Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 13 February 1873 — A Startling Drama in a Brooklyn Court. [ARTICLE]

A Startling Drama in a Brooklyn Court.

A recent New York dispatch says : A most dramatic and romantic scene was revealed to-day in the Brooklyn Court House. Mrs. Elizabeth Speyer, who brings suit in the Brooklyn Court to recover $40,000, as her dower of the estate of the late John Speyer, was cross-exam-ined to-day. She -said : “I was bom in Maine; when eighteen years old I left my parents, who were poor, and was employed in a millinery store in Boston; there I met Mr. Hugh Miller, to whom I was married; we lived for awhile in my native town, and then removed to Jamaica Plains. It was at this place, over thirty years ago, that my husband abandoned me. I sought tor him everywhere : four ?earl after he abandoned me I was inormed that he was dead.” She then related the story of her. marriage with Bell, whom she had arrested and convicted for bigamy, and marriage to Mr. John Speyer. As Mrs. Speyer descended from the stand, Mr. Speyer’s lawyer arose, and in a loud voice called the name of Hugh P. Miller. Mrs. Speyer stood amazed and overwhelmed with confusion. Her counsel were thunderstruck, and the audience arose and viewed the old - man, who arose in answer to his name. His appearance is that of a well-to-do farmer. He testified that instead of abandoning his wife, she abandoned him. He said: “We left Jamaica Plains and came to New York to ft ye. TWd" weeks after, I returned home at noon; my wife was gone and all the furniture. I found a note, stating that that sheJhad left me and Would never return, and that I need not look for her. I met her after that one day on the street, and she told me she had married a man named Bell. I accepted the situation, and went to sea, which I followed for ten or twelve years. I then went to Worcester, .Mass., where I now reside. During th* examinationof this witness Mrs. Speyer never removed her eyes from him. She seemed struck dumb with amazement. It was the first time she had seen him since the day on the street, when she had told him she was living with Bell, over thirty years ago. The Rev. Mr. Cone, who, Mrs. Speyer says, married her, is dead. His son exhibited the record of marriages. In it was, the record of her marriage to Bell, uftibr the name of Elizabeth G. Farrington. There was no record of her marriage to John Speyer. Her vision of a future was destroyed by to-day’s developments.