THE POUGHKEEPSIE MYSTERY.
SINGULAR LETTERS FOUND UPON THE MAN ARRESTED IN HUDSON
ON SATURDAY.
Poughkeepsie, Dec. 19.—On Saturday Officer Thomas P.
Bryant, of Hudson, came to this city and informed the Police here that, at 3
o’clock in the morning, he had arrested a well-dressed man in Hudson, who was
suspiciously loitering about a store on Warren Street. On him were found
letters which seem to indicate that a serious crime had been committed at
Greenville, Pitt County, N. C. When arrested he gave his name as “John Y.
Johnson, of Washington, D. C.,” but afterward said the last place he came from
was Poughkeepsie, where he had been a student in a college. One letter found on
him was addressed to “H. E. Nelson, Poughkeepsie,” and dated “Greenville,
Saturday, Oct. 30,” and signed “Your devoted wife, Lizzie Nelson.” Besides
other matters of a private nature are these sentences:
“I do not
know what to write you. In your first letter you expect me to believe you are
coming home. You know that I know you can never, no, never, come home again. If
you had given me more warning when you left, if you had intimated anything was
wrong, if you had let me know it was an everlasting farewell, it would not have
been so hard. *** You know I expected to go to the convention, and of course
went to work to get ready. If you had only warned me. *** Let me hear from you.
Do not run any risk to do so. I am afraid to send this. This may be the last
you will ever get from me.”
Another
letter found on him was dated Poughkeepsie, Nov. 23, but not signed. It was
addressed to no one, and seems not to have been enveloped. Among other things
in it are the following:
“I have
only been a drawback to you ever since I was married to you. It is hard, so
hard, to part with you. While I may have treated you wrong in a great man
instances, your happiness was my only thought. But it is all over now. I have
nothing more to look forward to. Our little boy is too young to know anything.
My only hope is to see you and the baby once more and kiss you both and lay
down and die beside my little girl. When you have received this I shall have
solve the great mystery. I shall, the good God willing, be with my little girl
and my mother in that better world. I shall have learned whether the good God
is lenient or kind with such a wre3tched man as I am. I shall be before God to
receive the reward; I am not afraid to go; not afraid to meet my darling little
girl. And Oh, my darling, we will plead so much for your happiness. You must
look as everything happening for the best. I would have only been a burden to
you. You have no further risk to run in writing to me. This is the last letter
a human being will receive from my hands, and this requires no answer, for in a
few hours, if the Bible is true, I shall know what the future is. My last words
and blessing, and a prayer to good God to watch over you that you may know no
want or suffering. Kiss our little boy good-bye for me, and for God’s sake, for
the love you have for me, don’t let him forget me. If I could take you in my
arms and kiss you both, but to die so far away from home is hard. May God
forever bless and keep you, and may we meet in that other world where all is
brightness and joy and peace, is the last prayer and last words of your
miserable husband.”
The above,
it will be seen, was penned a month ago. There was also found on the man a
diary, in which was written the following:
“Left
Poughkeepsie on my tramp Dec. 14; roads full of ice and snow, and I walked 13
miles with nothing to eat. I passed through Pleasant Valley and Washington
Hollow, and slept in a barn with a farm Laborer.
“Dec.
15—Started at 8 A.M. and passed through Clinton Corners, where I bought 10
cents’ worth of crackers and cheese, and staid all night with a Mr. Case, at
Case’s Corners, where I was well treated.
“Dec. 16—Started again at 8 A.M., and Dr. Herrick gave me a
ride for a mile. Then I walked and passed through Rock City, Upper Red Hook,
Clermont, and Blue Stones. Staid all night at this latter place, at a
farm-house.”
The diary contains
no record of what he did on the 17th. When he was arrested he said
he was looking for work. He said that the letters found on him were given to
him in Savannah, Ga., by a man named Nelson to send to Greenville, but he had
neglected it. While a student in Poughkeepsie he boarded in Crandell Street,
and went away owing considerable board, and also took a student’s overcoat,
which the Hudson Police have recovered. When he first came here he seemed to
have plenty of money, and paid his tuition fee in advance and paid some board
in advance. He also spent money freely among companions. Ion his diary also wee
names of females known to the Police as disreputable. It also contained numbers
of disreputable houses and sporting houses in New York City. One letter found
on him was, apparently, from his sister, and in it she thanks him for a large
sum of money sent her to complete her education at some college. The entire
case is yet shrouded in mystery, though the Hudson police are of the opinion
that the prisoner has committed a serious crime. Letters describing the case
have been seen to Greenville, Pitt County, N. C.
