 | Centeola |  |
THE UNFATHOMABLE MYSTERY.
A TALE OF CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
“There never yet was a murder committed, which was
not found out.”
“I beg leave to disagree with you there entirely. Indeed
I have the best of reasons for believing just to the
contrary.”
The above positive remark, and scarcely less positive
reply, were made, one day, some twenty years ago, at a
dinner table in New Orleans, and led, as trite and unimportant
as they may appear, to the judicial investigation
and development, in a locality nearly two thousand miles
distant, of one of the most singular and mysterious cases
to be found in the whole history of criminal jurisprudence.
The first of the two speakers whom we have introduced,
we will designate as Captain Willis, and the other as Mr.
Bradley, for though ours is intended to be strictly a narrative
of facts, the names of all the principal actors, will
be, for reasons which will soon be obvious to the reader,
mostly fictitious. Mr. Bradley, was a Vermonter, but
for many years had been in trade in New Orleans, where
sickly months, which he spent with his connections in
Vermont, or in some of the Western States. Captain
Willis was a resident of Cincinnati, his sojourn in New
Orleans being a temporary one and for a secret, specific
object. There had then recently been several foul and
startling murders committed in St. Louis; and a number
of the most shrewd and vigilant detectives of that, and
the neighboring cities, had been recently engaged to ferret
out, if possible, the perpetrator or perpetrators of
those appalling enormities. One of these secret detectives
was Captain Willis, and as neither he nor any of
those engaged in the same object, could obtain the least
clue, leading to the discovery of the criminals, anywhere
near the locality of the crime, he had taken station in
New Orleans. Here, for many days, he continued to
visit all kinds of public resorts; mingled familiarly with
all sorts of company, listening intently to all the remarks
made in each, and generally giving such turns to the conversation,
or making such assertions as were calculated to
elicit some unguarded remark or reply, from which he
might obtain indirect hints, or remote clues, to aid him,
in making the desired discovery. But all the ingenuity he
had been able to summon for his purpose, had been exercised
in vain, and he had heard nothing from any quarter,
that particularly attracted his attention, until he met
Mr. Bradley at the dinner party of a mutual friend,
other, happened to be invited. But the reply of Mr.
Bradley to his assertion, which we quoted at the outset,
and which he had made with his old object in view, did,
at once, attract his attention; and the subsequent reserve
and studied evasions, that were made to meet all his further
attempts to press the subject, confirmed his belief
that the other was in possession of some secret, which
might concern him to know; and, though baffled for the
present, he resolved to set his wits to work to obtain it.
In pursuance of this purpose, he, in a few days, exchanged
his lodgings for others at a public house where
he had ascertained Mr. Bradley and his family were, at
that time, boarding.
Here, although he soon found that nothing further was
to be made out of the cautious Mr. Bradley, yet by cultivating
a familiar acquaintance with Mrs. Bradley, and
with a servant girl, who, as he ascertained, had till lately
lived in Mr. Bradley's family, he, in a few weeks, succeeded
in fishing out from Mrs. Bradley and this girl,
without making them aware of his object, all the principal
features of the secret, of which, as he had rightly
judged, Mr. Bradley was the master.
The secret, however, as Captain Willis found to his
great disappointment had no reference to the crime, whose
perpetrators he came there in the hope of detecting. A
murder he was fully satisfied had been committed; but it
states, but in the distant state of Vermont, and in the town
of Mr. Bradley's old home, and yet he did not regret the
pains he had taken, and the unwearied patience he had exercised
in reaching the discovery he had so singularly
made. His labors would still go to subserve the cause of
justice, and he at once determined they should not be
lost to the community in which the newly discovered crime
had been committed. But the measures he took to ensure
this result, as well as the character of the secret, on
which those measures were grounded will be better disclosed
by now transferring the scene to the state where the
supposed murder had occurred, and where that crime and
all the discoverable circumstances attending it, were to be
for the first time brought out before the startled public.
A few weeks subsequent to the events which are above
narrated, and which transpired in the city of New Orleans
in the month of June 1841, the governor of Vermont received
a letter from a stranger, signing his name Willis,
dated at that city and propounding sundry extraordinary
questions about the landscape peculiarities of a certain locality
in the town of B—, in Vermont, in reference to
a large pond, a turnpike running near it, a dark piece of
woods lying between the two, and a certain two story farmhouse
situated at the intersection of the road and the
south-eastern shore of the pond, all of which will be hereafter
more particularly described. The letter then proceeded
person had been missing from that town or vicinity, and
intimating that if these questions were answered in the
affirmative, a farther communication would be made — the
whole concluding with a reference to a well known gentleman
in Cincinnati to vouch for the credibility of the
writer.
The Governor was of course much surprised at receiving
such an unexpected and singular communication, and
scarcely knew what to make of it, but finally concluded
to set an inquiry afoot through his Secretary, who resided
near the locality in question, and who soon reported to
the Governor, that all the different inquiries propounded
in the letter might safely be answered in the affirmative,
excepting that relating to a missing person, concerning
which nothing had been ascertained. The Governor then
communicated these affirmative answers to his correspondent,
and, at the same time wrote to the gentleman in
Cincinnati to whom that correspondent had referred him.
In a few weeks replies came to both letters — the one
from the gentleman referred to in Cincinnati, fully vouching
for the credibility of the correspondent Willis, and the other
from Willis himself, disclosing the substance of what he
had gathered from Mr. Bradley's family respecting a murder
committed several years before in Vermont, naming
the person who had made the disclosure to Mr. Bradley
as being an accomplice after the fact, and who was
residing in Cincinnati, where he might be arrested, taken
back to Vermont, and prosecuted as an accessory, or be
used as state's evidence, as should be thought best.
Accordingly, the Governor dispatched his Secretary to
Cincinnati to carry out the suggestions of Captain Willis,
or otherwise act as circumstances might seem to dictate.
