Milford chronicle., 1907-07-05
LONG LOST MAN
FINDS HIMSELF
Merchant Forgot Who lie Was and
Worked at TailOrs.
ETRANGE CASE OF APHAsIA


Plainfeld, N. J., July Frank John
son went to sleep for good and in his
place woke up Charles T. Brewin.
brought back to his own personality
by the sight Of his son standing before
him as he woke up. After a four years
lapse of memcry Brewin remembered
first his son, then himself He return
ed to Burlington. n. J. to greet his fam
fly and his old friends again. He can
not realize that it is four years he has
been away. and not four days.
Brewin was a merchant in Burling-
ton for many years, and had built him
self a handsome house and raised a
family there He went to sleep so
soundly one evening, on November 8,
1903, that he did not really wake up
again. The next morning he got up
and went down stairs, recognizing none
of the familiar things.
The counters in the store-and the
rolls of cloth-he was a tailOr-lOoked
strange to him. He hurried out and
down the street He wandered on out
of town, not knowing even his name
It was a case of complete aphasia He
was Sc years old when he disappeared
and to-day he remembers himself as Sc
years old and cannot realize that he is
90.
Nobody knows where the missing
tailor went. His coat was found, at
last, on a Jersey City ferryboat, with
an illegible note in the pocket. The
family thought he had drowned him
self.
The wanderer got an idea that his
name was Frank Johnson. Somehow
he seemed to return to New Jersey, af-
ter wandering in various places. He
seemed to remember a good deal about
tailoring though he had forgotten his
own tailor store, and did well enough
TO get work at last at Miss Browns, in
Plainfeld He settled down and got
firmly fixed in the idea that he was
Frank Johnson. Indeed he came to be
sure that it was Frank G. Johnson,
though what the &C." stood for he
never was quite sure.
Alfred Woolman, who had been
brought up in the little town of Bur-
lington, came one day to be a conduc-
tor on the Plainfeld trolley cars. He
set eyes on the old cleaner at work in
Miss Browns window, and immediate
" he remembered him as the old Bur-
lington tailor who had never been
found.
Woolman told the Brewins on his
next trip to Burlington. They lost no
time. His son and Rev. ]. H. Buchanan
went down to see him. Both recOg-
nized him at once. He was the same
man in appearance.
But at his sons greeting he looked
up with a smile and an assurance that
the young man was mistaken, as peo-
pie often did mistake one man for
another. He turned quietly to his work
after a while, only stopping to bid his
son good afternoon as he left and to
wish him better luck in his search. The |
old clergyman who had known him for |
many years could not strike any nearer /
to the old mans absent memory.
The family, however. sure Of the |
man, would not give up. His son in
uuired and found out from Miss Brown |
many things that settled his convic-
ton. He again saw his father one |
evening; but the older man was afraid .
to think, for, he said, it hurt his head.
The final trial was made Monday.
"Johnson's' landlady let the visitor
into his room as he slept in his arm
chair in the afternoon. No attempt
was made to wake him.
The son waited patiently, if not calm
", until his father awoke; nobody else
was in the room but a doctor, sitting
near the door.
Good evening, father" said the
son as quietly as he could, when the
old man opened his eyes. The father
greeted his son calmly, as if he had
5ust seen him before going to sleep.