Connecticut western news., 1912-05-09
WHEN REDDINGTON DROWNED
Celebrated Case of HaIf-CenturY Ago,
 Recalled by Fred Scamerhorn.

Ceieprated Case ot HaIt-CenturY Ago,
 Recalled by Fred Scamerhorn.
 The mystery of the disappearance of Talmadge Pulver. and the conviction that he committed suicide by drowning in the Housatonic river, have recalled to the minds of the older residents, the circumstance of Mike Reddington's disappearance, nearly fifty years ago. and the finding of his body, three weeks later, in the Blackberry river, few rods from the point where it empties into the Housatonic
 Fred Scamerhorn, who has made daily patrol of the Housatonic river, above and below the railroad bridge, since MT. Pulver's disappearance, tells how he found the body of Reddington, in the early sixties-during war. time when he was a lad of II years. As Fred recalls the circumstances of the mans disappearance, Reddington was in the bar-room of the old Stevens House-at that time conducted by Oliver and Sartial Root-on the night of the Aprn town election. He was intoxi- cated, and got into a controversy with the late Robert VanDeusen over the pay for load of hay purchased from Van Deusen. Later he picked quarrel with soldier, home on furlough,. who knocked him down and also knocked down three other men who attempted to ta ka RpddiD cytOp' "a mart
 During the melee, young Scamerhorn and Eddie Holcomb. who were in the room, were picked up by Jerome Hol- comb, Eddie's father, and placed upon the bar, where they would be out of harm way
 That night Reddington disappeared. His wife, i'll East Canaan, where,he was employed as teamster for the furnaces, never saw him alive after that, and all sorts of speculation was rife. The Blackberry river was dragged from the Housatonic railroad Bridge to the bridge on the old back road, known as Gil lette's bridge, without result. In the meantime some of his friends, proceed ing on the assumption that he had been murdered and his body secreted dug over every inch of-the barnyari of tle hotel barn, which stood next to the old Beckley store, about where the depot park watering trough is now, m search of the body.
 1 Three weeks passed and the excite ment had hauDp tO dia ont ,,-ha,, o,,o day young Scamerhorn, while standing on the trunk of an old willow tree, fish Ing for suckers, just west of the Gillette bridge, saw in the water just jeneath him, the body of man fully clothed and held by the thick growth of willow and other sprouts, face downward, with his head pointed down stream, toward the mouth of the rlver, just below. The boy ran to Fred Gillette. who was working ill field near by, and said he had found Mike Reddington. MT: Gillette took no stock iu the story, SO Scamerhorn ran home and got his moth CT to go to the river with him. She immediately saw the boy was right.
 The authorities and others-including Frederick Watson. Joseph W. Peet, John R. Fuller and M T. Granger were notified, and the body was taken from the stream, badly decomposed, and given a Christian burial, the funeral being notable one for those days.
 It was supposed that Reddington, on leaving the hotel on that election night, being intoxicated and possibly dazed somewhat by the pummeling he had re- ceived, had wandered aimlessly and as he, might have thought, toward his home, but going in an opposite direc- tion, walked into the river, perhaps off the Gillette bridge, and met his death at about the identical spot where his body was found three weeks later.