When the Secretary reached that city, he found that
Captain Willis had returned from New Orleans, and that
Mr. Bradley had also come north, and, with his family,
had taken up his summer residence with some friends in
Indiana. The Secretary then caused the young man,
pointed out by Willis as an accessory to the supposed
murder, to be arrested and brought before the Mayor of
the city; when it soon appeared that Willis had made a
mistake in supposing him to be a connection of Mr. Bradley;
further, that he could not be the person who made the
alledged disclosure, and that, in fact, he knew nothing
about the case. The Secretary then pushed on into Indiana
to see what could be elicited from Mr. Bradley, who,
being taken by surprise, and perceiving that the main
features of his secret had, by some means, become known,
soon frankly admitted he knew all about the subject of
inquiry, and then proceeded to give a full and circumstantial
detail of all that had come to his knowledge concerning
the case, which he confidently believed, he said,
to have been one of deliberate murder. He further
to him was a young man of the name of Craney, who, at
that time lived in his sister's family in Vermont, but was
now a clerk in a store in the north part of that State,
and finally, that, after his return to New Orleans from
his visit to Vermont, on which occasion the disclosure was
made, Craney had repeatedly written him, and in all his
letters reiterated his statements, and from time to time
added new circumstances going to show the entire truth of
his revelations.
But leaving the Secretary to return home with the
secret thus obtained, and prepare for the contemplated
legal investigation of the affair, we will now proceed,
after such preliminary statements as may be necessary for
a clear understanding of what follows, to lay before the
reader in detail the extraordinary disclosure which that
secret involved:—
There is, as before intimated, in the town of B—,
situated in the central part of Vermont, a large pond, or
rather two ponds of different sizes, connected by a short,
narrow strait, the smaller, or most northerly, being
about half a mile long, by a quarter wide, and the larger,
or most southerly, being nearly a mile long, by half a
mile wide, and projecting eastward beyond the smaller
pond about as much as the difference between the width
of the two bodies of water. On the eastern side of these
ponds, and parallel with the smaller, runs an old turnpike
which we will designate, as the people of that section
generally designate it, by the appellation of The Village.
This road, passing by the smaller pond at a distance from
it of about a quarter of a mile, strikes upon the shore of
the larger one near its southern extremity, leaving between
the smaller pond and the road an extended reach of
dark, thick and almost impenetrable cedar swamp. Near
where the road strikes the larger pond stood, at the time
the events we are narrating occurred, a two story farmhouse,
occupied by a Mr. Nymore, in whose respectable
family had long lived the young man Craney before mentioned,
then of the age of about twenty-two; who, though
not of the most respectable extraction, had yet always
sustained a fair character for truth and honesty, and possessed
the fullest confidence and respect of the family
with whom he resided. Some time subsequent to the
month of October 1839, however, Mrs. Nymore began to
notice some peculiarities in the young man's demeanor,
such as a general restlessness, absence of mind, dejection,
and ill health, without any known causes. She also noticed,
in common with her neighbors, that without any apparent
means, he appeared to be always well supplied with
money. All this, for a while, she attributed to gambling,
into which vice she feared he had somewhere been initiated.
But a short time after she had settled on this conclusion,
a young mechanic, who had been boarding in the
told her, as he was about to leave for a distant residence,
that she need not harbor any unfavorable opinion of
Craney; or suspect, even should she discover that he had
large sums of money by him, that he came by it from
gambling or any dishonest practices; for he had innocently
become possessed of a writing by which he could
command as much money as he wanted. This strange,
enigmatical communication caused the good lady much
uneasiness, and led her to suspect that Craney had knowledge
of some crime in others, who were bribing him to
secrecy, and she therefore took an opportunity to question
him alone, asking him if he had somebody's promissory
note or other monied obligation, on which he was receiving
or expecting considerable sums of money? He
denied having any note; but finally admitted that he
had a paper with the signature of two men affixed to
it, which would command him money enough, if he
chose to exact it; but “the affair” he said, “so much
worried his mind, that he was tempted to give up or destroy
the writing, and have no more to do with the disagreeable
business.” He then, though refusing to make
any further explanations, asked her to advise him whether
he should give up, or retain the paper. Being now confirmed
in her suspicions, that he was concealing some
great crime for others, who might some day seek his ruin
or perhaps his life, for the purpose of concealing their own
for his own safety. After this, although deeply perplexed
and distressed, she made no further attempt to draw the
secret from the young man, who continued to reside in
the family as before; and, as before was always flush of
money, to which, however, he seemed to attach but little
value, and so the matter rested for many months, and
until her brother, the Mr. Bradley before frequently
mentioned, came from New Orleans to spend a part of the
summer months in the family of his sister, the lady just
introduced; and the latter, who, not knowing where the
consequences would fall, had not dared to tell any one her
suspicions in relation to Craney, concluded to make Mr.
Bradley her confidant, and she accordingly communicated
to him all she had gathered and guessed about the matter
as above related, and requested him to have a private
talk with the young man; get at the bottom of the mystery,
if possible, and give him such advice as the circumstances
might seem to require. With the view of
complying with that request, and obtaining a good opportunity
for so doing, Mr. Bradley offered to carry Craney
to a neighboring town, where the latter had recently engaged
as a clerk in a store; and the proposal being
gladly accepted the two set off in a wagon together, and
during the ride, and while Mr. Bradley was thinking how
he should introduce the matter, on which he had promised
his sister he would take action, Craney voluntarily introduced
was in possession of a fearful secret, which had entirely
destroyed his peace of mind, and that he had been long
looking for a trusty confidant to whom he might safely
unbosom himself, and from whom he would be likely to
receive good advice, he proceeded to make the following
startling disclosure, accompanied throughout with every
appearance of sincerity, and even with obvious agitation
and distress.
“One evening in October a year ago the coming fall,”
he said, “I went down the turnpike on horse-back to the
tavern at the corner, which we call about a mile and a
half distant, to attend a meeting of young men to choose
managers and make other arrangements for a ball, that
we had in contemplation. It was very late — about midnight
probably — when we broke up, and I started alone
for home, while thinking over the arrangements for the
ball, for which I had been chosen one of the managers. I
reached the border of the great Cedar Swamp; when I
soon caught a glimpse of two men, bearing some heavy
burden between them, and hurrying along down an old
over-grown wood-road, which strikes in obliquely on the
right, not far from the corner of the woods, and runs off
south-westerly nearly to the head of the little pond.
