Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1915-09-23
MANS SKULL UNEARrHED ~
woRkMEN DIGGING IN AsAN.
poNEo HIGHWAY.
FINDING RECALLS TALES
OF GHOSTS AND COLLINS
Farm on Which Skull Was Found For.
nerly Feared by supsrstitisus-
Bones Give Evidence Of Having Been
Buried Twenty Five or Thirty Years
Starts Old Residents 70 Guessing.
'ecial to Times-Republican.

Fort Dodge. Sept. 23.--Has Fort
Dodge in its history had murder
farm?
Among its earlier citizens was there
Nell Cook, Mrs Guinness or Mrs.
Jones that "dissected him before she
went to bed?"
Some where in the forgotten past a
dismal deed may have been done. for
workmen yesterday unearthed the
head OF man on the old Boutell or
Felts property on Prospect Hill. In
three feet of ground, in the stratum
where the surface soil yields to the
hard pan of the subsoil they turned up
fragments of q skull, a piece Of the
upper Jaw and almost the entire lower
jaw The facial pieces were. missing,
as were many other parts of the
anatomy. Not an ulna nor femor. not
a vertebrae nor a rib were found
though ground was turned up for three
feet around AS the head lay. the rest
of the body should have lain on its
back with the feet toward the north.
Authorities agree that the bones
have been buried between twenty and
twenty five years and that the bones
are those of man. The lower jaw is
very large, measuring nearly three
inches, across the portion where the
molar teeth should be. The teeth are
in excellent state OF preservation
though they had all fallen from the
jaw bone save three in the upper jaw.
VINO was the man Who died and was
buried here. right in the road that
then led along the bluff out thru what
is now Oleson park? Who was the
murderer if there was one, and what
was the cause of the crime? Those are
the unanswered questions that are con-
fronting the curious today. No one
knows anything about the case, no one
knows of a man who disappeared and
never was heard Of again. The fact of
the matter is that no one could be
found that lived in that territory when
the death probably occurred.
There Are Ghost Stories.
The old Felts place stands out on the
bluff at the corner of Tenth avenue
south and Fifteenth street. far back
from the street amid grove OF trees
and rather heavy underbrush. The
porch faces the river valley. while to
the right and to the left are wooded
gullies that are. still wild and unkept.
A steep hill leads down to the Illinois
Central tracks and the Flats. This
description is given to- help the reader
in placing the incidents that follow:
The old house has long had tho repu-
tation Of being haunted. Stories are
rife that make the hHif stand on end
One evening a man who once lived In
the house returned from town late:
almost midnight as the story goes. As
he drove around the front of the house
he ran almost directly into an i'm
mense tree that he had never noticed
in that part of the lawn before. He
called to his horses but they were going
SO rapidly that they struck the tree be-
fore they could stop. With horror
he saw the tree fade away into mist
and vanish before his eyes. Il
Another evening the moon was shin
ing brilliantly across the valley. 1t
was nearly midnight and the woman
Of the house had come out on the
porch to cool off. In the grove to the
right she saw figure moving around
with lighted red lantern. The ap-
partition disappeared in the right hand
grove and almost at once reappeared
in the grove to the left. The lady
called her husband, who armed with
a pitchfork went forth to do battle. AS
he approached the ghost" moved
further off Until :. cane &c very
large tree behind which "it" hid. The
man drew closer and finally charged
the tree. There was no man behind
the tree and the tree seemed solid, so
that there was no possibility Of anyone
hiding in there. Where had he gone?
The first family moved out and q
second took their place. Again this
evening promenader was met by the
man of the household, along toward
the midnight hour The man this time