Newspaper Clipping of the Day

Via Newspapers.com

This curious twist on the standard “buried treasure” story appeared in the “Stockton Evening Mail,” June 7, 1901:

From the Redding Free Press. 

Jacksonville, In Southern Oregon, is just now much excited over the story of the digging up of buried wealth by three strangers in an old house where a mysterious murder was committed nearly two-score years ago. 

Thirty-six years ago a widow named Long lived on a farm twelve miles from Jacksonville on the Applegate river. She was reputed wealthy and when it was announced that she was to marry a young hired man in her employ her affairs were liberally discussed. The hired man and a Chinese domestic were the only other occupants of the house. Five days before the date of the wedding the Widow Long was murdered in a ghastly manner. 

From indications it was thought that the crime was committed just after dinner. The hired man and the Chinaman were arrested, but no evidence could be found to connect either with the crime. Soon after their release both disappeared and neither was ever heard of in the vicinity again. The money which the widow was believed to possess could not be found. The farm fell to a distant relative, passed to her grandson, George E. Neuber, and was recently sold by him. The old house, fallen into decay, has been tenanted for several months by an aged Chinaman. 

Now come the strange recent developments. Two weeks ago three men In a covered carriage drove up at dusk to the home of James O’Brien, who lives next to the old Long farm, and a quarter of a mile from the log house where the murder was committed, and enquired if the place were for sale or rent. Being told it was not, they drove to the Long house and camped. The aged Chinaman who lives in the house relates that as soon as the three men had finished their supper, they measured the ground and commenced to dig, working until early dawn, when they unearthed an iron box, which they hastily wrapped up, thrust into their carriage and drove away. 

No one has been able to learn where the three men went, their identity, what was in the box or where they received their information which enabled them to locate it.

As far as I have been able to tell, this mystery remained unsolved.