Supposing them to be some of the young fellows of the
neighborhood, taking this sly way to go down to the pond
with a seine or a log of light-wood, for the purpose of seining
thought I would follow, take them by surprise and at least
have a little fun out of it. So, after I rode fairly past
the path, I dismounted, tied my horse to a tree, and,
going back to the path, entered it and softly proceeded
on their track. After following a short distance, I came
so near them as to obtain a dim view of their persons,
and to perceive they were just laying their burden down
upon the ground, as if to rest or listen. I then suddenly
sprang forward to the spot, where they stood, and, giving
one of them a playful slap on the shoulder, exclaimed in a
tone between sport and earnest, “now, my lads, I've
caught you!” At the same time I thrust my hand
down to get a grasp on the supposed rolled up seine or log
of light-wood, when, instead of any thing of that kind, I
caught hold of the clammy, cold and still limpsy hand of
a dead man! Starting back horror struck, I stood several
minutes without the power to stir or speak. The two
men also seemed almost equally confounded, and stood,
as if rooted in their tracks, peering at me, and looking
nervously at each other. As soon as I recovered my
faculties to do so, I tried to distinguish their faces and
dress; when I made out enough to apprise me that they
were none of those I suspected, but two men from the
village, who were known to me by sight, as it seems I
was to them. My next thought was to try to effect a
precipitate retreat; and they probably saw something in
my intention; for one of them instantly sprang forward,
roughly grasped me by the collar, and, in a sort of fierce,
hoarse whisper, exclaimed, “You can't go, sir — you
have seen too much for our safety. You must die!”
The fear of death quickly restored to me my power of
speech; and, in an agony of terror, I begged for mercy,
implored them to spare my life, and I would never betray
them. The man still held me strongly in his grasp; but
his momentary silence and seeming hesitation after I had
spoken, gave me a gleam of hope, which was increased
shortly as he turned his head and exchanged a few whispered
words with his companion, the tone of whose replies
I instinctively felt to be on the side of mercy. The
man holding me then turned and hesitatingly said,
“`If we could be sure we should not be betrayed — if
you would swear by all that is sacred, and you could
make us believe you would forever keep your oath — perhaps
—
“Thus encouraged I eagerly interrupted him with fresh
appeals for mercy, and, amidst sobs and tears, promised
I would do all they required of me if they would only
spare my life. They then made me repeat over and over
the most solemn and fearful oaths, that I would never let
what I had seen or suspected, be known by word, hint or
manner, to any human being, telling me that if I ever
violated my oath, they would hunt me down and follow
urged me to accept of a share of the plunder they intimated
they had obtained in the operations of the night.
But I succeeded in evading the proposal; when, after
saying they, or one of them would soon see me again,
and that if I were true, they would give me all the money
I wanted, they at length consented to let me depart.
I then walked back nearly to the spot where I left my
horse; when it forcibly striking me that it was my best
policy to know what they did with the dead man, I turned
about once more, and with careful and soft tread, stole
back to the spot where I left the men. But they were
not there. They had taken up the corpse and departed.
On listening intently, however, I could hear their steps,
made heavier and more measured by the burden they
were evidently bearing, as they toiled and staggered
along the path some distance ahead. Being still determined
to effect my object, I continued to follow them as
cautiously as possible, moving when they moved, and
stopping when they stopped, as they several times did to
rest or consult, until I came near enough occasionally to
discern their forms as they passed some of the lighter
places, or openings among the trees. After a while they
left the path, and, striking off more directly towards the
head of the little pond, they slowly made their way
through the thickets till they came to a clump of white
birch trees, immediately beyond which there was an opening,
their persons and movements much more distinctly.
Near this spot there appeared to be a pit or
hole, formed by the turning up of the roots of a tree,
and approaching this cavity, they threw in the dead body,
stamped it down as far as they could with their feet, and
commenced covering it with dirt they kicked out from the
roots of the upturned tree, moss, and such rubbish as they
could find near at hand. I watched them till they had
filled up the hole, and were beginning to throw over it
leaves and old brush-wood; when I noiselessly withdrew,
and, with hurried, trembling steps, made my way out of
that fearful swamp to my horse, mounted and rode rapidly
homeward. When I had reached there and put up my
horse, I went directly to my sleeping room, threw off my
clothes and jumped into bed, just as the house clock was
striking two. But no one who has not passed through
such a scene as I had, can imagine the state of my feelings.
Such was my nervous agitation and continued distress
that I did not, and could not, sleep a single moment
through the rest of that dreadful night.
“This was Thursday night, and I heard nothing more of
the affair, or the men engaged in it, until the next Sunday;
when one of the men came along, and, hailing me, requested
me to get into his wagon and take a ride with him to a tavern
on the road several miles distant at the south. I consented,
but instead of keeping on in the main, direct road to
miles over the hills, and in back roads, till he had passed
considerably beyond the line of the tavern, which, when
he had regained the main road, he approached from the
other direction. When we reached the tavern, we bespoke
a private room under pretence of doing some business
without any liability of being disturbed; and having
taken me into it, he locked the door, and at once broached
the subject which was uppermost in both his mind and my
own. Here he renewed his offer of money and other valuable
property, and his promises of more as often as I
should desire it. But having, previous to this, thought
over the matter, and made up my mind what course I
would pursue if they called on me as was suggested when
I parted with them, I insisted on having from them some
writing to secure me against them in case that thereafter
they might get into some dilemma, in which they might
be tempted to combine in charging the crime on me. This,
at first he refused to do; but, after awhile, he reluctantly
consented, thinking probably it would be bad policy to
thwart me in a matter in which I appeared so determined,
and wrote a few lines in about these words —
“`If C. Craney shall sacredly and forever keep the
secret we have entrusted to him, this shall entitle him to
any money or other favors he can reasonably demand,
and we hereby fully exonerate him from having any
hand in the transaction to which said secret refers.'”
