Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1891 — A SENSATION IN UNION TOWNSHIP. [ARTICLE]

A SENSATION IN UNION TOWNSHIP.

Union township now comes to the front with a big sensation, and the good people of that region are much wrought up, therewith. One day last week as Rev. A. E. Pierson was digging by the side of his residence, in the vicinity of Alter’s mill, for the purpose of making a cellar under an addition he is building, he unearthed a human skeleton, about two feet under the surface. Instantly an occurence and sensation of about 20 years ago was recalled in the community. It seems that about 20 years ago John Guss,who is still a well known resident of the vicinity and another man of the same nationality, a German named Meyers, go* into an ugly quarrel which developed into a fierce fight,with clubs. They were separated however, and apparently reconciled as they repaired together to Guss’s house, where Meyers was boarding. Very shortly after this occurence, Meyers vanished and was never seen nor heard of again. His disappearance created dark suspicions at the time, and now the discovery of the skeleton has created in many minds the belief that it is the bones of the lost Meyers and that he

was foully dealt with. On the the other hand, however, many believe that the bones are those of an Indian, or earlier mound builder, many of which have previously been dug up in the immediate vicinity. The advocates of this theory clai m tl at the tents me early too ancient and too much decayed to have been in the ground only 20 years, about the only sound part about them being the teeth. Those holding to the Meyers’ theory answer this argument by saying that the bones have been, for quite a number of years, just under the drip of the eaves of Mr. Pierson’s house, and being thus in a very wet position, their decay was correspondingly rapid, The positson of the skeleton when found is also urged as an evidence that it is not of a man regularly hurried, as it lay upon the side, with the head resting upon one arm. Those who incline to the missing. Meyers’ view, are talking of having a legal investigation made.