Dallas Morning News
May 1,1889
page 5
A Case of
Kidnapping
The victim, a
little
girl, persuaded away from her father,
Supposed to be in
Dallas
Her mother who is
separated
from her father, believed to have had it done.
Sherman , Tex, April 29 -
J. L.
Woolsey, a farmer who lives in the southern suburbs of the
city
ward whose little daughter mysteriously disappeared last evening, said
today in a conversation with a NEWS reporter:
"My name is
J. L. Woolsey and I live on the Hutchcraft place, just
below the
Houston and Texas Central section - house. I was married the first time
Feb 27, 1869, at Raleigh, Phelps County, Mo. to Miss
Mattie Giddens. We lived together until 1884, having in
the meantime
moved to Dallas, Tex. At that time we separated, disagreements having
arisen and in 1886 I received a divorce from my wife granting me
possession
of the children. Frederick Andrew, aged 12, Charlie aged 11 and Maudie
Louise aged 6. The youngest boy and the little girl were with me when
my
wife left me in 1884 but the oldest boy was with her for nearly a year.
On the 13 of May, 1885,
my wife returned to Dallas and came to me and asked that the little
girl be
allowed to stay with her a few days. This was on Saturday afternoon,
and
on Sunday I went to the address given by my wife and found that both
she
and the little girl were missing. I got a letter out of the post office
addressed to my wife from the man with whom she is alleged to have run
away the first time, and in this he told her to get the little girl and
met him at McKinney. When I got to McKinney I learned that the man had
heard that the officers were on the trail and had warned my wife to
leave,
and she had done so. I went from McKinney to Dallas, and from there I
went
to Fort Worth.
June 1, 1885, I reached
Gainesville, it was not until November that I found her, at which time
she was with a sister of the man in question, near Gainesville. About
that
time she was arrested for living in adultery, as alleged, with a man in
Dallas and carried back to that place. She left the girl at
Gainesville.
I went to the house and got her. I returned to Dallas, before I got
back
to Dallas my wife had been liberated and gotten with both my boys and
had
persuaded them to go to Missouri. As soon as I got back I sent for them
and they came home. To go back a little, I will here state that on Aug.
1, after my wife had run away from me, I received a letter from a man
dated
at Fort Worth, which stated that my wife was dead, and as far as the
boy
was concerned I had better keep my distance.
Aug. 20 I was married
a second time to Miss Mary Jane
Alsup in the
courthouse in the city of Sherman. I believed that my wife was dead. I
am still living with my second wife. When I learned that my first wife
was not dead, I, at once, set about to get a divorce, and March 1887
was
remarried to my second wife in East Dallas. I worked about Dallas for
some
time. I left Dallas in August 1889 for Duck Creek and picked cotton,
and
my wife and three children went with me. We also had a small babe, my
second
wife's child. In November 1888, I located on the Kirk farm, between
Sherman
and Whitemound, seven miles out of town. I stayed there until about
last
Christmas, when I moved to Sherman. Some time since I heard that the
man
with whom my wife ran away was dead, and once afterward I saw my first
wife and she showed me a certificate of her marriage to another man in
McKinney, but I also heard afterward that they too were parted.
Yesterday morning my
little girl went out to secure some flowers and has not returned home
and
I have it from good authority that she was taken off on a southbound
train
on the Central list evening. My first wife is of medium height, has
blue
eyes, the left eye is smaller than the other and she has large freckles
on her face. Her hair is very dark, nearly black, and she will weigh
probably
140 pounds. She was in her 15th year when we were married and is now
about 34 years old. My little girl, Mandie, has blue eyes and light
hair.
She weighs probably sixty pounds and is about the average height. She
has
a scar on the under lip, about midway, and another on her back near the
shoulder blade which is the size of a quarter of a dollar. At the time
she left to gather flowers she had on a striped calico dress and a red
shawl. She wore dark stockings and buttoned shoes.
Since the above written
complaint was filed before Justice Campbell, charging R. P.
Hill, a night watchman at the Alliance mill, with
kidnapping the
girl, Maudie Woolsey,
Constable Spence this
morning called at Hill's home and calling him out, requested him to go
to Lyon Station with him to find the little girl. Hill gave himself
away by
telling the constable that there was no use to look for her in Lyon.