“He then signed the paper with his own name, and that
also of the other man, and delivered it to me, with a great
many cautions about keeping it securely from every eye.
“We then had some conversation about the deed itself,
and the man who had been thus put out of the way; and
as nigh as I could gather from his guarded replies to such
questions as I ventured to ask, the victim was a foreigner,
a rich old Scotch pedler, who, having stopped a day or
two at the village and incautiously exposed his treasures,
consisting of money, old gold, jewelry and costly satins,
had been induced to come into the vicinity of the pond to
look at some valuable horses, being in search of one for
himself. After this, he, having talked over the matter as
much as he wished, and advised me how to shape my
course, we left the tavern; and, taking another round-about
route, he brought me back to my home.”
Craney having thus far gone on uninterrupted through
the main part of his astounding disclosure, Mr. Bradley
now began to take part in speaking on the subject; and a
long conversation ensued between them, in which the former
further disclosed that since obtaining the writing
above mentioned, he had often seen and conversed with
the signers, and that he had received from them at different
times several hundred dollars, besides some valuable
goods, all which was promptly paid, or delivered, when
asked for. At one time, one of them took him to his
room and showed him a strong, and peculiarly made trunk,
the luckless pedler, and from which he took out a costly,
flowered silk vest pattern and urged it on his acceptance.
At other times one or both these men, had invited him to
take journeys with them to the cities at their expense;
but this invitation he dared not accept, lest they should
contrive when they got him so far from home, to have
something fatal befal him. He also further stated, that
these men had become very uneasy about the paper one
of them had given him, and had often importuned him to
give it up, which he had as often refused to do, knowing
they would not dare to use any other means than entreaty
to obtain it. He also said, “this secret had been a perfect
hell to him ever since he was master of it, and that
it had already not only destroyed his peace of mind, but
ruined his health, which was the principal reason why he
had decided to give up farming for the lighter business
of store keeping.”
After finishing his revelations, Craney offered to tell
Mr. Bradley the names of the two men, whom his story
had so deeply implicated, and to show him the paper he
had received from them, which he said he had in a small
bag or pocket, worn next his skin. But Mr. Bradley telling
him he did not wish to know who the men were, begged
him to keep both their names and the paper to himself.
Craney, however, persisted in giving such descriptions of
the men as to lead Mr. Bradley to suppose he knew who
they were.
The next question discussed between Craney and Mr.
Bradley, was, what course, under all the circumstances,
ought then to be pursued, and as Craney, as innocent as
he was of the crime originally, had implicated himself by
his silence, and more so perhaps by receiving bribes and
portions of the booty; and as Mr. Bradley was strongly
opposed to the punishment of death for crime, and as his
sensibilities were touched at the thought of being the
means of plunging the innocent families of these criminals
into sorrow and disgrace by bringing them to the gallows,
it was at length decided that the transaction should
not be divulged, but kept, as it had been thus far, a profound
secret from all not already apprised of it, and by
way of appeasing Mrs. Nymore, whose suspicions of the
truth, as before mentioned, had been aroused, it was
agreed that it should be hinted to her, that the secret
Craney was concealing for others, related to a crim. con.
case, or something of the kind. This they supposed
would relieve her mind, and at the same time prevent her
from pressing any further enquiries on the subject.
When they reached Craney's destination, Mr. Bradley
left him and returned alone to his sister's residence, where
he continued to remain till Craney came back for a short
visit, and during this visit the murder was made the subject
of another prolonged conversation; when Craney
showed Mr. Bradley some hundred dollars in money,
which he said was a part of the hush money he had received.
that they should both go into the swamp together; when
he would lead the way to the spot where the corpse was
buried, and they would then dig down to it, that Mr.
Bradley might see proof of the truth of the disclosure
that had been made to him. The latter, however, declined
going; when Craney gave a minute description of
the localities of the spot and the path leading to it, so
that if Mr. Bradley was afterwards disposed, he might go
and find it alone. And Mr. Bradley did once, after
Craney again left for his store, conclude he would go, and
actually proceeded some distance with a hoe in hand towards
the designated spot; but feeling that he knew he
should find the remains, and it occurring to him that his
visit to the place might attract attention and lead to inquiry,
he turned about and went home without entering
the swamp at all.
Mr. Bradley now soon returned to New Orleans; when
a correspondence relating mainly to the murder or matters
growing out of it, was opened with him by Craney,
who wrote three or four letters on the subject. In all
these letters, he steadily, and without the slightest inconsistency
of statement persisted in re-affirming the truth
of all he had verbally communicated to Mr. Bradley in
Vermont, adding several particulars, which, as he said,
he had before unintentionally omitted, and describing his
further dealings with the men whose secret he was keeping.
concern respecting the fate of two letters which he
had previously written, but which, as it appeared he had
just been informed, had never reached their destination,
saying that those letters contained enough, if made public,
to ruin him. In another later letter, he stated he
had been into the swamp, dug into the grave and ascertained
the remains were still there. He also told Mr.
Bradley that, agreeably to his former advice, he had settled
matters with the two men in question, and, without
giving up his writing, had received one thousand
dollars, a sum which was none too large, since they obtained
in the transaction, as he believed, money and property
to the amount of ten or twelve thousand dollars, and
he further said that he had made up his mind that now
he would take his thousand dollars, go with it to some
part of the western country and settle there; so that he
might get away from every thing that could remind him
of an affair which had caused him so much unhappiness;
and lastly, some months afterwards, he wrote to Mr.
Bradley, that the store, in which he had been employed,
with all its contents, had been destroyed by fire, and that
all his money with his talismanic writing, which he had
concealed in a certain cavity he had made for the purpose
in the cellar wall, had gone with the rest, and in consequence
of this misfortune, he had given up his intention
of going West, and had obtained a place in a store in the
northern part of the state, where he was then residing.
