Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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v Thursday, October 29, 1931 McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, SOUTH CAROLINA PAGE NUMBER TITREB MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 4 ▼ m* ® / ^ MAlfV POBEOTS QiNEnART v COPVR'G H T /Q5/ / FIFTH INSTALMENT he said. aside SYNOPSIS Six people, Horace Johnson <who tells the story), his wife, old Mrs. Dane, Herbert Rob inson and his sister, Alice, and Dr. Sperry, friends and neigh bors, are in the habit of hold ing weekly meetings. At one of them, Mrs. Dane, who is hostess, varies the program by nnexpectedly arranging a spir itualistic seance with Miss Jeremy, a friend of Dr. Sperry and not a professional, as the medium. At the first sitting the medi um tells the details of a mur der as it is occurring. Later that night Sperry learns that a neighbor, Arthur Wells, has been shot mysteriously. With Johnson he goes to the Wells residence and they find con firmation of the medium’s ac count. Mrs. Wells tells them her husband shot himself in a fit of depression. The French maid admits she was out at the time Wells was rhot, telephoning from a near by drug store. Johnson goes to the • drug store where the clerk tells him the maid phon ed to the Ellingham house, telling somebodv there not “to call that night.” NOW GO ON WITH THE STORY When I told him it was a case of suicide, he remarked, philos ophically: “A lot of people get the bug once in a while, they come in here for a dose of sudden death, and it takes watching. It’s a matter of the point of view,” he continued more cheerfully. “And my point of view just now is that this place is darned cold and so’s the street. You’d better have a little some thing to warm you up before you go out, Mr. Johnson.” # I was chilled through, to tell the truth, and although I rarely drink anything I went back with him and took an ounce or two of villainous whiskey, poured out of a jug into a graduated glass. It is with deep humiliation of spirit I record that a housemaid coming into my li brary at seven o’clock the next morning, found me, in top hat and pvercoat, asleep on the library •couch. I had, however, removed my col lar and tie, and my watch, careful ly wmmd, was on the smoking stand beside me. The death of Arthur Wells had taken place .on Monday evening. Tuesday brought nothing new. The •coroner was apparently satisfied, and on Wednesday the dead man’s body was cremated. “Thus obliterating all evidence,” Sperry said, with what I felt was a note of relief. But I think the situation was bothering him, and that he hoped to discount.in advance the second sitting by Miss Jeremy, which Mrs. Dane had already arranged for the following Monday, for on Wednes day afternoon, following a con versation over the telephone, Sper ry and I had a private sitting with “What curtain?” “Nobody would have thought of the curtain. First ideas are best.” She repeated this, following it, as once before, with rhymes for the final word, best, rest, chest, pest. “Pest!” she said. “That’s Haw kins!” And again the laughter.' ■ “Did one of the bullets strike the ceiling?” “Yes. But you’ll never find it. It is holding well. That paits safe Mr Altheus Johnson, of enough—unless it made a hole m Washington, D. C., in the course of his remarks at the recent Re- Mr. Johnson Gives Historical Facts On French Huguenots IN REMARKS AT RECENT RE UNION OF DESCENDANTS AT BORDEAUX wp mav be on the verge of some and made me promise I would tell fl ° or , pmntv uni o n at Bordeaux of descendants i a■cf»r»vprv But while I’m n- her all I learned, after it was all “ But; there uas onl5 ' _? y of the Huguenot colony which set- real discovery, but wnne x u _ chamber in the revolver. How tied at that place in 1764, read the terested, so interested tnat n .inter- • pmiiri two shots have been fired?” memorandum he prepared several fpres with my work, I’m- frankly Miss Jeremy did not come a> iin-| C0 - t nll , years ago for his daughter Alice a + err* nn There are several ner. She never ate before a seance. I There was no answer at ^ (now Mrs. Edmund Stanley Wolfe, afr a .d to go on. There are although we tried to keep the this. And Sperry, after waiting, 0 f Bridgeport, Connecticut) when reaS ° nS - There could | conversational ball floating airly, went on to his next ^stion^Who there was not the usual efferve- occupied the room overhea . I argued with him ^evwere^auumber o'f oeT see nee o7 the" Neighborhood"" Club I But here we received the reply f ^ 'life convinced dinners. One and all, we were , to the previous question: “There tvf r°Fiinor Wells had murdered waiting, we knew not for what. jwas a box of cartridges m e a , j Look at the situa- 1 am sony to record that there j table-dresser. Thats easy, her