[The New York Times, Published December 20, 1880]
MYSTERY SOLVED.
____________
IN WAKE JAIL
___________
Henry E. Nelson, the Defaulting
Postmaster at Greenville, in Limbo Here—His Crime and its Consequences
____________
As was
mentioned in this paper yesterday, Col. T. B. Long, superintendent of the
United States mail service for this district, on Sunday brought H. E. Nelson,
the defaulting postmaster at Greenville, N.C., to this city from New York, and
placed him in the care and keeping of Sheriff Nowell. We had an interview with
Nelson in his cell, and he was quite outspoken. Entering the jail, we gained
access to the upper floor through a tiny doorway, and thence to a cell at the
northwest angle of the building. In this lies the prisoner, in company with two
other culprits.
There was a
clank and a clash of bolts and bars and the double doors swung open. Entering
the cell, the first thing observable in the uncertain light was the figure of a
man standing with pipe in mouth at a window slit. This proved to be the
prisoner Nelson, about whom so much has been said. He is a man 36 years of age,
and looks all of it. Rather squat in figure, he has a tolerably heavy beard,
and is poorly clad. His manner impresses one by its uncertainty, for while at
times he looks at one squarely, at others there is a sinister shifting of the
glance, coupled with a dogged look.
The man
speaks in a mater-of-fact way of his crime and its consequences, acknowledging
his faults, reproaching himself bitterly for his cowardice and expressing a
willingness to accept the consequences, how hard so ever they may be. His
statement of the facts of his life and the crime is as follows:
… He was appointed
postmaster at Greenville, Pitt county, in February of the present year. He held
the office until August, when he was horrified, he says, to find that he was
behind in his accounts. He was too great a coward to go and face the sureties
on his $10,000 bond and tell them of his deficiency. His only idea was to get
away, and, as he declares, get into some employment in which he could make
enough money to set his accounts square by reimbursing his sureties. He went to
New York, therefore, in the latter part of August, and in a day or two went
thence to Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, where, under the name of J. Y. Johnson,
he entered as a pupil of the great business college there. He had in earlier
life studied bookkeeping, and his desire was to perfect himself. He only
remained at the school about nine weeks, and then concluded to come home. He
had gotten as far as New York City, when his pocket was picked of all his money,
which was but little, he declares. He managed to get back to Poughkeepsie in a
few days. He knocked about there for a space, finding no employment, until
finally he met a man who informed him that work was probably to be had at
Hudson, a town forty miles away.
To this
town of Hudson Nelson then tramped, arriving there about two weeks ago. He
reached the place late at night and started out to walk the streets until
morning. About 3 o’clock in the morning a policeman arrested him and took him
to the station house. There the officer charged him with being with a couple of
men who were engaged in an attempt to enter and rob a jewelry store. These two
men had been watched by the policeman and had finally run off. Nelson declares
that he neither knew nor saw the two men, but was merely walking along the
street. The authorities searched him, and on his person were found [the letters
presented above.] … Col. Thos. B.
Long at once went to Hudson after him. He … was brought to this city. Nelson … refused
an offer of bail which was made.
The
prisoner throughout the interview reproached himself bitterly for “not being
man enough to face his sureties.” He
declared that in all the months he was absent life was a terror and a curse to
him. He was glad to be back in North Carolina, though he lay in jail, for he had
had more peace of mind since Col. Long got hold of him. “Life had been a
perfect hell,” said he, and remorse and shame struggled for the mastery. He
declared that he would not give bail unless he became seriously sick.
In regard
to the shortage of his accounts as postmaster, he was rather reticent, saying
that in his hurried examination in August last, when he first discovered it, he
estimated it at about $600. Col. Long estimated it at $1,800, and that amount
his sureties were called on to pay. Both the post office and money order
accounts were involved.
Nelson says
he wrote his wife only once while away, signing his own name to the letter.
This he did while at Poughkeepsie as J. Y. Johnson. She had written him once
using his own name. He did not tell her of the deficiency in his accounts
before he left home, but the investigation by Col. Long in August showed her
the facts in the case.
[News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) 31 Dec 1880]
