Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1923-09-16
ADMITS He Welded
BEAUTIFUL GIRLS
John P. varnum'S Last Bride
Is D. c. MiSS-HeId While
Checks Are Probed.

John Prescott Varnum, who de-
clared he had wooed and married
three pretty girls in as many states
and blandly admitted that he had
been accepted by another less than
a week after he had been torn from
the side Of his third wife while they
were still on their honeymoon, was
lodged in the first precinct police
station last night.
While varnum is rejecting over
his numerous matrimonial ventures,
headquarters detectives are looking
into the value OF several checks he
wrote here. one of which was a pres
ent of $500 to his last rnother-in-
law, the parent of Miss Dora Cross,
an employee of the geographic bureau
here.
Wore Borrowed Clothes,
Wearing nobby clothes he had Dor
rowed from his roommates, John NJ.
Mahnquist and L. H. Merrill of 1865
Rhode Island avenue. varnum began
to WOO Miss Cross late in the summer
after brief meeting one evening at
Glen Echo. When she said yes" the
solitaire he slipped on her heart
finger" was borrowed-also from
Mahnquist. The wedding ceremony
was performed August Is.
After the newly welded Mr.. and
Mrs. Varnum had started for Colonial
Beach to spend part of their honey
moon, Mrs. Cross, who lives at Cherry
dale, Va, wired the news to Col.
Charles A. Varnum of San Francisco.
whom the bridegroom said was his
father. Several days later Col Var
mum telegraphed back that he was
delighted to hear the news. but did
not even know that his son had vet
obtained a divorce from the wife he
still had in the California metropolis.
Bride Taken Home.
Mrs. Cross. accompanied by several
members of her immediate family.
hurried to Colonial Beach and con-
fronted ,yarnum with the telegram
from his father. The bride was taken
back home and varnum hurried to
Philadelphia, where he tried in vain.
according to a story he told a re-
porter for The Star, to entrice his
wife by telling her he was very i'll
and needed her.
When the new Mrs. varnum failed
to arrive in response to his repeated
pleas, the prisoner continued. he re-
turned to Washington last Sunday.
The same day he met another young
woman here, proposed to her on Mon
day and was accepted Tuesday, he
asserted. Before the fourth wedding
could be performed, however, the
police. who had been investigating
particularly two checks he gave to
the Liggett Drug Company, arrested
him.
Among Varnum's other admitted
liabilities is a. bill of $4S, due the
Washington Hotel, where Vranum
and his third wife spent several days.
That particular bill, Varnum declared,
mates, because the hotel is holding
the trunk full of clothes he loaned
Varnum. AS an Offset the room mate
possesses a pair of Knockers the pris-
oner asserts he owned when he
reached Washington.
First Welded I'm Oregon.
According to the story Varnum re-
lated to The Star reporter, his first
wife was Miss Alma Ross, the daugh-
ter of a prominent bank official in
Portland, Ore. His second, he said,
was Miss Marie Jackson, a trained
nurse of San Francisco. BY each
wife he had daughter. His father.
1t is said, commanded the Indian
Scouts that first found Gen. Custer
and his massacred soldiers, and is a
possessor of the congressional medal
of honor.
While Mrs. Cross did not know def
initely what steps she and her daugh-
ter would take, she intimated that
legal steps would be instituted i'm
mediately for annulment of her
daughters marriage to Varnum