The Bluffton news. [volume] (Bluffton, Ohio) 1875-current, 1947-09-11

gone. Herman had escaped to join
Burr at the mouth of the Cumber-
land River and Margaret was in
Marietta.
Drunken Soldiers Ransack House
When she returned to the island
she found it in possession of drunken
Virginia soldiers who had ransacked
the house, ruined the furniture and
despoiled the beautiful grounds.
Abandoning the ruined home Mrs.
Blennerhassett, with her children,
f1oated down river in a small cabin
flat-boat and on January 15, 1907,
joined her husband at Bayou Pierre,
where he and Burr had arrived in
the latter's palatial houseboat.
Burr and Blennerhassett were ar
rested ut Natchez, Miss, and after a
sensational trial at Richmond, Va,
were freed for lack of evidence.
The Blennerhassetts returned to
the island but did not remain there.
The great mansion never again was
occupied. On Christmas Eve, 1911
it burned to the ground. A flood
previously had swept over the island
and damaged the house badly.
Blennerhassett then moved his
family to Mississippi where he bought
a 1,000-acre plantation and named
it La Cache-the hiding place. He
soon failed, sold the land and moved
to Montreal, Canada, where he fall
ed as lawyer. Broken and pen
niless he moved to the home of his
sister on the Isle of Guernsey in the
English Channel and died there in
1881.
Margaret Agnew Blennerhassett
died in 1912 in a New York tena-
ment house after waiting IL years
for Congress to pay claim of $Io,-
600 for damage to her island proper
ty by the Virginia militia. She never
got the money.
She had come back to America
that year to try to get the money
and Henry Clay had presented her
petition sympathetically. Her death
occurred before it could be granted.
She had earned money to return to
America by writing and publishing
small book of poems which she
called Widow of the Rock"
Whether her inspiration was deriv-
ed from her own experience was
never conjectured. Blennerhassett
had gone about his island estate clad
in a blue broadcloth coat, scarlet
knee breeches, silk stockings and
silver buckled shoes.
He read much; could recite the
Illiad from memory; was skilled in
electricity, chemistry and astronomy;
played the cello we'll and was a
fair amateur actor of Shakespeare's
lplays. He was a great lover and
ideal companion. But apparently he
lacked lot of being a rock.
Two Of the five Blennerhassett
children died in infancy. Two others
were mentally defective and the fifth
wasted his life in dissipation. They
were Dominick, eldest, a shiftless
drunkard who disappeared from a
st. Louis rooming house after a
drunken debauch and never was again
heard from; Herman, a half-wit,
| found in 1854 dying from starvation
in a New York attic; and Joseph,
the youngest, killed while fighting in
the Confederate army.
| Take straw and stubble out of the
field as soon as possible after COM
bining to save clover or alfalfa seed
ing.
George Longworth, Clermont
county, claims 70 years of experience
in farming does not teach farmer
everything about his business. Mr..
Longworth is producing some fine
tobacco in 1947 on contour strips
between buffer strips of an alfalfa
grass mixture. The meadow strips
prevent rains from eroding the
tobacco land.