USA > New Jersey > Somerset County > Within a Jersey circle : tales of the past, grave and gay, as picked up from old Jerseyites > Part 18
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"Now, when you left Jim Parks and resumed your journey to Easton, was it then daylight?" the witness was further asked.
"No, sir," Cougle answered, "it was still a good hour and a half before sunrise."
"That's all, you can go, Mr. Cougle," the prosecutor said, and shortly afterward in his address to the jury he pointed out that here was a man who had been sued for money and a judgment entered against him. He and Carter had driven home with Castner, to whom the same day they had seen a large sum of money paid. They must have known that money was in their uncle's house the night they called him out to the sink hole where, I am bound to claim, they murdered him. The motive of the crime was money; but to get it safely, as they thought they had to do away with, not only Mr. Castner, but his whole household. It has been shown in evidence that since the murder these men could not do their ordinary work, but sat on the fences continually talking together. They rose and left the church when the minister said that the murderers might be there with decent people at wor-
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ship. When arrested they had large sums of money in their pockets, each about the same amount; both amounts added together amounting almost exactly to the sum that Mr. Castner brought home with him. And none of that money, not more than $5, can be found in Mr. Castner's late home. For the people I say that these prisoners com- mitted the crime of murdering these people to get that money and having secured it they divided it equally be- tween them.
"And lastly," said the counsel, "I have brought here a witness who was told by Parks himself that John Cast- ner, his uncle, had been killed two hours before Peter Petty found the body, that is to say, before any other man but himself and his accomplice could possibly know of the deed."
The judge, in summing up, said the testimony in the case was the strongest and most convincing circumstantial evidence that ever came before him, probably the strong- est of which there was any record. To him, he declared, it was a more complete and unimpeachable fastening of the heinous crime upon these two prisoners than could be even the testimony of an eye-witness.
Yet the first trial ended in a disagreement of the jury. But undue pressure and influence upon the jury was more than suspected. The people went wild with indignation and insisted on a new trial. This time the jury re- turned in a remarkably short time with a unanimous ver- dict of guilty. The two were hanged side by side on a gallows specially made for them at Belvidere. The dou- ble gibbet was finished and erected even before the first trial ended in a disagreement.
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Mr. McPherson, of Ringoes, saw the prisoners being conveyed back in the old stage coach through Quaker City, after their mistrial. He says the excitement was terrible to behold. It seemed as if the people would have torn the prisoners limb from limb could they have laid hands on them. Mr. Ball, of Larison's Corners, who saw them hanged, says that never in his life before nor since did he see so many people gathered together as were there to have the satisfaction of seeing the hanging of Carter and Parks.
Strange and unusual taste had a monument erected over the graves of the murderers. It is a heavy stone arch like a small bridge and is visible from the railroad going from Hampton to Washington.
Em Osborn and her two faithful cats.
EM OSBORN'S CHRISTMAS.
A STORY OF A QUEER OLD WOMAN WHO HATED CHILDREN AND HER MYSTERIOUS VISITORS.
In an old, tumble-down house in the heart of the woods about a mile from Pluckemin, up in the Wat- chung Mountainside, a woman lives all alone. She is known as Em Osborn, the "Em" being a contraction of Emma or Emily ; it is not certainly known which. How she manages to live nobody knows, and if you ask Em herself you're not much wiser, for she frankly tells you she doesn't know either. She is said to have no bed to sleep on, no chair to sit on nor a table on which to eat a meal. Neither has she any fire to cook with or where- withal to keep warm.
It is, however, a hopeless task to enumerate the things that Em has not got, seeing that they include pretty nearly everything else on earth. It is far easier to name one or two of the things she is known to have. First, then, she has two pitchforks, one for action and one as reserve, as weapons of defense when any one knocks at her door for admittance. For, while Em will speak to any one fair enough in the open, it is a law like that of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not, that no man, woman or child, of whatsoever creed or kin or color, shall ever cross her threshold.
Up to about a year ago there was the further deplor- able peculiarity in Em's character that of all things on earth or in the waters under the earth that she hated and
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detested, it was children. In the summer she used to pick a few baskets of blackberries and blueberries and sell them from house to house in Pluckemin.
