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.
