A MYSTERY
CLEARED UP – THE REMAINS
OF A SUICIDE DISINTERRED – A BULLET RATTLING IN HIS SKULL – SAD STORY OF HIS DEATH. – While a party
of workmen were engaged in the removal of some human remains from the
south-east corner of the Presbyterian burying ground of this city, to make room
for the erection of a dwelling house for the sexton, a skull was exhumed in the
empty cavity of which a bullet was heard to rattle, and on examination a bullet
hole was discovered in the right temple. This bullet dropped out of one of the
eye holes into the hand of the sexton, and the affair led to suspicions that
the persons to whom the remains belonged might have been murdered.
It so happens, however, that we are able to clear up this
supposed mystery completely, and to the entire satisfaction of all concerned.
The skull found with the bullet rattling in it was not the skull of a murdered
man, but that of a suicide. The story of his death is full of interest, and the particulars thereof we gather from the recollections of that
most estimable lady, Mrs. E. Michael,
proprietress of the Grape Hotel, in the month of Oct., in the year 1820, a
gentleman named Torrance Marshall, from Wythe county, Va., came to this city
with a drove of cattle. He traveled, as was the general custom in those days,
upon horseback, and brought with him a drove of cattle, which he sold at a loss
to the farmers of Lancaster Co. He was a fine looking man, about forty years of
age. His father and his brother had both been among the victims of that
terrible calamity, the burning of the old Richmond Theatre. Sometime after that
his wife was thrown from a carriage and killed. These things, together with the
loss of money on his cattle, so preyed upon his mind that he determined to put
an end to an existence that he had become burthensome to him. He went to the store
of John F. Steinman and purchased a pistol. He took the weapon to the gun store
of Mr. Gibbs, and had it carefully loaded. Returning to the Grape Hotel, then
kept by Mr. John Michael, the husband of the lady from whom we learn the
particulars of this sad story, he had some conversation with a fellow-drover
and merchant from the same county in Virginia. The name of his friend was
Zimmerman. Marshall told him that he could not wait until the time they had set
for their departure together for Baltimore, where they were both to lay in a
supply of goods, each of them being engaged in the mercantile business in Wythe
county Virginia. Zimmerman insisted upon Marshall’s waiting, telling him that
he would be able to leave with him on the following day, as some farmers were
to come in and pay the last of his money due him on the day when the
conversation occurred. Mr. Zimmerman stated that he was about writing home, and
advised Marshall to do the same, and lie over with him. To this Mr. Marshall
seems to assent, and taking pen, ink and paper with him he started up stairs.
Going to his room he found the chamber-maid engaged in cleaning it up, both he
and his friend having risen at rather a late hour in the morning. The girl did
not leave the room, thinking he might wait until she had finished.
Mr. Marshall went out, entered another close by, and placing
the pistol he had purchased and had so carefully loaded to his head, fired. The
girl heard a report, but thought he had knocked a chair over; Mr. Michael, who
was in the room just below that in which the tragedy occurred, heard a noise and
thought the chambermaid had knocked down a looking-glass and broken it. He
started up to see about the matter, and discovered Mr. Marshall lying upon the
floor, life being extinct and the floor flooded with his blood. He bled very
profusely, two large earthen crocks of blood being scooped up. The ball and the
entire contents of the pistol, entered his skull, but did not emerge therefrom;
this accounts for the presence of the bullet in the skull when it was dug up
the other day. – The room where the deed was committed is the back room over
the store of Mr. Jacob Loeb, that building being then the Grape hotel. The remains
were examined by the Coroner, an inquest was held, and a verdict in accordance with
the facts rendered. There being some objection to the burial of a suicide in
church yards at that day, the body was interred in the family grave-yard on the
farm of Mr. Henry Dietrich, the father of Mrs. Michael. The deceased had some
twenty-two or three hundred dollars of money in his possession, which, with his
other effects were taken charge of by his companion, Mr. Zimmerman. About a
year after his death a Mr. Hounsel, from Wythe county Virginia, came to
Lancaster, had the body of Marshall disinterred, and buried in the Presbyterian
church yard, where it reposed in quiet until disturbed by the spade of those
who were engaged in the removal of the remains from that part of the church
yard upon which the sexton’s house is to be erected. The story of Mr. Marshall
is a sad one, and few have been called upon to bear up under greater afflictions
than those which assailed him. His remains, with those of the others which were
removed, have been decently interred in another part of the church-yard, where
it is to be hoped they will be suffered to rest undisturbed until the dust to
which they are fast tending is quickened by the trump of the great archangel.-Intelligencer.[1]
[1] “A
Mystery Cleared Up,” The Columbia Spy,
Pennsylvania, 25 June 1870, p. 3; digital image online (http://lancasterhistory.org/digitalnewspapers
: 19 July 2015).
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