"But drat them kids," she would tell you, "they can't let me alone, for every now and again a clod or stone will hit me from behind a bush or fence from them little devils."
The summer before last, however, and the follow- ing Christmas she had a queer experience which com- pletely turned the cat in the pan. That is to say, one very warm evening when picking berries, in a beauti- ful grove of cedars on the opposite slope of the mountain from where she lives, when she came to the path called Petticoat Lane, near where six mountain paths meet, feeling tired and setting her large empty basket down, she sat in the shade to rest a while and fell asleep. When she awoke it was bright moonlight and she found two children, a boy and a girl, beautiful flaxed-haired little things, tugging at her hands and begging her to come with them. They looked so lovely and pressed her so hard that she could not refuse; so, giving them a hand a piece, she went along with them. She soon saw there were many other children, scores of them, there, skipping about among the little tent-like cedars in light tissues and tinseled dresses that shimmered like butterflies' wings.
At an open space they came upon a large company of the little things dancing in a circle, in the manner of the grand chain in the lancers dance. Em stood looking on in amazement, until at a sound as if some one clapped hands, the gay circle broke up and the dancers all filed
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past her in single file, each curtseying and emptying a coltsfoot leaf full of blueberries into the woman's basket and singing together :
We've picked you the berries, there's nothing to pay ; And we'll all come and see you on Christmas Day.
Em was a strong woman, but she had all the berries she wanted to carry home that night. She also found the fruit to be of the finest and sold it all readily; whereas her own gatherings were usually inferior and hard to dispose of. Such kindness at the hands of children quite bewildered Em. She was much puzzled to know whether they had been her old enemies, the Pluckemin children, and narrowly she scrutinized every child's face she met when selling the fine berries there. But she could not seem to find one that she thought was among her beauti- ful little mountain benefactors.
As the fall and bad weather came on Em was less and less seen in the village; but the juvenile Pluckeminites did not forget her. There was always a strong fascination about her and her mountain hovel to them. So much so that during recess they concocted and regularly acted a burlesque, which they called "Em Osborn."
Dramatis personae: A girl having her head tied up fantastically and wearing an old rag of a shawl; in her hand a forked stick, to represent a pitchfork, would barri- cade herself in the school woodshed. This was Em Os- born. A little boy hopping about on one foot, was a one- legged duck of Em's. A small girl limping badly and having her arm in a sling was a lame, broken-winged fowl
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which Em nurtured; and two more boys with strings tied to their coat-tails impersonated Em's two faithful cats which had no hair on their tails, the latter being like tap- ering whiplashes or rats' tails. The rest of the boys and girls represented the Pluckemin children going to visit the sibyl in her mountain fastness, the woodshed.
The acts of the play followed one another in quick suc- cession ; several children would advance and knock loudly on Em's door.
"Who are you, and what's your business here?" she would demand from within, not attempting to open the door.
"We want to come in and see your nice house, Em," they would cry, knocking again. "Let us in; let us in; we've got something nice for you." Here the rattailed cats would slip out and run purring and meowing among the callers and rubbing against them, like cats will do. Also the one-legged duck comes up quacking and the broken-winged hen busied herself picking up crumbs from the crackers the children are eating. After more knock- ing :
"Let us in; let us in, Em. Look what a lot of nice things we've brought you," the visitors call persistently, knocking louder and louder. Then the door would partly open and the prongs of the pitchfork coming out first.
"I tell you to begone from here!" Em would scream. "I don't want none of you bad Pluckemin childer 'round here! Be off with you before I let the blood out of you!" and the door shuts again with a bang.
"All right for you, Em," they answer. "You're a wild old hag; that's what you are. You're always mad.
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So we'll take these nice things back and eat them our- selves."
"What's that?" the besieged would say. "Something to eat, have you got? I haven't broken bread in three days! Are you fooling me again ?" And now, without pitchfork, she comes out, looking eagerly from one to another, one of her hands tightly grasping her chin, as if to keep it from chewing even before she got anything to chew.