Such were the extraordinary disclosures, which young
Craney made to Mr. Bradley in Vermont, personally,
and subsequently by letter, and which the latter, as before
stated, revealed to the Governor's Secretary, together
with some hints in regard to the identity of one or
both the perpetrators of the alleged crime. And we
will now return to note the action of the latter in the investigation,
to which he now returned with the purpose of
immediately instituting.
On reaching home, the Secretary caused a warrant for
the arrest of Craney to be taken out and put into the
hands of a sheriff, who, with an assistant, promptly started
off for the town where the young man was residing.
They reached the place late at night and put up at a tavern,
near the store in which Craney was employed. On
ascertaining that the latter slept in the store, the assistant,
who was an old acquaintance of the young man, volunteered
to go to the store and induce him to come over
to the tavern. With this object in view, the assistant
proceeded at once to the store, and at length succeeded in
awakening the object of his search, who presently came to
the door, when almost the first words he uttered were the
rapidly plied questions —
“What is the news? — Has any thing broke out in
B—?” Having evaded the questions, or answered in
a manner that seemed to allay the obvious apprehensions
of Craney, the assistant invited the other to the tavern to
two proceeded to a private room taken by the sheriff for
the purpose in hand. As soon as they were all in the
room together, the assistant announced the true business
on which he and the sheriff had come; when Craney became
terribly agitated, stared wildly around the room,
threw up his hands in a sort of spasmodic tremor, and retreating
backward, sunk nearly fainting, into a chair in
the corner of the room. And it was a long time before
they could get him into a condition to speak at all. But
at length succeeding in calming him down in some measure,
they urged him, for his own safety, to make a clean
breast of it, and divulge the whole story. He at length
replied that he would tell them all the facts, but could
not consent to give up the names of the perpetrators.
And he accordingly went on and related, with little or no
variation, the same story which he had related to Mr. Bradley,
and that too, evidently, without the least suspicion
that the latter had disclosed the secret, concluding by confidently
stating he could go to the very spot where the
murdered man was buried. The sheriff and his assistant
then renewedly pressed him to give up the names of the
perpetrators; when, after awhile, he mentioned the names
of two individuals, who were obviously not the persons
hinted at by Mr. Bradley, and whose characters were such
as to render it highly improbable that they could have
had any connection with the transaction.
After this, the three started for the village, where the
Court of Inquiry, for the legal investigation of the supposed
murder was to be held, Craney going in close custody
of the sheriff. During all the first part of the
journey, and indeed until they had reached their last
halting place at an inn about eight miles from their destination,
Craney persisted in his story, adding, from
time to time, as they went on, numerous little circumstances,
all seeming to go in confirmation of what he had
before related. But during their brief halt at this inn,
the Sheriff took Craney aside, and, whether warranted in
so doing or not, commenced a little investigation, it would
seem, on his own hook, saying,
“Now we want to know what we are to depend on —
what you are going to testify before the court. We are
satisfied you have lied to us so far as relates to the names
you have given as the names of the men who were perpetrators
of the crime you allege to have been committed;
and we wish to know whether your whole story is not
equally false throughout?”
To this Craney, at the time, made no reply. But it
was soon evident, that the Sheriff's unexpected question
had suggested a course for him, which had not before entered
his mind, and as they were on the point of leaving
the tavern to resume their journey, he called the assistant
out of the room and said, “the whole story was one of
my own making up, and was all false.”
He was then, as they were proceeding on their way,
questioned as to his motives in telling such a tale, and
asked what had occurred to suggest it? After some hesitation
and delay, he said that, at the time and place, he
had given in his story, he did indeed see two men enter the
swamp, carrying something on their shoulders, which,
after a moment's consideration he decided to be a log of
light-wood intended to be split up into torches and used
for spearing pickerel. But while riding home, he began
to suppose a case, like the one, which, at the first instant
he had thought this to be — that of foul play and attempt
at concealing by hurrying away the body of the victim
into the woods. And shortly after, wishing to know
whether a friend of his, living in the same family (the
young mechanic before mentioned) could keep a secret,
he hinted his knowledge of such a deed as the above
named circumstance had suggested. And when his friend
contrary to promise, told Mrs. Nymore what he had hinted,
and she questioned him about it, he thought he must
patch up a story to avoid being detected in a falsehood,
and thus he continued to do, till he got it into the shape
in which he told it to Mr. Bradley. He also said in reply
to the question put to him, respecting the hush money
he had told Mr. Bradley he had received, that it was a
sum entrusted to him by the store keeper, with whom he
was engaged, to pay over to a certain Mr. D. of the vicinity.
But to the question also put to him, why he had offered
to take Mr. Bradley to the spot where the murdered
man was buried, and dig into the grave till they
came to the corpse or bones, to put the truth of his story
to the test, he did not attempt to frame any reply. Such
was the unsatisfactory explanation which Craney now
gave of his conduct; and under this new aspect of the
affair, the party arrived in the village when the Sheriff
placed his charge in jail to be ready to respond with his
presence to the call of the court whenever it should be
made.
The next morning after the party had arrived at the
village, and the culprit had been safely lodged in jail,
the Sheriff, his assistant, and the Secretary and others who
had been enlisted in aid of the prosecution, deeming it
advisable, under the altered aspect the case had now assumed,
to delay the court a few days, to see what other
testimony could be obtained, set off for the locality where
the supposed crime was committed. They visited Mrs.
Nymore, who expressed her surprise that Craney should
have proclaimed his story to be fictitious, and intimated
that, by so doing, he had but added to his crimes. Pushing
their inquiries further, they found four different individuals,
to whom, in confidence he had imparted so
much of his secret as related to the writing, by which he
could command money at his pleasure, and by way of
making good his assertions he had shown to each of them,
of large amounts. Among these persons was a brother
of Craney, who admitted he knew his brother's secret,
that he had often seen in his hands large sums of money,
of which, had he chosen he might have become to a considerable
extent a sharer.
