Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-11-25


 Husband, Fired Her Home and Then
 Committed Suicide Was Daughter of :, Noted Connecticut Politician.
 New York, Nov. 25.-Although star. tied by the theory that Mrs. Grace Smith, who shot her husband, Nicholas M. Smith, and herself and then set their New Rochelle home ablaze, had for years been conducting an impos- ture in posing as Grace Bulkeley and that she was common adventuress, many of her New Rochelle friends re- fused to believe that Mrs. Smith had not herself thought she was a member of the rich Hartford family of Bulke- leys.
 It was suggested that the mania which had once caused her imprison- ment in a madhouse might have had l permanent effect on her mind and pro- 1 duced a delusion that she had been Grace Bulkeley, about whom she may 1 have known something through early associations. Those who had been her friends said she could have gained nothing by lie and that she certainly believed her story that she was the daughter of the former lieutenant gov ernor of Connecticut William H. Bulkeley.
 First Husband Heard From.
 It was said that she even went so far as to give an account to many of her childhood days in Hartford and that l when Bulkeley died she told many that she had lost her father. She had a copy of Bulkeley's will in her home. Her friends believed this mania caused the murder and suicide.
 q am positive that the Mrs. Smith and the woman I first married in 1890 are one and the same" said Walter c. Medhurst, an engineer of $50 East One Hundred and Thirty-sixth street. "She told me that she was Grace Bulkeley, daughter of General William Bulkeley of Hartford, that she was disowned by her family and a girl cousin adopted in her place. And I must admit that I was deceived seventeen years ago into believing she was a Bulkeley and that I have since believed it, just the same as every one else has, until today.
 Chum Introduced Them.
 'In 1889 first met the girl. A chum introduced me on the street. She was young, pretty and well educated. met her as Grace Bulkeley and mar ried her as Grace Bulkeley. She told me again and again that she was the daughter of General Bulkeley a rich man, but never said she expected to inherit any money.
 When I asked her to marry me in 1900 she told me what she said was her true story. It was this: During her school days at Hartford she had met a man named Alexander Middle ton She loved him and ran away with him to New York. Her father disowned her and adopted a niece about the same age to take her place. Middleton, with whom she had fled, soon deserted her.
 "I did not look into the truth of her story. loved her, and we were mar ried in an Episcopal chapel in Fifty third street. I knew she had been leading a gay life, but overlooked it. We lived happily together for two years. Then she fell into her old ways, and divorced her."
 Denial From the BulkeIeys.
 A member of the Bulkeley family who is in the city said that the only Grace Bulkeley was the wife of David Van Schaack of Hartford and was liv- ing there now.
 Tn 1884," said this woman, "we re- ceived a telegram from some one in New York saying that Grace was in want at a certain number on Broad way. It was the first of long series of reminders that there was some one in this city claiming to be Grace Bulke- ley. the daughter of W. H. Bulkeley. Mir. Bulkeley was puzzled over the tele- gram, but sent his son-in-law, Edward Van File, the author, to investigate. He found that there was no one of the ] Ol dI eIN- en. From then on for years we kept hearing of this woman who posed in New York as Grace Bulkeley.
 Tn 1898 Nicholas Smith, IT,, of Bal timore, who had just come to New York, came to Hartford and said he had been living with Grace Bulkeley. the daughter of Lieutenant Governor Bulkeley, and that if he could be as- sured that her family would finally recognize her he would marry her. He was told that the woman in New York who impersonated Grace Bulke- ley was an impostor and that she was no relation to us."
 Says She Was Grace BuIkeIey.
 The Smiths of Baltimore still insist that the woman was truly Grace BuIkeIey. the daughter of the late lieutenant governor Samuel K. Smith. a lawyer. brother of the dead husband. took the body of the man home with him after the coroner had released The body of the wife. the mystery