The age-herald., 1902-01-05
Solution of the Chicagos Kidnapping Mystery

From the Chicago Inter-Ocean.
 After a search of thirty years the mys- tery of child Kidnapping case in many respects as novel and interesting as that of Charley Ross has been solved. The child, stolen ine 1870, when years old. has been recovereda She is now mar ried woman with three children of her own. but the joy of the family at finding her was fully as great as if she were still a child.
 In 1868 family nafned. Williams came to this country from Wales and settled at Harrisburg. Pa. In the party were Mrs. Jane Williams and her husband and their two sons, William and Aaron Will Hams, the former of whom was married. After a short residence in Harrisburg MT. Williams, Sr., died. and the family removed to Syracuse N. Y. There the wife of William Williams also died, and the son, heart-broken, became a rover, leaving his little daughter, Rachel, in the keeping of his mother. In 1870 the family came to Chicago and made its home here. William Williams had in the mean time remarried and joined his relatives in Chicago. He had trouble with his second wife and they separated. A little later, supposedly affected mentally by his marital troubles, he disappeared. The grandmother had become warmly att tached to Rachel, and the second wife, smarting under what she considered a grievous wrong done her by the child s father, determined to steal her. One day Rachel was Kidnapped and 1t was not un- til last week she was found, despite the fact that for thirty years an active search was maintained and the entire for tune of the Williams family exhausted in the hunt.
 Woman In the Case.
 In all these years the longing of the aged grandmother was for the recovery of her pet Every possible clew was fol- lowered without success, no suspicion at- taching to the discarded wife of the child's father until few weeks ago. when Aaron Williams accidentally got into correspondence with his brother. and from him received an intimation that per haps the second wife might know some thing about the child. Up to the time of the Kidnapping this woman had never seen Rachel, but she had heard Williams speak of her frequently as an unusually pretty girl, to whom both he and his mother were both deeply attached.
 "She knew she couldn't hurt me more than by stealing Rachel" wrote Will Hams to his brother, land while have no proof. and don't even know where she may be found. I feel that this woman can. if she will, tell something about the child's disappearance.
 Aaron Williams had hard time To- eating the second wife, but he finally found her in Chicago, where she had married again, her new husband being a wealthy merchant who holds an hon. orable position in Chicago society and business circles. Aaron wrote to the wo- man and finally secured an interview with her. Working on her sympathies, and with a promise that there should be no prosecution or publicity of any kind, so far as he was concerned, he at last se- cured a confession that she had stolen Rachel out of revenge in 1870. and had taken the child to Evansville. Ind, where she had abandoned her.
 Recovery of Rachel.
 Then Aaron Williams began work on another hard job. He had to refresh the memories of Evansville people for nearly thirty years to get them to try and re- call what they might have known at that time about the child who had been aban- doned there. At first he had little suc- cess. The authorities knew nothing about such a case and a house-to-house search was instituted. At last 1t was found that somebody remembered about a little girl having been picked up in the street along about 1870, and taken. care of by a family that death had since broken up. Some one else also had an in- distinct recollection that this child, who had been with the family only year or so, was turned adrift when the wo- man who took her from the street died. and had been sent to some charitable in- stitution. Then Aaron began a search of the Indiana institutions of this nature. and at Elberfield found records showing that the missing child had been cared for there. These records established be- yond question the fact that she came