husband. Look at the situa , phenomena of l‘ From that point, however, the m- Either there was tion. , Governess surely any sort at this second seance. The . terest lapsed, servan establish- room was arranged as it had been no answer to questions, or we go. an T/ibL sort And Mi flere- at the first sitting, except that a theabsurditythatwehadencount- m ! n n l "ndkTi hf three ; table with a candle and a chair ered before, about the drawing- my had been vindicated in tnree ^ o room furniture. But unsatisfac tory in many ways as the seance ooints- some stains had certainly had been P la ced behind a screen a- ’ cVwx,* Tiro Lari found the for Mrs. Dane’s secretary. been w asb ^JP’Wehadfou d h ^ ^ ^ had been> the effect on Mlss Jere Arthur had certainly been Sperry had brought the walking- my was profound-she was longer stick he had taken from Arthur in coming out, and gieatly ex hausted when it was all over. and "^iToth^rwords," I argued, “wo j Wells' room, and after the medium can't stop, Sperry. You can't stop, was in trance he placed it on the But my idea would be that our in- table before her vestigations be purely scientific and not criminal.” “Also, in other words,” he said, “you think we will discover some thing, so you stiggest that we com pound a felony and keep it to our- relves!” “Exactly,” I said drily. The first questions were disap pointing in results. Asked about the stick, there was only silence, when, nowever, Sperry went back to the sitting of the week before and referred to questions and an swers at that time, the medium seemed uneasy. Her hand, held ’ It is of ’course possible that my under mine, made an effort to free nerves were somewhat unstrung itself, and, released, couched the during the days that followed. I wakened one night to a terrific thump which shook my bed, and which seemed to be the result of some one having struck the foot board with a plank. Immediately following this came a sharp knock ing on the antique bed-warmer which hangs beside my fireplace. When I had sufficiently recovered my self-control I turned on my bedside lamp, but the room was empty. But on Thursday night of that week my wife came into my bed room, and stated flatly that there were burglars in the house. I got out of bed and went down the stairs. But I must confess that I felt, the moment darkness surrounded me, considerably less trepidation concerning the possible burglar than I felt as to the dark ness itself. Mrs. Johnson had lock ed herself in my bedroom, and there was something horrible in the black depths of the lower hall. We are old-fashioned people, and have not yet adopted electric light. I carried a box of matches, but at the foot of the stairs the one I had lighted went out. I was terrified. I tried to light another match, but there was a draft from somewhere. The second match went out be fore I had time to glance about. I was immediately conscious of a sort of soft movement around me, as of shadowy shapes that passed and repassed. cane. She lifted it, and struck the table a hard blow with it. “Do you know to whom that stick belongs?” A silence. Then: “Yes.” “Will you tell us what you know about it?” “It is writing.” “Writing?” “It was writing, but the water washed it away.” Then, instantly and with great rapidity, followed a wild torrent of words and incomplete sentences. It is inarticulate, and the secretary made no record of it. As I recall, however, it was about water, chil dren, and the words “ten o’clock” repeated several times. “Do you mean that something happened at ten o’clock.” “No. Certainly not. No, indeed. The water washed it away, all of it. Not a trace.” “Where did all this happen?” She named, without hesitation, a seaside resort about fifty miles from our city. There was not one of us, I dare say, who did not know that the Wellses had spent the preceding summer there and that Charlie Ellingham had been there, also. “Do you know that Arthur Wells is dead?” “Yes. He is dead.” “Did he kill himself.” “You can’t catch me on that, I don’t know.” She refused to take the supper Mrs. t>ane had prepared for her, and at eleven o’clock Sperry took her home in his car. I remember that Mrs. Dane in quired, after she had gone. “Does any on& know the name of the Welles’ butler? ft is Hawkins?” I said nothing, and as Sperry was the only one likely to know and he had gone, the inquiry went no further. Looking back I realize that Herbert, while less cynical, was still skeptical, that his sister was non-committal, but for some reason watching me, and that Mrs. Dane was in a state of delightful anticipation. My wife, however, had taken a dislike to Miss Jeremy, and said that the whole thing bored her. “The men like it, of course,” she said, “Horace fairly simpers with pleasure while he sits and holds her hand. But a woman doesn’t impose