Year: 1874

When he was young man, less than
thirty years old. living at Princeton,
Mass, in fit of revenge he killed lit
tie girl. the daughter of his neighbor,
with whom he had had quarrel about
the boundary of their farms. Seeing the
child in the woods the next day after an
angry interview with her father, he
struck her mortal blow on the head
with heavy stick, and hid her body in
a hollow tree, which had fallen down.
When the cry of 'Lost child !" was
raised, he came with the ether neighbors
and pretended to hunt but his real OBJ
ject was to prevent the others from find
ing the body, and to divert suspicion
from himself. On the first night of the
hunt, he persuaded he others to follow
his directions, and directed them away
from the tree. After dark he took the
body from the hollow tree, buried it in
deep hole made by its upturned roots,
and built a big fire over the spot to pre-
vent disturbance of the soil being notic-
ed and to destroy the scent, so neither
dogs nor other animals could find it. He
never had any reason to think his crime
was suspected but he could not endure
to live near the scene of it, and in less
than two years afterward, moved away.
Every time he went through Wachusett
woods. by day or by night, he saw the
child running before him with her little
hand on her head, and calling her faith
er to come and save her from being kill
ed and he wondered none of the Keyes
family ever saw her. Every evening he
heard the wall of the insane mother
calling her child to come home, as she
stood on the edge of the wood with her
white hair streaming in the wind, SEEM
ing less even than the little ghost, like
a being of this world and he wondered
the mother could not hear her child, as
he did, answer back every time she call
ed. And then the murderer fell back
ON his bed and died.


The story of the lost child is not
fiction. The writer when a child first
heard it from his mother, as received
from her grandfather, who went more
than twenty miles to participate in the
great child hunt, on Wachusett in l775.
Some years afterward when a student
being moved ON one of his spring vaca-
tions, to make pilgrimage to the noun
tain, he arrived just at night, at an old
house on the eastern slope, where his
challenge for hospitality was generously
honored, and where, during the evening,
he was entertained with q recital of the
story, with many additional details, and
the sequel, substantially as herein given
by his hostess, an aged lady, who was
born and had always lived in Princeton,
and who was in some way, either by
blood or marriage, not now remembered,
related to the Keyes family. The old
house stood on the same spot where the
parents of Lucy Keys lived and died,
and where she was born. The story is
we'll known tradition in Princeton
and doubtless there are great numbers
of people in Worcester County still liv-
ing. who have heard it, as did the writ
er, from persons only one remove from
actual participators in the great hunt.
The main facts of the child's mysterious
disappearance are very briefly told in
"Whitney's History of Worcester Coun-
ty," published in 1896, and copied al
most verbatim, into both Russell's- and
Hannaford's histories of Princeton.
Whitney wrote before the sequel, as con-
tanned in the confession of Iittlejohn,
was known, and in fact before it was
made; and adopted the Indian theory
as the most probable solution ofthe mys-
terry. The story is also alluded to in
a poem written by Prof. Erastus Ever
EFT for the Princeton centennial celebra-
tion in 1856, and published with the
historical address of Hon. Charles r.
Russell, and other papers relating to the
celebration, among which. as an appen-
dix to the poem, is a very interesting
note by Mr.. Russell, giving the result
Of some correspondence with persons at
Deerfeld. and elsewhere, about the con-
fession.