Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1882 — THE END OF A STAGE COACH TRAGEDY. [ARTICLE]

THE END OF A STAGE COACH TRAGEDY.

I was traveling agent for a large firm, and in the coarse of business visited the flourishing little town of Bellair, where our people had many customers. It was about the middle of August, and on the very night of my arrival that usually quiet and sober place was thrown into a state of consternation by the occurrence of a very unusual circumstance. The stage coach was accustomed to arrive about 8 o’clock, but on the day in question that hour passed and the stage did not come in. The timekeeper was in a state of great agitation, walking to and fro, and wondering what had become of the coach. It M as at last supposed that some accident must have befallen the coach, and assistance was being prepared in the shape of horsemen to search the road. These were nearly ready, but when just upon the point of starting the loud blast of the coachman’s horn was heard, and anxiety as to the safety of the Btage was exchanged for wonder as to the cause of its delay. A few moments later it drove up in due form before the office, and a little crowi gathered to investigate the origin of such an unusual circumstance.

The.coachman, upon being questioned, gave a very clear and simple explanation of the affair. A passenger, he said, had suddenly insisted on alighting, and had banged * the door so violently that one of the horses had taken fright. This had started the other horse, and the two had at once galloped madly away, nearly demolishing the coach, and were not brought to until one of them fortunately stumbled and hurt his fore leg severely, causing considerable delay. The appearance of the horse witnessed to the truth of this statement. Every one was for the moment satisfied with this account of the delay, but only for a moment, for the next instant a much more exciting and horrible discovery than the delay of the coach was made. One of the porters lounging about very naturally opened the coach door and prepared to assist the passengers to alight. But no one stirred within. It was too dark to see, but the porter, putting his hand in, felt the person of a human being, as he thought, very wet, and who must, from his insensibility, either be sleeping, or else was perhaps stunned by the accident on the road. “ Hallo, John,” cried he, “who the deuce have you got here ? The old gemmen’s either deadly asleep or else he’s fainted when the horses ran off 1” The coachman, whose name, it may here be stated, was John Bush, replied very calmly : “ Oh, lie’s all right, Bill. Him and his pal had a tiff, but I fancy they’d been drinkin’, and now he’s got asleep.” Saying so, he brought forward a lantern, the light of which Bill afterward thought made him deadly pale. They, however, cast the light into the coach upon the sleeping gentleman, but the next second they drew back with a shout of horror. Bill saw by the light that it was not the rain which had damped his hands ; the stain upon them could not be mistaken. “ It’s blood! It’s blood ! ” he cried, shaking the thick crimson drops from his fingers. As for poor Bush, the coachman, he looked on in blank amazement, like a man stricken dumb. The noise which Bill made attracted the attention of all aroimd, who were now Only just beginning to guess at the cause of the delay. A scene of terrible excitement followed. The whole street was in confusion. It was discovered that the coach contained only one passenger, or rather his corpse, for he lay in a pool of blood quite dead, and it was evident that he had been most foully murdered. Examination showed that he was a man in the prime of life, well dressed and of gentlemanly appearance, but without purse, pocketbook, papers, or any other article by which he could be identified, excepting a small envelope with two cards in it— supposed to be his own—and bearing the name of Samuel Bobinson. It was evident that he had been stabbed suddenly in the neck, and death must have been almost instantaneous.

The excitement at Bellair was very great. The proper officials were sent for and an investigation made. Every one was questioned as to who the murderer could be and what steps could be taken to effect his capture. As might be expected, all eyes were turned to Bush, the coachman, who was naturally supposed to be likely to know something about the matter. In fact, some people even suggested that he might possibly know more than he cared to tell; but this was only scandal He was calm and collected, and, stating to the police authorities that he thought he could give valuable information, he accompanied them to the station. There he made the following important statement: He had started, he said, from Woodley in the morning, with five passengers. This, of course, could be verified by reference to the officials there. At various plaoes, so he said, he had set down five passengers. He had also taken up two, but did not remember what they were like, as he thought nothing about them at the time; could not say even if the two were men or women ; thought they had alighted on the way, and that the gentleman in the coach was one of those who started first at Woodley. When about two miles on the other side of Winfield Hollow he heard what seemed to him to be a violent dispute going on inside the coach. He stopped the horses and went to the door. Only two passengers were then inside—one a young man with dark eyes and chestnut hair, and the other he could swear was the murdered man. They seemed to be in high dispute; but when they saw him, and knew that their altercation had stopped the coach, the murdered man—he was certain he could swear it was the murdered man—put his head out of the window, and said : _ "What do you want? My friend and

