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Monday, March 21, 2011

William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - Was it Ever Solved?

Last Tuesday, I posted "A Horrid Murder" in Alexandria.  The newspaper article about his murder on 6 July 1821 was lurid, but what happened after that?  On Thursday, I wrote William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - a Reward Offered - by the President of the United States, and three mayors.  The William Seaver's Murder in 1821 - A Jailhouse Confession post on Friday seemed to solve the case.  But did it?  Was Van Orden tried and convicted?  Was the reward paid to an informant?  Inquiring minds want to know! 

Unfortunately, I could find no more news articles in the available online newspaper websites about the case, perhaps because the online historical newspaper sites have only spotty coverage through the years following 1821.

While diligently searching, I managed to find an article published 7 December 1874 in the Alexandria Gazette newspaper (accessed on GenealogyBank (www.genealogybank.com).  The article transcription is long, but interesting:

"WILLIAM SEAVER'S MURDER

"In the meeting of the Society of the Oldest Inhabitants of Washington, held in that city on Wednesday night, reference was made to a murder that created intense excitement in this city at the time of its occurrence.  The Washington Republican, in alluding to the subject, says:

"The discussion in the Society of the Oldest Inhabitants relative to the murder of William Seaver, in 1821, at a point on the Alexandria and Washington turnpike, alongside the turnpike or near the stopping point, now called Fort Runyon, recalls the fact that no thoroughly reliable account of that murder has ever been made, and in the fifty years which have intervened, it has never been discovered, notwithstanding the rewards offered, by whom the murder was committed.  Some twenty years ago a sailor died at the Marine hospital, near Norfolk, who, it is alleged, confessed that many years before, he could not remember the date, he started, after his discharge from the navy yard, at Washington, with a shipmate, to walk to Alexandria, and that on the road he met a man from whom they attempted to take some articles of value, and on being resisted they killed him.

"A romantic account of the murder and its reasons was published in the Alexandria Gazette in 1866, derived, it was said, from a confession made in Central America and sent to a member of the Spanish American Legation at Washington -- The murdered man was there stated to be an old man, who, just before the late war, made his home in a cave near Four Mile Run.  The only well authenticated facts are that a peddler named William Seaver, having missed the packet boat then running from Alexandria to Georgetown, left Alexandria on the evening of July 5, 1821, to walk to Washington, and that he was never seen alive after he passed out of town.  Traces of blood were found on the road, near Roach's Spring, and the whole population of the neighborhood, assisted by many persons from Washington and Georgetown, turned out to search for the body.  They cut down all the undergrowth for half a mile, and at last discovered the body under a culvert in a stream near by.  A gambling haunt at the spring, near by, was soon after set on fire and burned to the ground, and several persons were arrested on suspicion, but the murderer was never brought to justice."

"A similar case of murder, without detection, occurred about a mile from the same point in the March of Gen. Pierce's inauguration.  The body of a white man, with his throat cut from ear to ear, was discovered a few days after the inauguration, on the tow path of the Alexandria canal, near Arlington.  The body was brought and exposed to public view in the rail yard.  Among those who saw it was a leading citizen, President of one of the city's fire companies, who recognized the body as that of his wife's uncle, a resident of Charles county, Md.  The lady, when brought to identify the corpse, exclaimed that it was her uncle, and fainted; but when a messenger dispatched to give his family information of the murder reached the house, the supposed murdered man was sitting at the table enjoying a hearty meal.

"A photograph of the dead man was taken by Mr. Grubb, of Alexandria, and the mangled body hid from sight under the clods of the valley; but some two years afterwards a gentleman from Pennsylvania, whose father had been missing at the time of Pierce's inauguration, came to Alexandria in search of information as to this murder, with a view of ascertaining if the murdered man was not his brother.  In this search he called at the newspaper offices at Alexandria, and was carried to Mr. Grubb.  Upon seeing the photograph he recognized it as that of his brother; but he, too, was mistaken, for the brother returned within a year after this recognition.

"if 'murder will out' it is a long time getting to light in these cases."

Isn't that a fascinating account of unsolved murders near where William Seaver was murdered.  There is significantly more detail about the circumstances of the murder and the search for his body.  There is also information about two other murders, and two more confessions!  And one more, likely still, unidentified body. 

The biggest clue in this article is the second paragraph: 

"A romantic account of the murder and its reasons was published in the Alexandria Gazette in 1866, derived, it was said, from a confession made in Central America and sent to a member of the Spanish American Legation at Washington -- The murdered man was there stated to be an old man, who, just before the late war, made his home in a cave near Four Mile Run."

Was that the William Seaver murder?  If so, at least two facts are wrong - William Seaver was not an "old man" - he was more like 39 years old, and he didn't "make his home in a cave."  What about this account?  And why was it called "a romantic account?"

Apparently, Mr. Van Orden was not convicted of the murder of William Seaver, and was released.  The reward money was not given to an informant, and this is a 53-year old "cold case" in Alexandria.  At least those questions have been answered, assuming that the memories of the oldest inhabitants of Washington remembered it correctly in 1874.

We'll take a look at it in the next installment of this dreadful, and seemingly unending, murder mystery story.

1 comment:

  1. I read the Alexandria Gazette-Packet every Thursday--it's still published! And I think the Alexandria Library has much of it on microfilm

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