The Washington times., 1923-09-06
81 YEAR
VIGIL FOR HER
WAR HERO
Fanny Read Has Left Room
Only Twice Since Lieutenant
Rode Off to Fight South.
By international News Service.


BINGHAMTON, N. Y, Sept. g.
For sixty-two years Fanny Read, in
a single suite of rooms, high up in
a huge old tavern at Hancock, now
deserted and gone to cobwebs and
memories, has waited for her civil
war lover, Lieut.. John Bellows, to
keep his promise and come back to
her. I;
In all that time. since the autumn
of 1861, she has broken her self
imposed exile in the gloomy fifty
room hotel only twice-once years
ago to attend funeral and again
recently to attend another funeral
and now she vows she has returned
to her memories and her exile for
ever.
Still true to the boy in blue, still
trusting that same today she will
hear again the thud Of his horses
hoofs speeding up from the camp
ground on. the flat below the town,
still loyal to love which she says
will never die.
Fannie Read today lives absolute
ly alone in the gray, abandoned
hotel. She has for many years.
Her only near relative is Judge
Howard Read. Of Hancock, whose
solicitous care and kindly treat
ment of her for quarter OF a
century have kept her alive. He
takes her meals to her and does her
errands.
Romance Like Fiction.
The exile is the ending of as
glorious and rare a romance as
ever lowered in fiction.
Fannie Read was the belle of all
that countryside that grows green
now between Hancock and Windsor,
when in the first year of the civil
war Lieut.. John Bellows AMI his
company bivouaced down on the
flats near the tavern which her
father kept.
She was a blithe, gay hostess,
who had been the despair Of the
country SWANS and who han always
said she'd have no man Until the
| right one-the only one-came
along.
The straight, dark lieutenant. in
his blue and gold, was the right
and only one. He drifted up from
the flats and into the beautiful Fan
ME Reads heart. He gave her the
wealth of love and devotion for
which she had thirsted. And she
gave him her pledge Of love for
ever.
But Riley Read. the girls stern
| father, objected when he learned of
the affair. He forbade his daughter
TO meet the debonair lieutenant
again. He said she was too young.
| Then on the night before the
regiment struck tents and moved
off for the bloody South, Riley Read
| entered the tavern and asked for his
! daughter. Her mother, tremblingly
pointed to the parlor. A thread of
| light lay beneath the door. Riley
Read strobe to it and burst into
the room. He turned up the light
and savagely and stood aghast.
Victim of Fathers Rage.
On the old, black, hair-covered
settee sat the soldier. Against the
blue of his coat lay the gold of
Fannie's hair.
Rage so overcame Riley Read
that he could not speak. He
sprang upon the lieutenant, jerked
him to his feet, threw him, out of
the house. He told his daughter to
go to her room. She went and was
locked in. When the regiment
moved the next morning Lieut..
John Bellows asked for her, but he
could not see her. She was still
locked in. She heard him ride down
the path to the river and out of
her life forever-though she does
not say forever.
Later, when her father told her
she could come out. she said she
wouldn't. And she didn't in his life
time. She awaits the call of the
one man in all the world. Records
do not disclose what happened to
him in the war.
From behind closed blinds of the
old tavern now comes the faint
notes of a spinnet sometimes on
moonlight nights. The tunes are
when Johnny Comes Marching
Home Again" and IN Be Waiting
in the Cleaning