"Gi' me it! Gi' me it!" she craves. "Gi me a bite to eat!" Then they hand her an empty package of old papers and run. Em makes a dive for her pitchfork and gives chase, the two cats following with their rat-tails in the air, the broken-winged fowl fluttering and cackling and the one-legged duck bringing up the rear squawking furi- ously. The mad chase continues till the pursued by round- ing the end of the schoolhouse are supposed to be out of the wood, and they barely save themselves. Then when safe they turn and revile and jeer at Em and her half-rat cats, her lame hen and the hobbling, one-legged duck, as these go straggling back after their mistress to their den.
That was a favorite game of the Pluckemin school children, and it is said to have been a realistic staging of what often happened between them and Em Osborn, at her old "shanty," as they called her house in the woods high up on the Watchung Mountain. From this it is easy to infer that between the two factions there was lit- tle love lost, at all events, up to berry time last summer but one, when, as described, there occured that fairy-like bounty of filling her basket full and running over with blue berries, which almost stunned the poor hermit. She
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could do little else but think of it, and really for once in her lonely life she longed like a child for Christmas to come-not so much for what she might get, as to see the proof of whether children ever could be so good and kind and lovely again in this world as they had been that one time to her-and further to find, as she was determined to do, whether her benefactors on that occasion were or were not Pluckemin children.
Em's way of keeping an account of the passage of time was by cutting a hack in a long stick for each day; but having been sick and sleeping irregularly she lost track of the sunrises and had to trudge all the way to Bedmin- ster to find what day it was and how many more days it was to Christmas. She found that three more notches in the stick and that day would dawn.
When Christmas eve came the ground was sifted over with a deep coat of fresh fallen, dry snow ; this with a full moon made the night almost as light as day. Em, as was her wont looked around to see that her family were all in their places for the night. The one-legged duck after its supper with the broken-winged hen had hopped away to its little straw bed in the parlor; the hen was perched on the back of a seatless chair in the kitchen, and the two cats lay close together for warmth on the log bench whereon their mistress took her nightly rest and where she wisely utilized the soft, warm fur of her two tabbies to keep her own feet from freezing.
Having mounted to her place with the cats on the log, although it was late, Em was reminiscent this night. How could she be otherwise, seeing that it was the an- niversary of what ought to have and might have made
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her the happiest of women, but for that one word of his --- "Ah, yes; he tried hard to recall it and to come to me as before; but never!" she said aloud. "They tell me I'm queer now. But-but-they don't know! Ah, they don't know," she sighed. Then she thought of the happy days of her childhood and girlhood, happy as the day was long, with her dear parents; passing from one scene to another of their girlish and joyous frolics, when she had plenty good food to eat, fine fires to warm them and soft beds to sleep in.
"Ah! Christmas was a gay time then, but all gone, all gone!" she thought, gradually drowsing off into the land of dreams, and soon she was laughing again with her bright companions with "Merry Christmas" again ring- ing in her ears and snowballs flying and horns braying. She was back again among it all. It was very real ; so real that she awoke with the excitement of it and, opening her eyes, she became conscious with a start of real sounds of that very kind outside her own door. There was the merriest laughter with the greatest braying of horns she ever heard all around her old hovel, while on the kitchen door dozens of hands seemed to be pounding and dozens of wishes of "Merry Christmas!" being shouted through the keyholes and cracks.
Like King Saul, she slept upon her spear, or pitchfork, and with this in hand she arose, forgetting all but the chil- dren's former annoyances and dashed to the door with her usual demand :
"Who are you and what do you want here ?"
The only answer was peal after peal of children's laugh- ter and invitations to-
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"Come and see what we've brought you!"
Her cat's anxiety to have the door opened decided Em that something good was really outside. She hastily undid the bolts, expecting to see a crowd, but not a soul was there. The cats were scratching at a big basket on the step, however, which Em rescued from them and opening which she found within a beautiful fat goose, all ready roasted to a turn, cranberry sauce, potatoes, celery, plum pudding, mince pies, apple and pumpkin pies, with plates, bright knives and forks, all ready to sit down to a real feast. She clapped the basket into her cupboard, when her attention was arrested by similar cries "Merry Christmas," laughter and horn blowing at a window at the other end of the house. Em hastened thither and found the plug of old clothes pulled out and, dropped on the floor, she found bags of candy, rich cakes, nuts, ap- ples, oranges, etc., and again not a vestige of a child to be seen. But sticking her head out at the hole in the window, at a few rods' distance she saw a sleigh and a prancing team of horses on the point of starting away.
