by D. P. Thompson

Author of “May Martin,” “The Shaker Lovers,” etc.

One of the most singular and mysterious affairs ever recorded in the annals of actual or supposed crime, has recently been made the subject of a judicial investigation at Montpelier, the capital of Vermont; and, although the investigation resulted in the acquittal of the one arrested, who, according to previous confession, was an accessory after the fact, it yet left the whole transaction more deeply than ever enveloped in mystery.

The facts, which appeared in the course of the examination, together with a few others of common notoriety, in the vicinity of the scene where the crime is alleged to have been committed are succinctly as follows:

There is, in the southern part of Berlin, a town adjoining Montpelier, a large fishing pond, lying very nearly in the form of the small letter g, the two parts being connected by a short strait called the Neck.  On the eastern side of this pond about a quarter of a mile south of the neck, forming, between the water and the road, at the north of the intersection, a space about a mile in extent, covered almost wholly by a dark and nearly impassable cedar swamp.

Near the southern extremity of this body of water, and in a two story farmhouse on the road just named, lives a Mr. N., in whose respectable family, until recently, has resided a young man by the name of C., who is the personage who figures the most largely in the strange occurrence about to be described. C., who is now about twenty-two, though of not the most reputable extraction, has yet sustained a fair character for truth and honesty, and seems to… Read More