It was this morning discovered by Robert Hart, night watchman at the
North Burial ground, that ghouls were again at work in the ancient
portion of the cemetery. The grave of Ezra Weeden, who was born
in 1740 and died in 1824 according to his uprooted and savagely
splintered slate headstone, was found excavated and rifled, the work
being evidently done with a spade stolen from an adjacent tool shed.
Whatever the contents may have been after more than a century of
burial, all was gone except a few slivers of decayed wood. There
were no wheel tracks, but the police have measured a single set of
footprints which they found in the vicinity, and which indicate the
boots of a man of refinement.
Hart is inclined to link this incident with the digging
discovered last March, when a party in a motor truck were
frightened away after making a deep excavation; but Sergeant Riley
of the Second Station discounts this theory and points to vital
differences in the two cases. In March the digging had been in a
spot where no grave was known; but this time a well-marked and
cared-for grave had been rifled with every evidence of deliberate
purpose and with a conscious malignity expressed in the splintering
of the slab which had been intact up to the day before.
Members of the Weeden family, notified of the happening, expressed
their astonishment and regret; and were wholly unable to think of
any enemy who would care to violate the grave of their ancestor.
Hazard Weeden of 598 Angell Street recalls a family legend
according to which Ezra Weeden was involved in some very peculiar
circumstances, not dishonourable to himself, shortly before the
Revolution; but of any modern feud or mystery he is frankly
ignorant. Inspector Cunningham has been assigned to the case, and
hopes to uncover some valuable clues in the near future.