrible condition
of affairs which has just ended in the
death of the last Colonel Stone
This last Colonel Stone was born in
Nebraska in 1928, but when he was two
years old his parents brought him to
Louisiana. His father invested in gov
eminent bonds, bought slaves, erected the
fine old stone mansion, and lived in that
luxurious and gallant manner which is
testified to by me of the time of Henry
Clay and is written down in song and le-
gend wherever a gifted daughter or son of
Louisiana takes up the pen.
Fifteen years they lived with only their
one boy, Marcus, to brighten the old
house. A girl they had wanted, but no
girl had come. and the growing boy was
beginning to have his little sweethearts
at the neighboring plantations
Whom he should finally marry was a
great question to the father, for, to be
the master of plantation in the first part
of the century was to have a response
biity which few other Americans have
since known.
The welfare of hundreds OF faithful. I'M
educated souls was his to answer for.
But at the end of this fifteen years
there was born little girl, much to the
delight Of the entire plantation. This de-
light was changed to waiting in a few
DAYS, for while life came in at one portal
death came in at another. Mrs. Stone
gave her life for the child's. But there
was a moan and laugh mixed that
came from the master of another great
plantation.
Here is the thread that bound the two
stories together:
in Texas, but had land in the Teche coun-
try. which he often visited, had also lived
in Nebraska when the elder Marcus
Stones wife was a girl. The two had
been IN love with each other. and Mary
/ Tanning, as the girls name was then,
was engaged to marry Wood. The lat
ter went away to California on business,
and when he returned to claim the girl
to whom he was engaged, he found her
coming out of the church as a bride,
welded to Marcus Stone.
The couple moved away from Nebraska
and came to Louisiana to live, and when
he came Wood cursed him He cursed
him in the name of the church, in the
name OF humanity. and desired that he
might be near enough to see the effect
of the curses when they fell.
The old darllies will tell you that when
Wood made the curses it was on an
inky black night. and he went out to a
big tree cut the bark away and made a
hole in the tree, and that he took a lock
of her hair and some Of his own blood
and the written name OF the man she had
married. and some singed hair from a
black cats back. put them all in the
tree. plugged up the hole. and walked
around the tree twelve times while the
clock struck.