The party then entered the great Cedar Swamp, so
often mentioned in this narrative, but made no discovery,
being unable to find any place answering to the one Craney
had described as the locality of the grave. The next
day they visited the Swamp again, taking Craney and his
keeper along with them. And having gone some distance
into it, they requested the young man to show them
the place he had described to Mr. Bradley. He pretended
to comply, and finally led them to a place which
he said was the one in question. But there was no appearance
there, or anywhere in the vicinity, of any grave,
pit, or other depository, where a human body could have
been ever buried, and it having been hinted by some present,
who were best acquainted with the Swamp, and who
had been watching Craney, that he had purposely misled
the party, his keeper was directed to take him away. A
further, but equally fruitless search was then made;
after which the party, with their prisoner, all returned
to the village.
It should also be stated in this connection, perhaps, that
during these days of unofficial inquiry, it was found true
of Mr. Bradley's visit to Vermont, did, on one occasion,
entrust the young man with one or two hundred dollars to
pay over, as the latter claimed to a Mr. D—, who
promptly acknowledged its receipt. But it did not appear
probable that it was the same that had been displayed to
any of the four individuals above mentioned. If it was,
it could not have been shown but to one of them, and
could not have been one quarter of the amount he had
shown at different times to those four individuals, during
that season or afterwards. But this fact, however much
he might have claimed it to prove his innocence, seemed
to be more that counterbalanced by the account which
both the store keeper and his wife gave of Craney's singular
conduct while living with them. They stated that
he appeared to be wretched, always nervous, and apprehensive
of some danger to himself, never daring to go out
after dark, and only in the most frequented ways in the
day time, claiming that he had been shot at with a bullet
that barely escaped his head; while the only explanation
he would give for his apprehensions consisted in his repeated
hints that “there were certain men in the country
who had a great interest in putting him out of the way.”
The Court of Inquiry was now held. The sheriff and
his assistant then gave their testimony in detail relating
to the arrest of the prisoner — his exclamations, fainting
and great agitation, when the cause of his arrest was announced
the disclosures he had made to Mr. Bradley, and his subsequent
denial of the truth of the whole story, and all
the other particulars which we have before related in reference
to that part of our narrative. Considerable discussion
then ensued between those acting in behalf of the
government, and the counsel, whom the prisoner had, in
the meanwhile, employed to conduct his defence; when
the difficulties attending the further prosecution of the
case, under the new aspect which it was made to assume by
the prisoner's denials, soon became apparent. If it was
attempted to make Craney a witness against others, he
would now of course refuse to implicate any one, and there
the matter must end. And if he was tried as an accessory
after the fact, the first step to be made out in such a
prosecution, was wanting — no murder was established.
The sitting magistrates, consequently, though they considered
the young man's conduct wholly unaccountable,
and his explanations of it unsatisfactory, did not feel
themselves justified in binding him over for trial, and he
was therefore discharged. But being still kept under
surveillance, he was, a few days afterwards, brought before
the Grand Jury of the county, put upon his oath and
closely examined in relation to the crime he had till very
recently, alleged to have been to his knowledge, committed.
But he here also persisted in his last story. But
though his examiners felt themselves rather baffled than
leave the affair more deeply veiled in mystery than ever.
He then immediately left town and returned to his residence
from which he had been taken.
Thus ended all that could be strictly considered the
legal proceedings in this remarkable case. But inquiry
and investigation in relation to the subject were not suffered
to stop here. Many had been dissatisfied with the
manner in which the prosecution had been conducted, and
what they believed to be the lack of honest endeavor to
bring the truth to light. They believed further, that
Craney would never have denied the truth of his former
revelations, had not the sheriff put the words of denial
into his mouth, or in other terms, indirectly suggested, if
not advised it. And among those who had been thus made
dissatisfied, and who believed in the truth of Craney's
first story, was the intelligent and sagacious gentleman
who had then just been elected governor of the state, and
among his first official acts was the appointment of a
special agent to investigate the case anew, the fact of the
appointment and the name of the agent to be closely kept
from all knowledge of the public.
Thus authorized, the new agent soon secretly commenced
his inquiries and observations. And, in consequence of
information he received of the brief sojourn in, and then
of the unexpectedly continued absence of a certain pedler
from, a town about twenty miles northerly of the locality
traced out the boarding house of the pedler, and soon
succeeded in ascertaining from its trustworthy mistress
the following facts: —
“That a few weeks previous to the time at which it is
said a murder was committed in the town of B—, a
Scotch pedler came there making her house his head-quarters,
while trading round town; — that by his good
nature and honest simplicity he made himself quite a
favorite among the neighbors, with whom he mingled on
the most familiar terms, treating all as old friends, and on
her especially appearing to bestow the most unlimited confidence;
— that in one of his confidential moods, he one
day brought out and showed her what he called his great
treasure, which, to her great surprise, consisted of more
than a quart — nearer two quarts she thought — of
old gold beads and rings, which it seemed he had a penchant
for accumulating, obtaining them in trade instead
of money, but which, on being warned against showing
lest he be robbed, he hastily put away and never showed
or spoke of again. And that, finally, having remained in
the place about a fortnight, besides his other trading, he
sold on trust two costly satin dresses, which were to be
paid for on his return in about three weeks; and departed
in the direction of the village and the town of
B—, and was never heard of afterwards.”
The next piece of information having a direct bearing
and occasional teamster, living in the borders of the town
adjoining the town of B—, on the south, and about
four miles from the locality of the alledged murder.
Learning that this person was firmly convinced that a
murder was committed, at the time, and in the manner
disclosed by Craney to Mr. Bradley, the agent visited
him and received from him the following statement made
in the presence of his wife, and fully confirmed by her.
“I had been to the village to get part of a load of
produce to take to Boston for the merchants S. S. & Co.,
for whom I was to bring back a full load of goods. This
was in the fore part of the evening of the night on which
the foul deed you are inquiring about, happened. I know
it to have been the same, because it was always understood
in the neighborhood, that something strange happened
to young Craney that night; and because, as it now
seems, he confessed to Mr. Bradley, he met the young
men at the tavern to choose managers for a ball; and on
calling at the tavern I found them there for that purpose.