"Now, children, all aboard !" Em heard from an adult voice, among the merry prattle and laughter of little ones. Then, with a tremendous blast from many horns and cheer upon cheer, away went Em Osborne's mysteri- ous visitors, with jingling bells and musical bugles mak- ing glad the very woods and rocks, down the mountain side, with a dash and a swirl that was worthy of old Santa Claus himself in his palmiest days.
INDIAN LEGENDS.
THE SOURLAND MOUNTAIN HERMIT TELLS AN INDIAN FAIRY-TALE.
According to the Sourland hermit chief, the Indians drew on their imaginations in the way of fairy tales for the amusement of their children, much as we white people do in our Christmas story books.
One of these stories said to have been told by the cave- dweller chief was that in the olden time, when the Rari- tan Kings dwelt on the mountain and reigned over many tribes and multitudes of people, Noorwadchantunk, the greatest of the monarchs, had two very beautiful chil- dren whom he dearly loved. One was a boy and the other was a girl. The boy, named Wamba, he hoped would succeed himself as king and chief of chiefs. One day, however, the queen squaw, the children's mother, died when the little girl, Vashtee, was only three and the boy but five years old. Then the king took unto him- self another wife to be his queen, and a mother to his children. She was good and kind to the children until one day when she had a little boy papoose of her own.
Then all was changed. One night an evil manitou whispered in the mother's ear that if she were only to get rid of little Wamba, her own son would, in the ful- ness of time, be king. When she was brooding day and night over this, the same bad spirit again came and told her of a certain beldam that lived alone on the other moun- tain. She could work marvelous changes and perform
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wonders. To this very bad woman, the new queen- mother repaired, taking with her many presents and much wampum, which she laid on the shoulders of her women.
"See," she said to the witch-woman, after describing what it was she wanted, "make it that my son shall be king when his father dies and, behold, all these riches and more also shall be thine!"
Eagerly clutching the long strings of wampum and feasting her bleary eyes on the burdens of presents which the women took from their shoulders and spread out be- fore her, the old hag gleefully gibbering, appeared to bring her hooked nose and chin in touch, in a hideous attempt to smack her puckered lips over such prizes.
"Oh, my sweet, honey queen, live forever!" she said, between a croak and squeak of voice. "Leave it to thy willing servant. Leave it all to her, sweet queen, and verily thine own son shall sit on his father's throne."
Then the queen squaw and her women servants left the sorceress munching her old jaws and jabbering her joy over the rich haul of presents, and returned across the Neshanic River again to the queen's home on the mountain. The next day when little Wamba and his sister Vashtee were playing by the brook, the boy shoot- ing fish with the toy bow and arrow that his devoted father had made him, the old hag crept stealthily up be- hind them and touched each of them twice on the shoul- ders. Wings at once sprang out on their shoulders and their necks grew long and red and ugly, like turkeys.
The children's father, the great king and chief of chiefs, happening to come along just then, beheld the
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hag of ill-omen, and being filled with fear at the sight of her, he ran to bring his beloved children away from such danger, when, to his dread astonishment, they spread out their newly acquired wings and flew away, high over his head. He ran after them looking up and call- ing to them to come down to him; but after the manner of such birds, when pursued, they soared high out of his sight.
Filled with great grief at this, the king went home and called his hunting braves together before him and com- manded them that henceforward they should never shoot or in any way harm or disturb a turkey-buzzard, but must do everything in their power to catch those birds alive. After this edict, whenever the hunters essayed to catch them, the big birds would fly away far out of reach.
So the hunters soon gave up all hope of ever recovering the beloved children of the bereaved king-father.
