The Mystery of "Joe Piker"

Toft Hill, circa 1967

In February 1823, a young man moved into Toft Hill, a small mining and agricultural village in South Durham, England.  Although he boasted the impressive name of “Josiah Charles Stephenson,” the fact that he settled into a cottage adjoining a turnpike gate soon earned him the snappier nickname of “Joe Piker.”

Joe mined coal in the winter and did farm work in the summer.  He proved to be quite handy at both occupations, which enabled him to earn a comfortable living.  He offered no information about where he came from, or anything else about his prior life, but as he was a useful citizen who caused no trouble for anyone, his neighbors saw no reason to press him for information.  He kept himself as apart from his fellow workmen as possible, and while he made no friends, he made no enemies, either.

Within a year of his arrival in Toft Hill, Joe married Sally, a pretty, amiable servant maid at the village inn.  The couple never had children, but they were a notably devoted pair, entirely content with each other and their simple, humble little existence.  After his marriage, Joe abandoned mine work to support them by doing freelance work on the neighboring farms.  He became known as the fastest shearer of corn and grain in the area, so getting enough work to live on was never a problem.  All in all, he and Sally could be said to be among the most fortunate residents of the village.

This pleasant state of affairs lasted until Sally’s death about thirty years later.  This sad event marked the end of Joe’s happiness.  He was understandably devastated by the loss of the one person in the world he was close to, and vowed he would spend the rest of his days as a widower.  Given all that, it was a great surprise to the villagers when Joe remarried after just a year or so, to a woman whose name is unrecorded by history.

Unfortunately, Joe’s second marriage was as cursed as his first had been blessed.  The new Mrs. Stephenson was soon on such bad terms with her husband that within two weeks of the wedding, she left him for good.  The estranged wife told anyone who would listen stories about Joe that were considered impossible to credit, and as she already had a reputation for dishonesty, her allegations were ignored.

After the quick collapse of his remarriage, Joe became more reclusive than ever, with such a bitter antipathy towards women as a whole that he refused to let any female even enter his cottage.  Never known for his piety in the best of times, Joe soon became, in the vivid words of a local historian, “a most blasphemous old reprobate, whose profanity, excited by the most trivial annoyance, was truly blood-curdling.”

In his later years, on nights when he had too much gin at the village pub, Joe took to dropping hints about his past life.  He once told one of his very few friends that he hailed from Berwick-upon-Tweed, although he furiously rejected any suggestion that he return to his native land, or even communicate with anyone he knew there.  He occasionally muttered that when he eventually died, it would cause the greatest scandal Toft Hill had ever seen.  His listeners tolerantly dismissed such words as the drunken babblings of a bitter old man.

In November 1869, Joe became so ill that it was soon evident that he was dying.  A female neighbor with some experience as a nurse offered to look after him, but she was rewarded with such a torrent of abuse that she fled.  The miserable recluse died alone, which was clearly what he had wanted.

When it was clear Joe’s end had come, a couple of charitable women went to his cottage to prepare the body for burial.  As they prepared to wash the corpse...they suddenly stopped.  The women immediately summoned the village doctor.  And then the village constable.  Before long, Toft Hill was treated to news just as stunning as the dead man had promised:  “Joe Piker” was really a “Jane Doe.”

The rector of the local parish, W.B. Findlay, did his best to trace “Joe’s” true identity.  He learned one interesting story: in the winter of 1822-23--not long before Joe settled in Toft Hill--a young shepherd in Berwick-upon-Tweed jilted his sweetheart, after which, both suddenly and mysteriously disappeared for good.  It was speculated that “Joe” was this wronged girl, who murdered her faithless lover and fled, assuming both his clothing and his gender.  Unfortunately, no one was ever able to satisfactorily establish the identity of “Joe Piker.”  The corpse was buried in the parish church as “an unknown woman.”