A SECRET WELL KEPT.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1703, 5 June 1884, Page 2

A SECRET WELL KEPT.

Between forty and fifty years ago an old log church stood on the South Commons in Alleghany City. It was then in the open country. Adjoining and belonging to a church was a graveyard, fronting on the public road, About daybreak one morning in 1840, a farmer who was on kis way to Pittsburg with a load of dressed meat heard sounds issuing from tho graveyard as if some one was knocking a box to pieces with an axe. He climbed the fence and stole along in the direction of the sounds, He had gone but a short distance when he found a man engaged in robbing a grave, Ho had been so absorbed in his work that ho had not heard the approach of his discoverer, and- he was in the act of lifting the bedy from the coffin when ho heard the footsteps of the farmer. Tho grave was that of a prominent young woman who had been buried the day before. The farmer was so filled with horror and indignation at the crime that before the man could spring out he seized a club that lay near and dealt the .robber a powerful blow on the head. The, man fell into tho grave, and neither uttered a sound nor moved\ after falling, The farmer became alarmed. Dropping into the grave himself, 'he raised the man's body. The grave robber was none other than the sexton of the church, a man standing high in the community. Ho was dead. The farmer hurried back home, and, telling his relatives of what had occurred, he at once left the State, Only five persons ever knew the secret of the graveyard tragedy besides the living principal, Who found the body of the sexton dead in the grave was not positively known by therii, but as it was given out by his family that he died suddenly, and no investigation was ever: made, they supposed that the body must have been discovered by some one of the family before .its position was known to anyone, . His slayer went to an Obio town where ho married and grew into prominence and wealth, He, died the other day, His secret was never divulged, and even his wite and children lived in ignorance of it, The secret, at the time of bis death, was in the keeping of two persons only, the other three having died. One of these persons is a leading clergyman in Alleghany: the other is the 'writer's informant, a resident of the oil region. He says that the death of the principal in the graveyard tragedy, has released him from all pledge of secrecy. He refuses to reveal the names/ but affirms that the story is true in every particular. - ;