Being in an agony of perplexity and distress over his loss, the king at last went to an old medicine man and inquired of him what should be done that his children might be restored to him. The magician answered :
"Thy servant, O king, can turn thee into an eagle and then thou shalt be enabled to outfly thy chidren and soar above them; then, behold, thou mayst bear them down beneath thee to the earth. And it shall come to pass that as soon as their feet shall touch the ground they shall be thy children again, even as they were aforetime. But thou thyself shalt always remain a bird, even an eagle as I shall make thee."
To this the distracted father assented, and immediately
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he was transformed and flew up in the air and swooped down upon the bird that was his son; and the eagle be- ing the stronger, bore him to the earth, whereupon the boy-buzzard turned at once into a fine young brave, the very picture of his father. This done, the eagle-father again flew up and likewise descending restored his little girl.
Then the boy told all his father's braves what his step- mother had done. Straightway they built a great quan- tity of fagots into a pyre. They put the bad stepmothter on it and fired the fagots, and she was burned to a cin- der.
Wamba was then made king in his father's stead, and his guardian eagle always floated high over his head, ever watchful of his welfare, following after his son wheresoever he went; thus showing his fatherly love. Sometimes the eagle guardian threw down a feather, which the young man carefully fastened in his hair as a talisman. Thus in the course of time his head was cov- ered with these beautiful plumes.
"And thus it was," the Sourland Mountain sage averred, "that the Indians first adopted and ever after- ward followed the practise of decorating their heads with the feathers of what they looked upon as their fatherly protector and the king of birds."
"DO YOU WANT TO BE SHAVED?"
TALE OF A HAUNTED ROOM THAT PROVED PROFITABLE FOR A COURAGEOUS TRAVELER-"JIM" FISK'S GREAT MISTAKE.
It is probably true, as remarked by some unknown sage, long ago, that people's idiosyncrasies are largely in- fluenced by topographical environments. Take, for in- stance, a country made up of flat land, a dead level, ex- tending on every side as far as the eye can reach, with such sluggish rivers and streams that it is a puzzle to tell which way they are supposed to flow. Such a land is apt to produce a slow-blooded mediocrity of mental man, living in a drowsy monotony where nothing ever hap- pens. On the other hand, rolling hills, towering moun- tains, beetling rocks and rushing torrents seem to stir men's pulses making them imagine and dream and think and do things.
Such a contrast, in a mild form, at all events, is met by the man who leaves the painfully prosaic steppes of Southern Long Island and betakes himself to almost any of the counties of the State of New Jersey ; but, especially so if he happens to make the upper reaches of Hunterdon County his choice, and more so, still, if he crosses the county line into Morris and pitches his tent in some of the picturesque valleys of the Schooley Mountains. That is just what a man named Katz did about a century ago, according to unerring tradition, and the move was the making of him.
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Christopher, or as he was famliarly known, Chris Katz, was born, and managed in spite of the mosquitoes, to live forty years on the skirts of a Sahara of sand and salt marsh swamp between Jamaica Bay and the Rockaways on Long Island. He grew some potatoes and dug the rest of his living out of the bogs in the shape of soft shell clams. His mouth, which was immense, and could not be made larger, his friends said, without displacing his ears, strikingly resembled that of a fish-a consequence, which, some naturalists claim, quite commonly succeeds an exclusively fish diet. Chris had lived entirely on fish and potatoes all his life. This mouth of his, with huge lantern jaws and very high cheek bones, together with big, round, watery gray eyes, really made his physiognomy almost the counterpart of that of the catfish. There could be no doubt at all that if Chris had met some of the pop- ular strolling players of his day, or a little later, his face would easily have made his fortune before the footlights. As it was, he found, as they say in rural Hunterdon, that there was "money into it;" but he had to carry it away from the humdrum low level of his native Long Island plains, and show it on the mercurial heights of the Schooleys to realize it.
It is not of record what extraordinary circumstances they were that took Christopher Katz so far away and high above his native haunts; but there he turned up late in the fall of the year. With a huge carpetbag in one hand and what looked like the mother of umbrellas in the other, he walked into the "Travelers' Rest" road- house, a fine old-fashioned, roomy and solid looking inn, in the thriving little town of Chester, about 10 o'clock
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