Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 August 1875 — Mystery Unraveled A Strange Story. [ARTICLE]

Mystery Unraveled A Strange Story.

The Providence (R. 1.) Journal tells the following story, which seems to be literally true, and yet is stranger than fiction: Many of our older citizens will readily recall the excitement and wonder that was created some twenty-five years ago at the sudden and mysterious disappearance of Mr. Jeremiah Perce, a well-to-do grocer on Sabin street, leaving a wife and two children (all of whom are now living), and at about the same time the as sudden disappearance of Mrs. Harrington, wife of Thomas M. Harrington, who was then living in one of Mr. Perce’s tenements. Mr. Perce left the city on pretense of going to New York to transact business and never returned. It was at the time supposed that the two had eloped, but nothing certain was known in regard to the matter. A short time afterward—about six months, as those knowing the facts now recollect it—Mrs. Harrington returned in an apparently penitent mood and had an interview with her husband, at which she received permission to take one of her children, named Mary, a little girl of five years (there were three children in all, a sister older and a brother younger than Mary), down street with her to purchase for her some needed articles of apparel, and was to return with her six o’clock that evening. From that time the father heard nothing from the child or the mother until within a few weeks, and they have long been supposed to have been dead. Nor did the family and Mends of Mr. Perce hear anything from him, though the most strenuous efforts were put forth to discover his whereabouts. The Odd Fellows, he having been prominent among them, sent out men in search of him, in the hope of finding something concerning him which would remove the stain from his character, but without avail, while his relatives sought for him as unsuccessfully. The family and friends of Mrs. Harrington also strove to learn something of her, but her tracks were effectually covered up, and they got no trace. Some of her relatives believed she might have fallen a victim to a railroad or steamboat accident, there being geveral of these reported about that time, while Mr. Perce’s Mends were unwillingly forced to the beliefthat he had been murdered. Time passed on, the missing ones were legally declared dead, and the affair was well-nigh forgotten by ail except those intimately interested. Very recently, however, public attention was attracted to the following advertisement, inserted in the Providence Bulletin and Journal: i Wanted. —To know the whereabouts of any person by the name of Harding, Studley or Harrington, who has resided in Providence for the past or fourteen yews, or of

any persons who are akin to any family of thia name. A lady in this city who has relatives with these names is desirous of hearing from them. Address Nat G. Barter, business manager Sentinel and Pioneer, Fort Scott, Kansas. This was seen the same evening by Mr. Harrington, the brother of the girl who had been so long missing, who at once forwarded a telegraphic dispatch to the above address, stating that there were parties of all these names living in this city, and that one of them had a daughter stolen about twenty-three years ago who had never been heard from. This was received at Fort Scott at eight o’clock the next morning, and by noon (oh, foe wonders of foe telegraph!) a dispatch in answer was revived here which brought to young Mr. Harrington and his father foe joyful news that their long-lost sister and daughter, whom they had for so many years believed to be dead, was Btill living. Letters followed as rapidly as Uncle Sam’s mail arrangements would allow, and it was soon ascertained beyond foe shadow of a doubt that foe news brought by foe telegraph was true. Although so young when she was taken away, foe girl, now married and foe mother of two children, yet remembered enough of her early life to assure her relatives in this city of this, had not her mother, who is still living, put her in possession of other facts. As soon as she could make arrangements she left her home in Fort Scott to pay a visit to her relatives, and arrived in this city a few days ago. The joy of her meeting with her father, brother and other relatives can be better imagined than described.

From Mrs. Barter’s strange story the following facts are gathered: She distinctly remembers her mother promising her father to take her back at six o’clock on the day she was stolen. She says she was with her mother two or three days before she realized that she was being taken away from home. She remembers Mr. Perce joining them, but does not know where, not at that age being acquainted with towns, cities, etc., but it was somewhere while they were traveling, and soon after they left this city. He, it seemed, had changed his name to Charles Pierce (the ie as long c), and at once taught her to call herself “ Mary Pierce,” threatening her with severe punishment if she called it anything else, or if she told anyone her name had ever been Harrington. They spent about a year in Dubuque, lowa, mid St. Paul, Minn., and then went to Texas, where Mr. Perce was engaged in raising cattle and sheep, at times doing very well and at times not so well. They remained in Texas for some years and then removed to Baxter Springs, Kan., where Mr. Perce, who had been failing in health for a couple of years, died, about fourteen years ago, leaving three sons by Mrs. Harrington, all of whom are now living. She says he was at one time a Universalist clergyman and at another a Spiritualist, and that wherever he went he won the respect and good-will of his fellow-men. An investigation into the statement that Perce was a Universalist clergyman shows that no such man was known, hereabout, in the ministry of the denomination. In the record, however, appears the name of one William Pierce, who was at Lancaster, in Texas, in 1855, and may possibly be the man with whom the story has to do. He was unknown to most, if not all, Universalists here. The only other Pierce in the denominational ministry is the esteemed clergyman who has long been settled at Attleboro. Amidst all her wanderings and hardships she never forgot that he was not her father, or that her right name was Harrington. She assumed her own name as soon as Mr. Perce died, she then being about fourteen years of age, and at once set herself to work to learn, if possible, the whereabouts of her father and other relatives, should any of them be alive. She said nothing to her mother about her efforts in this direction. But having somehow got an idea that she had resided in Boston, she, at different titnes, got Mends to write to parties in that city, making inquiries, which, of course, resulted in nothing. After repeated failures she gave up the task, though ever alive to anything that might perhaps put her upon the right track. After Mr. Perce’s death her mother sometimes spoke of her relatives,-but never volunteered any information in the matter, and she did not think worth while to ask for it. Time passed on, she grew to womanhood, and finally married Mr. Nat. G. Barter, business manager of the Sentinel and Pioneer, Fort Scott, Kan., where she now resides.

The duties of housekeeping and of caring for two children were not sufficient to erase the intense longing to find her relatives. Her mother had frequently spoken of her family within a few years, and Mrs. Barter had learned the names “ Studley” and “Harding” as among them, and when, not long ago, her mother spoke of a desire to see her sister in Providence, (the first time Mrs. Barter had ever heard the name of this city mentioned in this connection), inspired with new' hope, she at once took means to learn if any of her relatives were yet living. Her husband, being a newspaper man, and having full faith in the virtue of advertising, sent the notice for publication in the Journal and Bulletin, with the joyful result stated above. Another pleasant incident connected with this matter is the discovery by Mrs. Barter that her sister, who was a year or two older than she, is married and now living out West, not 500 miles from her own home, whom she has already visited, and where the mother is now living, having been offered a home with the child to whom she had been dead for twenty-three years. This story seems wonderful beyond belief, and it to also wonderfhl that, of the two families at that time made desolate, every meiqber except Mr. Perce is alive.