Further
close questioning developed the fact that Hill had received letters
from
the girl's mother in Dallas, in which had been enclosed $2 to buy a
ticket
for the little girl from Sherman to Dallas. He claims
that he did not give
the little girl the money but that he sent the money by a third party
and
that the little girl was more than glad to get a chance to go.
He did not deny having
been at the depot when the train went south, and says the little girl
went
to Dallas. He was immediately arrested by Officer Spence, and after
being
warned made substantially the same statement recited above. On his
person
were found two letters dated at Dallas and from the girl's mother, in
which
she asks him to get her little girl, and promises to pay him for the
trouble
just as soon as she can get the money. Hill claims to have been a
member
of a secret detective association until a short time since and has not
renewed them. He was taken at once to the Houston Street prison and
locked
up.
The first intonation
that the officers had that Hill knew anything of the case was the
statement of one of the Woolsey's boys that a man answering
Hill's description had
tried to get him to get his little sister out of the house for a walk,
but which he had refused to do.
It is also alleged that
Hill told some friends after Woolsey had first told of his daughter's
absence
that he would not find her where he was looking.
Hill has lived in Sherman
for quite a while and is about 21 years of age.
Dallas Morning News
May 1, 1889
page 4
R. P.
Hill , who was put in jail yesterday by Constable Spence
on the
charge of kidnapping Mandie Woolsey, was taken before Justice Campbell
today
and released from custody, the attorney for the state giving it as his
opinion that the testimony was insufficient to warrant his being held
any
longer.
Dallas Morning News
May 2, 1889
page 6
Kidnapped Girl Recovered
Sherman, Tex, May 1-
W. T.
Woolsey. sic J. L., who alleges that his little daughter
was kidnapped and taken
to Dallas, arrived this morning in charge of the little girl, whom he
found
at Dallas in possession of her mother, his ( Woolsey's) divorced wife.
Woolsey showed The News reporter has a certified copy of the decree of
divorce
granted to him from Martha Woolsey in the district court of Dallas
county,
and in which he, the plaintiff, is given possession of the little
children,
among whom is specified the little girl in question. He does not deny
that the little girl seemed to like to stay with her mother, but he
claims
the court gave him possession of the child for justifiable reasons and
that he intends to reserve that right to himself.
Dallas Morning News
Aug. 26, 1892
page 3 (near Ft. Worth)
Remains
identified: J.
W. Woolsey of Denison came here tonight and positively
identified
the mutilated remains of the young boy who was found on the Missouri,
Kansas
and Texas railroad last Tuesday morning as his son. The father
recognized
the clothing that (was) worn by his
son and will take the body home for
burial.
The census of 1900 shows
J. L. Woolsey living with his wife and five children and a
Allsup relative.
Obviously his insanity plea worked well. He did not stay in
jail.
I would say he was rather a scoundrel.
George Sabin was no doubt
uneducated - or mostly so. Most of the family was.
Let me tell you briefly
about his family background.
George W. Sabin Sr.
married in Indiana to Margaret Godwin and they had five
children. Geo.
W. left to fight in the Civil War. Margaret took the children
to
Iowa to her family. Geo. W. was injured and returned to
Indiana.
There he hooked up with Mary Dilworth who was the widow of a
fellow soldier of Geo.
W. She was young! They had three
children. Geo. Jr. was the
oldest of those three.
During that time they
moved from Indiana to Missouri. Either the same year or the
following
year of the birth of their third child Geo. W. Sr. married my Great
Grandmother - Mary
Catherine Chandler. They married (with court records) in June
1870
at the home of Mary C.'s uncle Lorenzo Dow Chandler. They
moved
to Wright Co., MO and
she was 17 and he 41 according to the census. Geo. Jr. was 5
at this
point. They started having children. Cora Estelle
Sabin was
their first.
Family lore says that
Mary C. began to have an affair with a doctor. She was run
out of
town. She loaded all the kids into a wagon and went to
Denison (and
into Indian territory). Geo. W. was to follow. He
did not.
He remarried again and
then died in 1900. He is buried in Webster, Co.
Cora married John W. Kinney
and began to have children. She was pregnant with child
number two
when Geo. Jr. was shot.
In the same time period
Mary C. remarried (divorce? who knows. Legal
marriage?
who knows) to Alexander Hayes and had another daughter.
What a family. What
history. It gets better and better!