Death of a Young Woman

 My 5th Cousin, 3 times removed, a young girl by the name of Grace Dearborn, came to a tragic end when she tried to obtain an abortion. Here is the story as reported in the Boston Globe.

Map of New Haven, Connecticut with Wooster Street near the bottom right and Orange Street diagonally on the upper left. These are the streets mentioned in the article.

 

[The Boston Globe, Sunday, 19 December 1897, page 1]
WAS PRETTY GIRL. Grace Dearborn Died in New Haven. Belonged in Everett and Was a Clerk in Treasurer's Office. Left Home Ostensibly to Attend a Wedding. Was Ill One Week Before Parents Were Informed. Dr. Bond Held Without Bail on a Charge of Murder.

   Dec 18 -- The body of Miss Grace Dearborn, who died in this city yesterday as a result o a criminal operation, was taken to her late home this afternoon by her father, Daniel O. Dearborn, an assessor of Everett, Mass.
   Miss Dearborn died at 1 yesterday afternoon at the house kept by Mrs. Frederick Mathis, at 186 Wooster st. Mrs. Mathis and Miss Dearborn became acquainted last summer at Asbury Park, N.J. Miss Dearborn came here about 7 days ago and told her friend she wanted to stay at her house a while. She visited Dr. Elijah A. Bond, so the authorities say, and he has been arrested by order of Coroner Mix and locked up at police headquarters, charged with murder. The coroner refused to admit him to bail.
   Bond had been in trouble before. About three years ago a young girl complained to the city attorney that he had subjected her to an operation, and he was arrested, but the evidence was insufficient and he was released.
   Miss Dearborn had been sick one week at the boarding house on Wooster st. and shortly before her death Dr. Welch was called, and he summoned Dr. Russell, but it was too late to save her life.
   The girl during her sickness refused to give her name, telling the attendants to call her 'Grace,' and she also refused to give her parents address. Just before her death, however, she gave their address and a telegram was sent to them. Her father reached this city late in the afternoon. He was prostrated over the death of his daughter...
   Miss Dearborn was 24 years old. She had been employed in the office of the city treasurer of Everett, and was a pretty girl, well liked by everybody. Her betrayer, it is said, lives in Everett, and it is rumored that he is an official in that town, but the authorities here, although claiming to know his name, refuse to divulge it at present. Miss Dearborn, when she left home, said she was going to attend the wedding of a friend in New Britain.
   An autopsy was performed on the body of Miss Dearborn this afternoon, and after it was over, medical examiner White reported to Coroner Mix that death was caused by criminal maltreatment.
   The coroner turned the body over to her father, and made the following statement: "This young woman's name was Grace Dearborn. She was 24 years of age and the daughter of Daniel O. Dearborn, on of the assessors of the city of Everett, Mass, three miles from the city of Boston. She was a clerk in the office of the treasurer of Everett. She left home the latter part of last week, and told her parents that she was going to New Britain, this state, to attend the marriage of a friend. Instead of going to New Britain, she came to this city and stopped with friends at 186 Wooster St. In a couple of days she called at the house of Dr. Bond on Orange St. He performed the operation in his own house, and the young woman returned to 186 Wooster st. Mrs. Mathis called in Dr. W. C. Welch. He saw that she was a very sick girl, and it was decided to telegraph her people that she could not live through the day. This was done and her father started at once for this city.
   "Dr. Welch called in Dr. Thomas Russell at 11:30 yesterday morning. He saw that she could not possibly live through the day, and he at once drove to my house. I went with him in his carriage to the Wooster st house, and found the girl to be dying. I took her antemortem statement.
   "I wired her people that she was dying, and she died at 1 in the afternoon, before her father could reach here. I ordered the body removed at once to the morgue, and requested Dr. White to hold an autopsy this morning."
   It seems Miss Dearborn came to this city with a young man whose name the coroner or any one else will not divulge. She tried to be admitted into a maternity hospital in this city, but a physician, who was first consulted, declined to take charge of the case. This is given as the reason why she finally decided to go to the home of the Mathis family on Wooster st. without telling them her plans.

My Cousin Louis

 
 Photo of western scene

You never know who you might find as you dig into your family history. In the past on this blog I have written about my McGibney cousins who traveled the country performing family concerts in the late 1800s; I have written about my cousin John Abel Wright who murdered his wife by dousing her in kerosene and then lighting her on fire; I have written about my cousin Dougie Duncan who killed two other men in a fight in Montana; and I have written about the tragedy of two cousins Betsey and David Corser who were engaged to be married when David died in a snowstorm while they were out for a sleigh ride and Betsey died of a broken heart a few months later.