on other women so easily. It’s silly.” “My dear,” Mrs. Dane said, reaching over and patting my wife’s hand, “people talked that way about Columbus and Galileo. And if it is nonsense, it is such thrilling nonsense!” (TO BE CONTINUED) ^ ^ + Here the medium laughed. It a, * a, .. . . Once it seemed to i ag horrible And the laughter Miss Jeremy in Sperry’s private 1116 a a , an . t ^ t made the whole thing absurd. But J 1 shoulder and not lifted, but instead office. I took my wife into our . ... ,, ’ , , ^ ^ v. a. ' dissolved into the other shadows confidence and mvited her to be present, but the unfortunate cold ness following the housemaid’s dis covery of me asleep in the library on the morning after the murder was still noticeable and she refus ed. The sitting however, was totally without value. There was diffi culty on the medium’s part in se curing the trance condition, and she broke out once rather petul antly, with the remark that we were interfering with her in some way. I noticed that Sperry had placed Arthur Wells’s stick unobstrusively on his table, but we secured only rambling and non-pertinent replies to our questions, and whether it was because the Wells matter did not come up at all I found a total lack of that sense of the unknown which made all the evening sit tings so grisly. I am sure she knew we had wanted something, and that she had failed to give it to us, for when she came out she was depressed and in a state of lowered vitality. “I’m afraid I’m not helping you,” she said. “I’m a little tired, I think.” She was tired. I felt suddenly v6ry sorry for her. She was so pretty and so young—only twenty- six or thereabouts—to be in the grip of forces so relentless. Sperry sent her home in his car, and took to pacing the floor of his office. “I’m going to give it up, Horace,” it died away quickly. “If only the pocketbook was not lost,” she said. “There were so around. The sudden striking of the clock on the stair landing complet- ed my demoralization. I turned and many things in it. Especia y car- fled upstairs, pursued, to my agon- ; tickets. Walking is a nuisance, ized nerves, by ghostly hands that Mrs. Dane's secretary suddenly came toward me from between the spoke. “Do you want me to take Wmmm bt /<'* \ HEADACHES NEURITIS NEURALGIA, COLDS Whenever you have some nagging ache or pain, take some tablets of Bayer Aspirin. Relief is immediate! There’s scarcely ever an ache or pain that Bayer Aspirin won’t relieve—and never a time when you can’t take it. The tablets with the Bayer cross are always safe. They will not depress the heart, or otherwise harm you. Use them as often as they can spare you any pain or discomfort. Just be sure to buy the genuine. 'Examine the box. Beware of imitations. Aspirin is the trade-mark of Bayer manufacture of monoaceticacidester of salicylicacid. WffA There was something horrible in the black depths of the lower hall. spindles of the stair-rail. At dawn I went downstairs again, heartily ashamed of myself. I found that a door to the basement had been left open, and that the soft movement had probably been my overcoat, swaying in the draft. Sperry had, I believe, told Herbert Robinson of what we had discovered, but nothing had been said to the women. I knew through my wife that they were wildly curious add the night of the second things like that?” she asked. “Take everything, please, was the answer. “Car-tickets and letters. It will be terrible if the letters are found.” “Where was the pocketbook lost?” Sperry asked. “If that were known, it could be found/* was the reply, rather sharpely given. “Hawkins may have it. He was always' hanging around. The curtain was much safer.” Only four of the many species of pine trees in the United States sprout from the ground when cut or burned, says the Forest Service. These are the shortleaf pine of the Southeastern States, the pitch pine of the Northeastern States, the pond pine of the Coastal Plain, and the Chihuahua pine of the Southwest. And all these sprout successfully only when small. Sprouting of the shortleaf pine sometimes aids in getting return crops of this valuable species found from New Jersey to Texas. Red wood and southern cypress- also sprout from stumps. Many hard woods, or broadleaf trees, in con trast to the conifers, sprout freely. xx* This year, farmers, on the aver age, will have to sell three times as much produce to pay taxes as they did in 1913. Prices are lower and taxes higher. Mr. Johnson’s daughters, al though other ancestors were avail able and were afterwards added to the list of their Revolutionary an cestors, preferred, in joining the D. A. R. organization, to make use of their Huguenot ancestry of South Carolina, and to that end Mr. Johnson prepared for his daughters a memorandum of the following tenor, so much of the