I had a few harsh words, and what is that to you ¥’ When he heard this he remounted the box. About five minutes later one of the gentlemen stopped him to get out, seeming to be much agitated, which he supposed to be on account of the dispute. He did not notice at the time which gentleman left, but could certainly swear that it was the murdered man who had spoken to him from the window, and who appeared to be the principal in the dispute. A few minutes after the unknown gentleman left the murdered man the accident occurred which prevented the coachman from any very close remembrance of particular incidents. Bush, the stage coachman, appeared to be much troubled during his examination by the police, which was very Tiatnral, as he had good reason to know that he would be greatly blamed, and would probably in the end be dismissed for carelessness. It is no pleasant thing to drive a coach, and to have people murdered in it. He was. however, much relieved when he found that his oonduct, on acoonnt of the excitement occasioned by the accident, was not considered to be very oulpable, and that he was only bound over to attend and give evidence at the inquest, which he was very willing to do.

The inquest was held in due course. Mr. Pritchard, the Coroner, being an active, sensible man, nothing was left undone which might subserve the ends of justice. Several people were called as witnesses, but only three gave evidence of any consequence. The first was the clerk at the office where the coach started. He gave the names of the passengers booked, but could not identify the murdered man. The next was the coachman, John Bush, whose tale was much as has been already told. The most important point in his evidence was that he affirmed that the murdered man spoke a little huskily t hrough his nose, and had a way of lisping out his M’ords so that, even in the midst of the fight, he could hardly help laughing at him. All ihis evidence he gave in a clear, straight-forward manner, such as, it was thought, proved him beyond a doubt to have no complicity in the foul deed. The third witness was the porter who discovered the dead body; and after these were one or two others who were present at the time, including the medical man who examined the corpse. The Coroner summed up with great ability, and the jury, without a moment’s consideration, returned a verdict of willful murder against some person or persons unknown. The next day the body of the murdered man was buried and the police renewed their search, but everybody saw that, after a little popular indignation, and a little fuss on the part of the newspapers, the tragedy of the Bellair stage would probably become one of those mysteries which wait for elucidation and punishment until the day of doom. Strange to say, however, the perpetrator of the crime was discovered, and convicted on his own evidence, and the very means which he adopted to hide the dreadful deed were the occasion of it being brought to light, as I shall now briefly explain.

The town of Bellair was about forty or fifty miles from Woodley, and the stage ran between the two places. A few miles from Woodley was another small town called Oakbourne, and in Oakboume lived a widow lady, named Conway, and her daughter. Mrs. Conway had a brother who was deaf and dumb. His name was Thomas Ellwood. His affliction, as might be supposed, was a source of great trial to his family, and had his parents been poor it would have made his course in life much harder than it really was; but his father, old Mr. Ellwood, had but two children, the eldest a girl—who married while young a certain Mr. Conway—and Thomas, of whom I am about to speak. After Jane Ellwood became Mrs. Conway she saw very little of her own family, for her mother was already dead, and in less than a year after her wedding day she lost her father, and now her only surviving relative was her brother Thomas.

To Thomas Ellwood his father left almost all that he possessed, saying that his daughter, being married, w r anted little, and that poor Tom could do nothing for himself. “Poor Tom,” however, at the time of our story, was no longer a_ boy, for he had nearly reached his 40th" year, but he had never married. His sister, Mrs. Conway, was older than himself, and had an only child, a daughter. now about 17 years of age, called, after her mother, Jane. Jane had great expectations, for not only was her widowed mother well-to-do in the world, but her uncle, Thomas Ellwood, had declared that as he was, on account of his infirmity, likely to Bpend his days in bachelorhood, he would leave all his property to her. Jane had, moreover, a lover, a right good young man, to whom her mother had promised that she should in due time be united, which meant whenever Uncle Ellwood found opportunity, as he had promised, to settle a certain large sum upon her. But Uncle Ellwood had hitherto neglected doing so, chiefly on account of an innate dislike which he had to doing business with lawyers. But time and love would allow of no longer delay. Uncle Tom had promised his sister and niece that he would arrange about the property early in the month of August, which had already begun; but when, two days after, he called at Mrs. Conway’s house, he allowed that he had totally forgotten all about it. This confession was, of course, all made by dumb show, as from his birth he could not utter a word ; and Mrs. Conway’s discourse, as she scolded him, fell upon deaf ears. Thomas was a goodnatured soul, _ and his sister carelessly thought it did not matter how she rated him; but, although he heard never a word, poor Tom’s heart was grieved, for he knew he had vexed his sister. Mr. Ellwood, of course, could not reply, although, with the usual tact of afflicted people, he made a shrewd guess at what his sister said. He carried a little tablet and pencil always about with him and now„he wrote : “ I’ll go to Woodley to-morrow, Jane. The stage from Oakbourne to Woodley starts at 6, and I’ll go over.” Mrs. Conway read the sentence and then smiled and nodded assent. The tjvo were reconciled, and the rest of the evening passed off pleasantly enough. Jane’s lover, Fred, had to go early, but Uncle Tom stayed to supper. Jane and her mother went with him to the gate, and there bade him good-night. Mr. Ellwood then went straight home to his lodgings, and after arranging with his landlady to rouse him early the following morning he went to bed. When the morning came he packed up a few necessaries, directed his luggage to Woodley—for he was a very punctual man—and then, after telling the landlady that he was going to that town for a day or two, he left. He booked from Oakbourne by the 6 o’clock stage and arrived early in Woodley. The next day his sister received a letter from that town, stating that after seeing his lawyer he found it necessary to go on to Bellair, but would return the next day. The next day and the next day oame, but Thomas Ellwood never came back again. In his letter he stated that the business in- question might have been done by an agent, but that Mrs. Conwav’s impatience and angry words' had so agitated him that he had resolved to go on at once and do everything himself. He finished his letter with an expression of love, but Mrs. Conway never forgot or forgave her own hasty words to which he alluded.