Well, when I had reached home and lit a lantern to unharness
by, I discovered, to my vexation, that one of my
horses had lost a shoe, which would compel me to go back
to the corner to get another put on before I could start
for Boston, as I was intending to do very early the next
morning. So, rising with the first signs of day, the next
morning, I mounted the horse that needed shoeing and
had reached the great Cedar Swamp, it had become broad
day-light; and as I approached the northerly end of it,
my attention was attracted by something unusual in the
appearance of the road at the point where an old half
over-grown timber path struck off obliquely into the
swamp. Here the road, especially on the swamp side,
was all marked over with foot prints, turned in various
directions and deeply indented into the earth, showing
the short stepping, backing and twisting of booted feet,
with other evidences of a fierce struggle, which must, as
the new and fresh appearance of every thing indicated,
have occurred during the night. My curiosity was so
much raised by these unusual appearances, that I dismounted
and was examining them anew; when stepping
towards the cart ruts on the swamp side of the road, I
was horrified in beholding a pool of fresh looking blood,
which had been shed in such quantity as to overflow the
rut and run several feet down the bank beyond. I noticed,
also, that the grass and bushes had been bespattered
by blood some distance along the old path running into
the woods. In strong excitement, I mounted my horse,
rode on to the blacksmith's shop and told the people there
that a murder had certainly been committed the past
night, back on the road near the edge of the great Cedar
Swamp, urging some of them to go back with me and
examine the spot. But they would not go, nor believe
came from a dog or some other animal that had been killed
there. When I went by the place, on my return, the
same appearances were still visible, though the sun having
risen and shone on the spot, the blood had lost its fresh
color so that, with those not on the look out for something
of the kind, it would not have been very likely to have
attracted notice.
“When I reached home, the first thing I said to my wife
was to tell her there had been a murder committed on the
edge of the great Cedar Swamp, the night before, which
would be out doubtless before I returned from Boston,
though she perhaps better say nothing about it. And on
my reaching home from Boston, the first words I said to
her, were to ask her if “that murder was out yet?”
The next discovery that the agent made, was one
which induced him to suspect there was a third man connected
with the crime, who did not appear ever to have
been known to Craney, but who, probably, was the one to
give the fatal blow, his more cowardly or cunning instigators
staying in the back-ground till the deed was done,
then, advising him to keep aloof, going forward themselves
to secure the plunder and secrete the corpse. This man
was an Irishman of a rough and doubtful character, who,
at the time of the suspected murder, lived as a hostler at
the tavern at the Corners in B—, but who soon disappeared
and was not heard of till the next summer, when
at work on a farm in a neighboring town about a dozen
miles distant. His whereabouts having been thus ascertained,
the agent visited the place and received from the
intelligent old farmer, for whom the man had worked, but
subsequently ran away, the following significant statement:—
“The fellow you inquire about, I consider to have been
at least a very dubious character. I soon perceived that
there must be something wrong in the man. He seemed
to be very suspicious and apprehensive that somebody was,
or would be, after him. He would never leave the house
after dark; and if he ever went any distance from home,
he always went secretly armed with a small dirk-like
bayonet I had in the house. His mind seemed continually
running on murders; and he was often supposing
cases of the kind, his object evidently being to find out
what proof it required to hang a man. One day as my
wife went to his room to make his bed, she found his
trunk, which he had ever before kept locked up, standing
wide open; when spying a piece of costly satin goods,
she, in the way of inspecting so unlooked for an article
in the hands of a rough Irishman, raised end of one it
from its place, and to her greater surprise, beheld a quantity
of gold beads and rings. Seeing now the reason
why he had kept his trunk so carefully locked, and fearing
he would suspect she had looked into his trunk, if he
would defer making the bed, and so left every thing
as before, and went down. But she had scarcely
done so, before he came in, and in an excited manner,
rushed up stairs, locked his trunk, and went out again
without making, however, any excuse for coming into the
house. My wife and I, who discussed all this between
ourselves, thought it a most strange and suspicious circumstance,
but agreed to keep our own council. He had
now been with me six or eight months, and what was curious
was the fact that all that time he had never betrayed,
by word or hint, anything about his last residence,
having held out to me that he came from a neighboring
state. But an incident now soon occurred which gave
me new light on the subject, and was the means, as it
would seem, of my losing my hired man. A former acquaintance
of mine, living in the town of B—, came
to see me on business, and having seen my Irishman in
the yard and knowing him, told me he was the same man
that had lived the year before with the tavern keeper in
B—, and he further told me that there were strange rumors
afloat in B— that some foul deed had been committed
the fall before in the vicinity of the tavern. This, coupled
with what I had seen in the Irishman, set me thinking
anew; but I said nothing to him about it after my friend
was gone. He, however, it appeared, took the alarm
without any words of mine; for that very night, he ran
my little dirk-bayonet along with it.”
Such were the main pieces of circumstantial evidence,
which the agent collected in the course of his inquiries.
But with these he became also possessed of a knowledge
of a great many other circumstances tending to the same
point which, though many of them might be termed mere
straws, yet it was wonderful to see how universally and
certainly those straws all pointed in one and only one direction
— and that was to the commission of the crime, at
the time and place that had been alledged.
Among the last named class of circumstances, was the
well ascertained one, that all the connections of the family,
with whom Craney had lived, and with whom he still
kept up the closest intimacy, were unanimous and decided
in their belief in the truth of his first story, and in the
conviction, that his subsequent denial of it was made only
with the object of thereby escaping prosecution, which he
was evidently fearful would be instituted against him, instead
of merely using him as a witness. All this, indeed,
he distinctly stated to the two or three of the confidential
friends who, as before intimated, were partially initiated
into his secret, had been shown his hush money, and
who had severely censured him for denying what he now
admitted to be the truth.
