Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-09-25
DAILY STORY
THE AID. VS.. SUPERSTITION.
tOriginal.l

happened at the beginning of the last l
century. If given as fiction the author |
would be considered to have exhausted
his powers of inventing reasonable !,
happenings, and as fact it is liable to B,
be put down as tissue of lies.
In 1912 the then little village of Man
chester, VT, was shocked at the diSap-
pearance of one of its citizens, Russell
Colvin. Two young men, Stephen and
Jesse Bourn, were suspected of the
murder. Just before the disappear .
ance Stephen and Colvin had quarreled
and Stephen had Knocked Colvin down /
with a club. This had been seen by |
persons who were ready to testify to
the fact.
But so long as Colvin had not been
killed, not even seriously injured, this ,
was not sufficient evidence for his con-
victiOn, the Bourns were not arrested, !
and the excitement gradually died
away. Seven years passed. and the |
mystery of Colvin's disappearance came !
to be regarded as one of those riddles |
that would never be solved. Then one !,
night in 1910 an uncle of Stephen and |
Jesse BOurn dreamed that the ghost of
COlvin appeared to him. denounced the !
two Bourn boys as his murderers and /
said they had buried the body in the
cellar. The uncle gave the ghostly
testimony to the authorities.
A century ago dreams were supposed
to be reliable sources Of information, .
and ghosts denOuncing their murdererS
was not unusual. Now we know that
dreams are nothing more than the
working of the brain in sleep, and. as
for ghosts, they are principally interest
ing to societies for psychical research,
Nevertheless the cellar floor was dug
up, and a knife and buttons We're
found that We're identified as having
belonged to the missing COlvin. The
Bourn brothers were arrested.
In time Jesse BOurn, eXhorted by his
spiritual adviser. confessed that he
and his brother Stephen and their IA
thcr, after Stephen had knocked Col
vim down, had carried him to the cellar
and cut his throat with jackknife.
The next year they managed to remove
most of the remains of their victim.
The confession of one man may turn
out to be false, but there was another
| confession in this case that precudcd
any doubt whatever that the first was
genuine. Stephen BOurn after a time
| admitted that what his brother had
said was true. The father and the two
sons We're convicted and sentenced to
be hanged on the 2Sth of January,
1880.
Despite the double confession there
| were persons SO obstinate in theic
| opinions as to hold that the inen were
innocent and some so hard headed rs
to doubt even that CoIvin was dead.
| Some of these took it upon themselves
| to insert advertisements In Il number
| of papers for the missing man. Then
| came another of these chapters Of
events A letter dated Shrewsbury.
! n. J., Dec. 6, 1919, and signed by Il
| Mrs. Chadwick appeared in the New
| York Evening Post, stating that a de-
ranged man named Russell Colvin had
been there five years before. The let
ter was considered hoax.
In the Colyiu case it was different
James Whelpley of New York. who
had known Colvin, resolved to follow
up this clew. He tracked the man
who had been seen at Shrewsbury to
Dover, n. j., fifty miles away. Mr.
Whelpley went there and found his
old acquaintance, Russell Colvin He
had been there ever since 1918.
The evidence that had determined
COlyin to have been murdered and the
process by which he was discovered is
a singular Illustration of the blending
of the superstition of the century with
the more enlightened methods of the
eighteenth century. He had been
pronounced dead by n ghost seen in Il
dream. Those he accused were placed
under that inquisitorial process in
vogue during the two previous cen
, turtles. The clergy We're still a power
and clergyman eXhorted the accused
to confess, as those accused of witch
craft had been eXhorted to confess.
Then comes in the dawn of more
enlightened age the little newspaper
of that period, candle compared with
the searchlight of today. to cast its
feeble rays upon the victim and lights
up the truth.
Mr.. Whelpley took the murdered
man with him to New York, and the
city council gave him money to go tc
Manchester, where he arrived about 9
month before his murderers were tC
have been hanged. OF course his
coming had been announced by mail
: The prisoners were released. the be
levers in dreams chimed in with those
/ who had believed in the Bourns' in
: nocence, and the whole town, wilt
s with excitement, REINFORCED by dele
I cations from the surrounding country
/ prepared to welcome the man called
h back from the dead. A salute wa.
a fired from a cannon and small arms
l. Stephen Bourn firing the first piece.
4 Since that day the early newspaper
l. issued occasionally-when the printe
q had nothing better to do-has grow
from a size no bigger than the lette
It sheet then used to its hundreds o