A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 5 (Supplement)

A FORGOTTEN TRAGEDY.

The chained skeleton of a young ■woman has been discovered in the town of Poultney, Vermont, and has revealed a tragedy -worthy of the Dark Ages. The skeleton was found in the cellar of an old house, long deserted, where a brick pit had "been constructed, holding an iron post, to which was fastened a heavy chain. The handcuffs still held the fleshless wrists. The doctors pronounced the skeleton to be that of a woman. Then it was remembered that this house was once occupied by a young French Canadian, Pierre Bourdon, who brought there one day a young and beautiful bride, also a French Canadian. Unhappily, her beauty made her the object of so much attention that Pierre became frantically jealous, and one day, when he caught her, as he thought, somewhat openly flirting with a young man of the town, he ordered her home, and no one but her husband ever saw her again. It was given out that she had gone to Canada, and there so far as the public were concerned the matter ended. But it is now believed that she was slowly murdered by starvation, while chained in the pit in the cellar, and there are circumstances1 which favour the conjecture that the crime extended over a whole year. Pierre himself died a morose old man In 1887, 50 years after the supposed murder was committed.'