Having now collected as much of this corroborative
testimony as he deemed sufficient for present purposes, the
himself in communication with Craney, to induce him to
disclaim his denial, made about the time of the Court of
Inquiry, as it was believed he would, when apprised of the
recent discoveries of the facts above enumerated, and,
confronted with his own admissions on the subject; then,
still further induce him to take the indispensable step
of assisting in good faith to find the remains of the murdered
man; so that the existence of such remains so found
buried or concealed might be legally established by competent
witnesses.
With this object in view, he sought an interview with
Craney's father, and opened the subject to him. The old
gentleman was, at first, shy about the matter, and framed
all his replies with great caution and reserve, being evidently
apprehensive that his son might be brought into
trouble in consequence of the affair. Being convinced
that he knew much more of the matter in question than
he pretended; and that he was only prevented from disclosing
what he knew by fear of involving his son, the agent
made the proposition that young Craney should pay a
visit of a week to his old home in B—, go into the
swamp, find the remains of the murdered man, then call
in the aid of a confidential friend and his father, who should
disinter the remains and remove them to a place of safety;
when Craney should return to his residence near Canada
line, or pass over into Canada if necessary, and there remain
proper authorities that he should not be prosecuted, should
be brought him; and that he should come there, and appearing
as a witness before a Court of Inquiry, should
make a full disclosure, and point out the perpetrators of
the crime in question; who, in the meanwhile, were to be
arrested and brought into court for the purpose.
As soon as the old gentleman could be made to comprehend
this plan, and especially as soon as he was convinced
his son might safely do what was proposed, he
seized the agent's hand and exclaimed,
“It shall be done! I have for months and months
told my wife I would give anything if that wicked deed
could all be brought to light. The secret is killing my
son — killing us all. Yes sir, it shall be done.”
And it was done. The old gentleman and one of the
intimate friends before mentioned, conjointly wrote to
young Craney, who at length entered, in evident good
faith, into the arrangement, came home and spent the
successive days of nearly a week in searching the Cedar
Swamp. He found no difficulty in finding and identifying
the spot where the murdered man was buried, and
spent the first day in removing the rubbish and digging
down into the grave, till he had cleaned it out to the
original bottom of the cavity. But he found nothing
save some slight shreds of clothing, and a few scattered
hairs; — just enough to remove the last doubt, if any
corpse was buried. The remains were not found; and
believing they had not been removed to any great distance,
but were still to be found concealed in some part
of the swamp, he continued his search, day after day, for
about a week, till he had examined every spot, where
they could have possibly been buried, or concealed; but
all in vain, and he at last gave over the search under the
full conviction that the bones or remains, whatever state
they might have been, had all been dug up and carried
away out of the swamp to some place unknown. All this,
through the medium already named, he reported to the
agent and asked what more was to be done; saying that if
no new prosecution was to be instituted, he hoped he
might be spared disclosing the names of the perpetrators,
which he said he had never yet definitely done so as to be
rightly understood. An answer was returned that as the
attempt to discover the remains had resulted in a failure,
no prosecution could be instituted with any hope of a successful
termination; and none unless some new discovery
were made, would therefore be commenced; and it might
be better, as the case stood, to keep the names to himself,
and let the whole subject, if he could, be banished from
his mind.
There is but one additional circumstance to be added
to the history of this case — to which, the reader may
attach, any, importance which he pleases. But as it
it shall be briefly stated. Two clairvoyants, both
boys, and wholly unknown to each other, were, by one
of the agent's assistants consulted, in their mesmeric
state, respecting the supposed murder in the town of
B—, and severally asked, at different times and places,
what they could see in relation to any such transaction.
They both, singularly enough, told in substance the same
story. They said they saw a man knocked down with a
club by one man, and seized by two others, carried off
and buried in the dark woods near a large piece of water;
but was afterwards dug up, carried out on the water, in a
boat, and sunk. They both agreed on this, and one of
them said, in addition, that while the two men were
burying the corpse, the one who struck the blow took
the horse and wagon belonging to the murdered man, and
drove off with it to a distant part of the town, and to an
obscure, out of the way place, where he left it. And
strange to relate it was ascertained, on inquiry, that, at
the place, and about the time named by the clairvoyant,
an ordinary horse and wagon was found without any
owner, and for which no owner ever afterwards appeared.
Thus ends our account of this extraordinary case, — a
case for which, as regards all its prominent features, a
parallel can scarcely be found among the records of the
past. If we assume as a fact that a murder was actually
committed, we have just glimpse enough of the dark
romantic horrors in which the wildest fancy could have
clothed it; while, at the same time, all further light respecting
the crimes or its cold-blooded perpetrators, seems
impenetrably closed to our view. If, on the contrary, we
take the ground that no murder was committed, we find
it almost utterly impossible to reconcile young Craney's
conduct with any known principle of human action.
That he might have invented such a story and told it to a
companion one day, and proclaimed it a joke the next;
or, even that, for some object, he might have had the disposition
and skill to make a credulous person believe it
for months, we can easily enough conceive. But that,
with only ordinary capacities and tact, he should, or
could, invent, with all its minutiæ, this revolting tale;
give direct clues to it to four or five individuals; tell it,
in all seriousness and apparent anguish of feeling, to a
keen business man, as was Mr. Bradley, and find implicit
credit; — offer to show him the remains of the victim,
and thus propose to do what must necessarily detect him
in a falsehood, and then reiterate the story through a long
correspondence; — that he should grow nervous and pine
away under a story of his own invention; that he came
honorably by the large sums of money he was known to
possess; that he should have been seized with such terror
and struck dumb when arrested, and all in consequence of
a fictitious story got up by himself with no apparent motive,
Nor is it less difficult, on the supposition that no murder
was committed, to account for that singular chain of concurring
facts and mutually corroborating circumstances,
which the patient persistence of the last appointed agent
brought to light, in any manner which reason or probability
could sanction. And yet we are compelled to leave
the subject here, and call it, as those best acquainted with
the facts have always done, at least an Unfathomable
Mystery.
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