genealogical descent being here given as to show his grandfather Bouchillon, his mother being a daughter of Jqseph Leonard Bouchillon, her paternal grandmother being a daughter of Andre Guillebeau. Memorandum, Historical and Genealogical For Alice Johnson Wolfe (Showing descent from Joseph Bouchillon and Andre Guillebeau, Soldiers of the Revolution.) Joseph Bouchillon. his wife Marie, nee Majinnett, their son Jean Bouchillon. Andre Guillebeau. Susannah Roquemore, widow, her daughter Mary Roquemore. Mat thew Beraud. his wife Elizabeth, nee Gregorie, Matthew Beraud, un married, and Mary Anne LeRoy were among the members of the Huguenot colony which settled at Bordeaux in Abbeville County, South Carolina, in 1764. (McCor mick County, which embraces the site of the old French settlement, originally called New Bordeaux, was not created until 1916. The old Ninety Six District of the Rev olutionary period was divided, in 1785, Into six counties of which Abbeville was one). Joseph Bouchillon became a wid ower and on December 16, 1766, married Elizabeth Beraud, the widow of Matthew Beraud. and on the same d\v (December 16, 1766) Andre Guillebeau was married to Mary Roouemore, daughter of Susannah Roquemore. In the early part of the Revolu tion Matthew Beraud was Captain of the militia company into which the Huguenot settlers at Bordeaux were organized. He was under Major Andrew Williamson at Ninety Six in November, 1775, where the first blood in the Rev olution in South Carolina was shed. (Drayton’s Memoirs of the Ameri can Revolution, Vol. 2. page 150; McCrady’s History of South Caro lina in the Revolution. 1775-1780, nage 90). but he was killed at the siege of Savannah in October, 1779 (McCrady, ditto, page 417; Ramsav’s History of the Revolution in South Carolina, Vol. 2, page 396). September 13. to October 9, 1779, was the period for which the State last paid for the services of Beraud as Captain of militia. After the death of Beraud, Josenh Bouchillon became Captain of the Comoany which the Hugue not colonists maintained for re sistance against the Tories and the Indians, as well as against the British. The first navment to him bv the State for duty as Captain of militia was for the period No vember 22 to December 8, 1779. During that period he lost “One Bladk Horse,” which had been “tak en into the service” and which, ac cording to the certificate endorsed by Major Alexander Noble upon the report of the three appraisers who had valued it. was lost “while on duty at the Two Sisters.” a place on the Savannah River below Au gusta. Georgia. The horse was de clared by the appraisers to be worth one thousand one hundred pounds. In August previous, while rendering militia duty to the State as Lieutenant under General An drew Williamson in an exnedition against the Cherokee Indians, Joseph Bourhillon lost a “Bay Mare.” which was valued by the appraisers at seventeen hundred pounds. The period for which he was paid by the State for services at that time as Lieutenant of mi- utia was August 5 to September 12. 1779. Joseph Bouchillon, additional to the period of 15 davs above men tioned (November 22 to December 8. 1779) was paid by the State for 318 davs’ service as Cnotain of militia within the period January 18. 1780. to Mav 31. 1782. Under date of September 12, 1782. Colonel Robert Anderson certifies that “rant Bouchillon, Iteut. Gibert, Lieut. Rogers and their people (the French settlers at Bordeaux) had furnished 700 weight of good wheat flour for th n expedition against the cherokees.” ^ . In volumes 21 and 23 of the D. A. R Lineage Bo^ks the name of Pierre Gibert, of the French set tlers at, Bordeaux, appears a* a Revolutionary patriot. Pierre Gi bert, who was a Lieutenant in the service, is the person referred to by Colonel Anderson in the certificate above mentioned of September 1-. 1782. That certificate was the bans of an account on which the State, for the flour therein specified, made payment to Joseph Bouchil- lon In the original certificate, the name “Gibert” is written “Je- bar,” but Colonel Anderson (after ward a General, after whom An derson county in South Carolina is named) was evidently, by the spelling “Jebar,” trying to produce the name as it sounded to English ears when pronounced b Y the French tongue. The French at Bordeaux, in all their intercourse with one another, made use of their own language exclusively until af ter the year 1800, when their chil dren. then in English schools, be gan in their speech with one an other to make use of the English tongue to the almost total omis sion of the French of their parents. In the Heads of Families in the 1790 Census as printed, the name “Bouchillon” is spelled by the enumerator “Bushilon” and “Guil lebeau” is spelled “Gilibo,” both of which spellings are good represen tations of the