SPRINGFIELD June 19, 1841.
DEAR SPEED:—We have had the highest state of excitement here for a week
past that our community has ever witnessed; and, although the public
feeling is somewhat allayed, the curious affair which aroused it is very
far from being even yet cleared of mystery. It would take a quire of
paper to give you anything like a full account of it, and I therefore
only propose a brief outline. The chief personages in the drama are
Archibald Fisher, supposed to be murdered, and Archibald Trailor, Henry
Trailor, and William Trailor, supposed to have murdered him. The three
Trailors are brothers: the first, Arch., as you know, lives in town;
the second, Henry, in Clary’s Grove; and the third, William, in Warren
County; and Fisher, the supposed murdered, being without a family, had
made his home with William. On Saturday evening, being the 29th of May,
Fisher and William came to Henry’s in a one-horse dearborn, and there
stayed over Sunday; and on Monday all three came to Springfield (Henry
on horseback) and joined Archibald at Myers’s, the Dutch carpenter.
That evening at supper Fisher was missing, and so next morning some
ineffectual search was made for him; and on Tuesday, at one o’clock
P.M., William and Henry started home without him. In a day or two Henry
and one or two of his Clary-Grove neighbors came back for him again, and
advertised his disappearance in the papers. The knowledge of the matter
thus far had not been general, and here it dropped entirely, till about
the 10th instant, when Keys received a letter from the postmaster in
Warren County, that William had arrived at home, and was telling a very
mysterious and improbable story about the disappearance of Fisher, which
induced the community there to suppose he had been disposed of unfairly.
Keys made this letter public, which immediately set the whole town and
adjoining county agog. And so it has continued until yesterday. The mass
of the people commenced a systematic search for the dead body, while
Wickersham was despatched to arrest Henry Trailor at the Grove, and Jim
Maxcy to Warren to arrest William. On Monday last, Henry was brought in,
and showed an evident inclination to insinuate that he knew Fisher to be
dead, and that Arch. and William had killed him. He said he guessed the
body could be found in Spring Creek, between the Beardstown road and
Hickox’s mill. Away the people swept like a herd of buffalo, and cut
down Hickox’s mill-dam nolens volens, to draw the water out of the pond,
and then went up and down and down and up the creek, fishing and raking,
and raking and ducking and diving for two days, and, after all, no dead
body found.
In the meantime a sort of scuffling-ground had been found in the brush
in the angle, or point, where the road leading into the woods past
the brewery and the one leading in past the brick-yard meet. From the
scuffle-ground was the sign of something about the size of a man having
been dragged to the edge of the thicket, where it joined the track
of some small-wheeled carriage drawn by one horse, as shown by the
road-tracks. The carriage-track led off toward Spring Creek. Near this
drag-trail Dr. Merryman found two hairs, which, after a long scientific
examination, he pronounced to be triangular human hairs, which term, he
says, includes within it the whiskers, the hair growing under the arms
and on other parts of the body; and he judged that these two were of the
whiskers, because the ends were cut, showing that they had flourished in
the neighborhood of the razor’s operations. On Thursday last Jim Maxcy
brought in William Trailor from Warren. On the same day Arch. was
arrested and put in jail. Yesterday (Friday) William was put upon his
examining trial before May and Lovely. Archibald and Henry were both
present. Lamborn prosecuted, and Logan, Baker, and your humble servant
defended. A great many witnesses were introduced and examined, but I
shall only mention those whose testimony seemed most important. The
first of these was Captain Ransdell. He swore that when William and
Henry left Springfield for home on Tuesday before mentioned they did not
take the direct route,—which, you know, leads by the butcher shop,—but
that they followed the street north until they got opposite, or nearly
opposite, May’s new house, after which he could not see them from where
he stood; and it was afterwards proved that in about an hour after they
started, they came into the street by the butcher shop from toward the
brickyard. Dr. Merryman and others swore to what is stated about the
scuffle-ground, drag-trail, whiskers, and carriage tracks. Henry was
then introduced by the prosecution. He swore that when they started for
home they went out north, as Ransdell stated, and turned down west
by the brick-yard into the woods, and there met Archibald; that they
proceeded a small distance farther, when he was placed as a sentinel to
watch for and announce the approach of any one that might happen that
way; that William and Arch. took the dearborn out of the road a small
distance to the edge of the thicket, where they stopped, and he saw
them lift the body of a man into it; that they then moved off with the
carriage in the direction of Hickox’s mill, and he loitered about for
something like an hour, when William returned with the carriage, but
without Arch., and said they had put him in a safe place; that they went
somehow he did not know exactly how—into the road close to the brewery,
and proceeded on to Clary’s Grove. He also stated that some time during
the day William told him that he and Arch. had killed Fisher the evening
before; that the way they did it was by him William knocking him down
with a club, and Arch. then choking him to death.
An old man from Warren, called Dr. Gilmore, was then introduced on
the part of the defense. He swore that he had known Fisher for several
years; that Fisher had resided at his house a long time at each of two
different spells—once while he built a barn for him, and once while
he was doctored for some chronic disease; that two or three years ago
Fisher had a serious hurt in his head by the bursting of a gun, since
which he had been subject to continued bad health and occasional
aberration of mind. He also stated that on last Tuesday, being the same
day that Maxcy arrested William Trailor, he (the doctor) was from home
in the early part of the day, and on his return, about eleven o’clock,
found Fisher at his house in bed, and apparently very unwell; that he
asked him how he came from Springfield; that Fisher said he had come by
Peoria, and also told of several other places he had been at more in the
direction of Peoria, which showed that he at the time of speaking did
not know where he had been wandering about in a state of derangement.
He further stated that in about two hours he received a note from one of
Trailor’s friends, advising him of his arrest, and requesting him to go
on to Springfield as a witness, to testify as to the state of Fisher’s
health in former times; that he immediately set off, calling up two
of his neighbors as company, and, riding all evening and all night,
overtook Maxcy and William at Lewiston in Fulton County; that Maxcy
refusing to discharge Trailor upon his statement, his two neighbors
returned and he came on to Springfield. Some question being made as to
whether the doctor’s story was not a fabrication, several acquaintances
of his (among whom was the same postmaster who wrote Keys, as before
mentioned) were introduced as sort of compurgators, who swore that they
knew the doctor to be of good character for truth and veracity, and
generally of good character in every way.
Here the testimony ended, and the Trailors were discharged, Arch. and
William expressing both in word and manner their entire confidence that
Fisher would be found alive at the doctor’s by Galloway, Mallory, and
Myers, who a day before had been despatched for that purpose; which
Henry still protested that no power on earth could ever show Fisher
alive. Thus stands this curious affair. When the doctor’s story
was first made public, it was amusing to scan and contemplate the
countenances and hear the remarks of those who had been actively in
search for the dead body: some looked quizzical, some melancholy, and
some furiously angry. Porter, who had been very active, swore he always
knew the man was not dead, and that he had not stirred an inch to hunt
for him; Langford, who had taken the lead in cutting down Hickox’s
mill-dam, and wanted to hang Hickox for objecting, looked most
awfully woebegone: he seemed the “victim of unrequited affection,” as
represented in the comic almanacs we used to laugh over; and Hart, the
little drayman that hauled Molly home once, said it was too damned bad
to have so much trouble, and no hanging after all.
I commenced this letter on yesterday, since which I received yours of
the 13th. I stick to my promise to come to Louisville. Nothing new here
except what I have written. I have not seen ______ since my last trip,
and I am going out there as soon as I mail this letter.
Yours forever, LINCOLN.