Pages 78-81

SUICIDE OF EDWARD STAPLEFORD AND ITS AWFUL CONSEQUENCES.

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The suicide of Edward Stapleford in the town of Vermont, about 1857, had some unusual features. He was a native of Maryland, had run a store in Beardstown, Illinois, and came to Vermont and opened a store in about 1845. He was a shrewd

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business man and soon had worked up quite a trade. He had frequently engaged in speculations in pork and wheat and anything in which money could be made. Generally, he was very successful.

In those time we had no railways, and the only way of shipping products to market was by steamboats on the Illinois river to St. Louis. We had no telegraphic communications with the world, and but one mail a week; so the most direct way of getting commercial news was from newspapers brought up on steamboats from St. Louis. During the progress of the Crimean War in 1854-’55 the price of pork and wheat went up to a very much higher price than it had been for many years, and many country merchants in Illinois were ripe for speculation, and Mr. Stapleford was one of the most ambitious merchants among them.

One Saturday evening he succeeded in getting a newspaper direct from St. Louis, and it brought the news that wheat and pork had taken a wonderful rise in price. It was later news than any of the other merchants had been able to get; so he started out early Sunday morning to scour the country and buy up all the wheat and pork he could find. He was afraid to wait until Monday lest the other merchants should also find out the good news and get ahead of him.

I was keeping store in Vermont at that time, and our stores were close together. The next morning he stopped at my store as he was passing. He was in his happiest mood. It was his trait to be happy when he was making money, but very gloomy if trade was against him.

"Good morning," was Mr. Stapleford’s salutation, "where do you suppose I was yesterday?"

I replied that I supposed he was with his family at church.

He then told me of his having contracted with a good many farmers for their pork and wheat. Apparently it was a master stroke.

Mr. Stapleford rushed business with all his might to get his produce en route to St. Louis before the river should freeze; but, alas! just as he was ready to load his pork and wheat on a

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steamboat cold weather set in, the river was frozen solid, and his stuff laid at the warehouse until the first of April. Then the war had ended, and produce had gone down one-half in price. Of course he was in debt to the St. Louis merchants, and when his produce arrived they were on hand to secure the last dollar due them, and it left him almost nothing to pay the farmers who had sold him their produce on credit.

When he came home it was noised abroad that he had lost big money on his venture. The farmers were in great need of their money to pay their taxes and other pressing debts. So these farmers gathered in crowds and demanded their money, sometimes in no very gentle tones. Mr. Stapleford was very proud and haughty, and these assaults annoyed and angered him tremendously.

One day he went to dinner as usual and ate a hearty meal; nothing unusual appeared in his manner. But as he started out he saw five or six of his creditors lining the street and awaiting his appearance, presumably to renew their appeals for the money due them. He turned round and started for his back door, remarking to his wife:

"I guess I’ll fool those fellows."

He went out at the back door, Mrs. S. naturally supposing he had gone to the store by a back way to avoid his creditors.

But a half-hour later he was found hanging by a cord in his barn, and dead. He had "fooled those fellows" by committing suicide! The alarm was given, and great crowds visited the barn to see the grewsome spectacle.

About eight months after Mr. Stapleford moved to Vermont he had married one of the handsomest and most amiable and popular young ladies of the town. She belonged to one of the best families of the place, and was connected with some of the best families of Cincinnati. He was fifteen years her senior, but the marriage was understood to have been a happy one. They had several children, and they were bright and beautiful. His death was such a shock to his devoted wife that she became insane. Her parents cared for her as long as they lived, and after

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their death she was in the care of Cincinnati relatives. Forty long years this poor wife was a care to those who loved her.

It is strange that any mortal should thus desert such a wife and family by the suicide route.

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