The Murder of Christie Warden

Another Chapter in the Reminiscences of Stephen Chase '96

DURING our adolescent years we often went to the Warden farm about a mile north of the village to play hide and seek or, as we called it, "Pinch Me" in the barns on the place. The game began by choosing the one who was it - "Eenie-meenie-minie-mo, catch a nigger by the toe. If he hollers let him go. Eenie-meenie, minie-mo." The one getting the last "mo" was it. Then we scattered through the barns and the "it" shouted "Adam and Eve and Pinch Me all went out to sea in a boat. Adam and Eve fell out, and who was left?" The others all yelled "Pinch Me" and the game was on. Over the hay mows and beams, in the tunnels where the hay had settled from the beams, the chase grew exciting. The first one pinched was the next "it."

Bert and Johnnie Warden were o£ our age and usually Johnnie was it, being the youngest and least acrobatic. Bert was later a classmate in the Class of '96. So with all this we knew every nook and cranny in the barns.

A new hired man, named Almey, came to the Wardens sometime in 1890 and, as always, lived with the family. He fascinated us youngsters with his several accomplishments. He was a crack shot with pistols. He would put a bottle on a fence post, stand off fifty feet or more with his back to the bottle, whirl and break the bottle with a pistol shot from either hand more often than he failed. He rigged up a trapeze in the barn and taught us stunts on it. A bundle of hay served as a punching-bag —the first instruction I had in that art. He became sweet on Christie Warden, the Wardens' oldest child, but was spurned by her.

In the summer of 1891 four of us — George Hatch, "Bud" Frost, son of the owner of the town jewelry and sporting goods store, Walter Chase and I - rowed and partly sailed the big boat (that Father had brought from Kennebunk Beach) up the river about twenty miles to Fairlee, Vermont, where we had the boat carried to Lake Morey and pitched our camping tent. We had a wonderful week or ten days of fishing and swimming and cooking on an open fire until we heard that Almey had murdered Christie Warden.

A day or two after that we had word from Bud's father to come home immediately. We got the boat and effects moved to the river about dusk and set out. It was an exciting ttip; several times we ran onto sandbars and once into a floating tree top that nearly stopped the trip for the night. Finally we got loose and made the landing at Hanover well after midnight. Mother and the family were at Kennebunk Beach and George Hatch and I lived in our house, taking care of ourselves. It developed that Bud's father, knowing that Almey was loose and desperate, feared he might happen on us and cause trouble, so ordered us home.

Christie and her Mother had walked to an evening Grange meeting in town and as they returned were stopped by Almey in the hollow where "Potash Brook" ran through (where in a previous account I told of the cave we kids dug in a clay bank). After some words he grabbed her and 'dragged her through the gate into the pasture with the remark that "she would never be another man's." About a hundred yards from the road was a clump of willow trees and there he fatally shot her. He didn't molest her mother, who reached home in hysterics. Almey disappeared and the search throughout New England was intense. The newspapers made a sensation of the crime because of its peculiar nature and many stories were circulated of his wild, criminal inalactivities in regions to the north.

About a month passed with no clue of Almey's whereabouts and some people argued that he must have committed suicide in some hidden place. Meanwhile the Wardens noticed that their vegetable garden was frequently visited during the night and that such vegetables as did not need cooking were taken but carefully thinned in the rows so as to be little apparent. Then one day a loose stone in the barn foundation, in the barnyard, fell out and disclosed a lot of recently opened tin cans that had contained food. Putting these clues together, a watch was set at night around the vegetable garden. I don't remember if it was the first night of the watch or later that a ghostly figure appeared, pulled here and there a carrot or beet, and then slunk back into the barn.

The next morning about daybreak I was awakened by the college bell wildly ringing as for a house afire and streams of people hurrying up the road. George Hatch and I dressed and rushed to join the excitement, whatever it was. We jumped on a passing wagon and then learned that Almey had been found at the Warden farm.

Scores of men were already there and many more from surrounding towns constantly swelled the crowd during the morning. The sheriff soon arrived and then the argument began as to what should be done. Some hotheads even insisted the buildings should be set afire. Finally the sheriff mounted a ladder placed against the side of one of the barns and, after haranguing the crowd, called for volunteers to enter each of the connected barns and pitch over the hay where Almey might be hidden.

Pitchforks from nearby farms were quickly brought and many volunteers climbed over the several mows of hay.

Very soon several shots were heard on the west side overlooking the yard in front of the house. Everyone came tumbling out and a cry went up for more firearms.

George and I rushed for the fence where many horses and wagons were hitched, backed one out and rushed into town to Mr. Frost's store where he emptied his stock of firearms and ammunition, after taking an inventory of it all. We stopped for my shotgun on the way back and turned the guns over to the sheriff. I kept my own.

Nothing had been done while we were gone and more arguments were surging about.

Cousin John Lord, a few months older than I, had been one of the volunteers and had left his coat on a mow near where Almey had been found. He decided to go back for it and as he climbed the ladder and his head came to the level of the hay he looked into the muzzles of two pistols that looked like two cannon." He just flopped to the floor and crawled out the door.

It developed that Almey had cut almost a room, perhaps tour by eight feet, into the hay and down two or three feet from the top, covered by loose hay. There he could watch all the movements of the household through a crack between the sideboards of the barn. When the hay pitching began one of the men happened to step over this loose hay, sank in a bit and jabbed his pitchfork down into it. He struck something solid and a shot came up through the hay, the bullet lodging in one of the roof rafters. Fortunately the finder was armed with a pistol too and several shots were exchanged. Then he got out in a hurry.

After what seemed a very long time, with the crowd milling around in the road north of the barns, two shots burst through a crack in the sideboards of the barn, into the road, but hit no one. Almey had moved.

The sheriff mounted the ladder again and called for a ring of armed guards to surround the barn, well out in the fields, in case Almey should attempt to break for the woods. I was stationed well to the south. What to do was still in argument until a neighboring farmer - Mr. Fuller —a fine, upstanding man of influence in the town - volunteered to talk with Almey in an attempt to persuade him to surrender. How he made contact I don't remember, but he did, and after what seemed hours to us standing guard, it was announced that Almey had given up and we could come in. We watched him being carried out and he was a sad sight. His head and shirt front were covered with dried blood from the pitchfork jab and his leg was broken by one of the exchanged shots.

He was cleaned up, put in a bed in the Hotel, and the door opened for the almost endless line of men, and some women, to file through for a look at the murderer lying on his back with his eyes closed.

Later we visited his hideout which was neatly cut out of the compressed hay, with a bed of finely cut hay, as soft as a feather bed. On looking over the empty food cans under the barn, there were several that had contained salmon with labels that identified them as coming from our cellar. How he ever got in, while we were in the house, we never could figure out.

Someone dug the first bullet fired by Almey out of the rafter where it had lodged and soon the willows, near the brook where Christie had been killed, were cut away by souvenir hunters. Almey eventually was hanged.

Several years later, Dr. Tucker, President of the College, told this as one of his favorite stories: He was asked to speak in some nearby town and in the front row before him was an old man who hung on his every word with intense concentration. Dr. Tucker was so flattered that he addressed his remarks to such an understanding person. After the talk, the audience came up to greet the speaker and this old man happily shook Dr. Tucker's hand with the remark, "I have always wanted to meet and shake the hand of a man that came from the town where Christie Warden was murdered."