names as pronounced by the English tongue. Indeed, all the old French names of'the Bor deaux settlement which remain in the neighborhood are anglicized in their pronounciation, and have been for a long time, except two, namelv “Covin” and “Moragne.” These two still retain the French sound in the local speech of the neighborhood. “Moragne,” as serv ed up by the English enumerator of 1790, appears in the printed cen sus as “Morang.” “Belot” appears as both “Belor” and “Belat;” but the printer and proof reader may have had trouble in making out the manuscript letters of the enumer ator. The emigrant Andre Guillebeau, who died in 1814, limped to the day of his death as the result of a wound in the hip received in the Revolution. He was paid by the State for rendering 213 days of militia service under Captain Bouchillons (203 as private and 10 as Sergeant) within the neriod from August 1779 to May 1782. JEAN BOUCHILLON, son of Cap tain Joseph Bouchillon, and MARY ANNE LeROY. both of whom were members of the Huguenot Colony which settled at Bordeaux, were married in 1773 and were the par ents of: JOHN BOUCHILLON, born in 1775; died in 1818: was married in 1799 to Jane David, who was born in 1775 and who died in 1845. JAMES BOUCHILLON. bom in 1777; died in 1806; was married in 1798 to Susannah Guillebeau, who was born in 1776 and who, in 1809, was married to her second hus band, Francis Moragne. who was born July 30, 1770, and who died March 1, 1813. She died in 1814. JAMES BOUCHILLON (son of Jean and Marv Anne Bouchihon) and SUSANNAH GUILLEBEAU (daughter of Andre and Marv Guillebeau) were married in 1798 and were the parents of: JOHN BOUCHILLON, born May 17, 1799; died October 18, 1880; was married in 1820 to Elizabeth Doo little, who was born Januarv 2, 1805 and who died July 20. 1871. JOSEPH LEONARD BOUCHIL- T ON, born January 23, 1801; died September 14. 1879: was married January 4, 1827, to Martha Finette Gardner, who was born March 13, 1812. and who died June 26, 1895. SUSAN BOUCHILLON, bom 1803: died in childhood (5 years). JAMES SEGANG BOUCHILLON, born April 10, 1806; died January 24, 1891; was married September 15, 1831. to Lucinda Palmer, who was born, March 31, 1812, and who died December 27, 1888. ANDRE GUILLEBEAU (bom 1739: died 1814) and MARY ROOUEMORE (born 1745; died 1820), both of whom were members of the Huguenot Colony which set- Ued at Bordeaux in 1764, were mar ried December 16, 1766, and were the parents of: PIERRE GUILLEBEAU. bom 1769: died December 2, 1854: was married in 1797 to Jane Belott* who • was bom in 1772 and who died De cember 16, 1837. JAMES GUILLEBEAU, born 1772: died . SUSANNAH GUILLEBEAU, bom 1776; died in 1814; was married in, 1798 to James Bouchillon, who was born in 1777. and who died in 1806: was married in 1809 to her second husband. Francis Moragne. who was born July 30. 1770, and who died March 1, 1818. Joseph Bouchillon, the original' progenitor of the Bouchillons in this country, and Jean, James and Joseph Leonard in the descending line, with their wives, all lived and died in Abbeville County, South Carolina, near the place of the original French settlement. Of the persons who constituted the colony which emigrated to South Carolina and settled at Bor deaux in 1764. a list of 138 names, with the family relationship, is eriven in “Transactions of the Huguenot Society of South Caro lina” No. 5 at Pages 77-78. The settlement at Bordeaux is mentioned bv McCradv in his “His tory of South Carolina under the Royal Government, 1719-1776” at pages 368-370. Marv Anne LeRov, whose first husband was Jean Bouchillon, lived to be the last survivor of the last colony of .emigrant Huguenots, which settled in this country, the colony which settled at Bordeaux in the county to which 21 years af terwards. on the creation of coun ties, thev were to give the name that leads all other counties in South Carolina—Abbeville (and. by the wav, Bouchillons are still to be found in the neighborhood of Ab beville in th^ ancient province of Picardy in the North of France). Bereft of her husband during vb<* Revolution she was a widow, with small children, harassed, as the rest of her people, with Tories a^d the Indians. Marrying again in 1791 she became bv her second husband, Lazarus Covin, the mo ther of four children. Becoming again a widow in 1819 she lived c-i for twenty years thereafter, hers^if not dving until November 6. 183°. snrightliness of spirits and an c«- tive bodv characterizing her to thb end. Her second husband, Tau rus Covin. like the others of his race who had settled at Bordeaux, served in arms for their new homes during the Revolution. For service performed in the militia un^er Captain Joseph Bouchillon the State paid Lazarus Covin for 214 davs within the period January IS, 1780, to May 31, 1782. . i . ^ • :V