As day after day passed, Mrs. Conway, finding her brother still mysteriously absent from home, and that, as far

as she could learn, he had not only been away for a much longer time than bumness could require, Sat had never been seen since, began to be much agitated, especially as every one was talking of a horrible murder in the Bellair coach. At last sbe went to Bellair, and when she learned how the victim had said this and that sbe thought little about it, for she knew poor Tom had no power to speak. One evening, however, she saw a drunken man rolling home. Like other fools of his class, he scattered all he had about him, and Mrs. Conway’s eyes fell upon a small letter-case which he knew belonged to Ellwood. She picked it up, followed the drunkard, saw where he lived and then applied to the magistrate. The drunkard was arrested. He proved to be none other than the ooachman, John Bush, who could not, however, account fairly for the case. Drunk as he was, he was too sensible to betray himself. He was, however, held to bail, which, as he could not give, he was of coarse locked up. The next day he was brought before the magistrate and examined. Mrs. Conway swore that the letter-case belonged to her missing brother. The ooachman swore that he bought it, with some other trifles, of a peddler whom he met in the street, and, as there was no evidence to refute this statement, he was at once discharged. Bush now saw that he was likely to become an object of suspicion and prepared to flee. Meanwhile the detective police, having at last a clew which even a blind man could not help but' follow, set to work again in earnest. They saw Mrs. Conway and suggested to her that it was her brother Ellwood who had been murdered, and that perhaps the coachman knew more of the affair than he chose to allow. This suspicion she of course declared groundless, as her brother, being deaf -and dumb, could not have spoken as the coachmen asserted. A warrant, however, was obtained for exhuming the body of the murdered man. Mrs. Conway at once recognized her brother.

Bush was now again arrested, although the magistrate was greatly opposed to the proceeding, as he justly stated that there was not sufficient evidence to justify an arrest. A wellknown lawyer, Mr. Chancery, however, came forward and clearly showed that if Bush, having every facility for forming a proper judgment, had sworn solemnly that the deceased had said such and such things, the deceased being—as was now fully proved—deaf and dumb from birth, he must either have deliberately committed perjury or else he must have some complicity in the bloody deed, or possibly he might be guiity of both. This argument, coming from a man like Mr. Chandery, was listened to with proper attention. The coachman was again taken into custody and committed for trial. He was arraigned at the next sessions. Had he only murdered the unfortunate Mr. Ellwood and said nothing about it he might possibly have escaped. But he condemned himself out of his own mouth by swearing at the inquest that a man now proved to have been born dumb had said certain things to him. When brought up for trial he came with an air of defiance and proposed to brazen out the whole matter. But when, after he had again been minutely questioned about what the murdered mau said, and had sworn to it, other witnesses of undoubted character proved that the unfortunate man never could speak ; then, turning to the Judge, the criminal said, “ The game is played out,” and fainted. The jury brought in a verdict of willful murder against John Bush. It would, however, appear that all that the guilty man said about the beginning of the fatal .journey was true. Mr. Ellwood did really leave his hotel to go to the post, but being anxious to arrive in Bellair that day, and seeing the stage, already started, rounding the corner, he got into it without returning for his luggage. The other passengers alighted at their several destinations, and he was left alone. Bush had some slight knowledge of him, and believing him to carry a large sum had, when he found his victim left without protection, stopped the coach, and in an unguarded moment stabbed him in the neck. His first idea after pillaging the murdered man was to bury him on the spot; but, fearing discovery, he hid his spoils a little way off in the woods, and then concocted a story to account for the delay of the coach—wounding the horse himself, so as to bear out his tale.