I think all of these stories could probably have been told much better by another of my cousins. His name was Louis Dearborn LaMoore. Louis was the grandson of Abraham Trefethern Dearborn and before I tell you about Louis, I want to tell a little of the story of Abraham.

Abraham was the only child of William Seavey Dearborn and Frederica Garic. He grew up in a troubled home and his parents separated or divorced in 1842 while he was a young boy of about 4 years of age. The troubles of this family are described in detail in a book written by Edna (LaMoore) Waldo. Abraham lived with his father after the separation, but his father, William Seavey Dearborn, died, presumably, under mysterious circumstances while the family was living in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. According to Yet She Follows, 125-26, “just before starting off on a long trip to market with a drove of fat cattle, William, it is supposed, stopped to see his estranged wife Frederica; had he returned, there might have been a reconciliation. But, accompanied by two hired men, he went to the market town, several days away through a thickly wooded country, sold and paid for his cattle, and disappeared. Neither he nor either of the men was ever heard of again and the supposition was that he had been killed for his money.” His son Abraham was thereafter raised by his grandparents and by his Aunt Eliza Jane Angeline Dearborn (my great-great grandmother).

Photo of Eliza Jane Angeline (Dearborn) Chamberlain

Abraham T. Dearborn moved in the 1860's to Todd County, Minnesota near his Aunt Eliza Jane and her husband, Lawrence Alonzo Chamberlain. After the Civil War began, he enlisted at Fort Snelling, Minn. as a sergeant into Co. G, 3rd Minnesota Infantry. From a history written by my cousin David Curtis Dearborn of this family we learn that, "The 3rd Minnesota Regiment was sent to Fort Halleck, Kentucky to serve on the western front which, by all accounts, suffered from confusion, changes of command and poor morale. At the Battle of Murfreesboro (Tenn.), 13 July 1862, the regiment surrendered without a fight, and A.T. and his men were captured. Part of the regiment, including A.T.’s company, was paroled two days later at Warren County, Tenn. back to Minnesota to help put down the Indian uprising. Because the regimental officers were not among those released, A.T. was put in command of Co. G. At Fort Abercrombie, Dakota Territory, on about 30 October 1862, he received a superficial gunshot wound to the right leg. It was on this campaign that he met his future father-in-law, Capt. Ambrose Freeman of the 1st Minnesota Mounted Rangers. By May 1863, A.T. was back in Tennessee, where records show that he was thrown from his horse at Island No. 10. He was discharged from the service on 2 July 1863, suffering from chronic diarrhea and general prostration. He did not remain inactive long. On 28 October 1863 he re-enlisted as a first lieutenant in Co. G, 2nd Tennessee Colored Heavy Artillery. He was again stationed at Fort Halleck, Ky., and saw little action during the rest of the war. Records in his pension file show, however, that on 5 March 1865 he received a wound to his left forearm and a severe wound to his right middle finger. He also suffered from acute bronchitis, rheumatism and remittent fever, not unusual symptoms for a soldier in the field.

I like to think that my great-great grandmother Eliza had some influence on Abraham and helped him to grow into the strong, adventurous man he became. Yes, Abraham had an interesting life and perhaps some of that may have may have been passed down to his grandson, Louis.

So why is it that I think Louis, my 3rd Cousin, once removed, could have told all of these stories much better than I can. Well, Louis, it turns out, had a flair for writing. By the time he finished his career, he had written 89 novels, 14 short-story collections, and two full-length works of nonfiction. As of 2010, his books and stories had sold more than 320 million copies, had been translated into a dozen languages, more than 35 films and TV shows were produced from his books, and he helped to pioneer the use of audio tapes for books.

Louis died in 1988 before I discovered that we were fairly close cousins. I would have liked to have met him. Although he was born a LaMoore, as a young man he decided to change his name from Louis LaMoore to Louis L'Amour. The name L'Amour was probably the original family name anyway since the ancestry on that side of his family is French or French Canadian.

Very few writers can claim a wider readership or a more successful career than Louis. He once said, "There have always been hard times. There have always been wars and troubles–famine, disease, and such-like–and some folks are born with money, some with none. In the end, it's up to the man what he becomes, and none of those other things matter."

Yes, I would have liked to meet Louis and I think I am going to have to read a few more of his books.

Photo of Louis L'Amour from his Wikipedia page.