0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Aaron French moved in from Cincinnati. 0:03 [SPEAKER_00]: He had only been here approximately six months, so he himself was a transient character. 0:10 [SPEAKER_00]: He had attempted to be a businessman in Cincinnati involved in the meatpacking industry. 0:16 [SPEAKER_00]: and went broke and so he decided to maybe try his hand at farming so he moves up here gets a place as a tenant farmer and does what he can with that and apparently was very prosperous the first year that he did it and then he became ill and again we're talking 1854 so you can't really go to a doctor and if you do they're either gonna bleed you or give you some kind of weird herb that's just as likely to kill you as whatever is wrong with you in the first place 0:45 [SPEAKER_01]: As Aaron's health deteriorated, worried neighbors began dropping by. 0:49 [SPEAKER_01]: In the fall of 1854, the frequency of these visits increased, and on the night of October 6th, Aaron told James Lewis, a fellow farmer and friend, that he feared the harsh Indiana climate might kill him. 1:04 [SPEAKER_01]: He wanted to sell his belongings and take his family's south, where he hoped to recuperate in a milder climate. 1:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Later that night, James decided to give his friend the money he needed. 1:15 [SPEAKER_01]: In exchange for whatever property he could spare to leave behind. 1:19 [SPEAKER_01]: The following morning, October 7th, 1854, he returned to the French house with the property owner, Isaac Keller, and a few other men, but they were met in the yard by a husband and wife who had recently begun boarding with the family, in order to help them cover the cost of living. 1:37 [SPEAKER_00]: So around that time, another transient character named John Hubbard comes into town, and John Hubbard rooms with Aaron French. 1:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Even though it was a one room house, Aaron French his wife and five children were already living in it. 1:53 [SPEAKER_00]: But in that time, sort of unimaginable today, people tended not to actually be in their houses very much, even if you were sick, you tended to live outside and then come in only at night and when it rained. 2:04 [SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't as cramped as it sounds. 2:07 [SPEAKER_00]: John Hubbard, his wife, and son, who was named Richard, his wife's name Sarah, all moving to this house to help Aaron French pay the bills, and he did so quite willingly. 2:18 [SPEAKER_00]: John Hubbard primarily worked on the canal, so it was hard physical labor, many, many people died doing the work, and there were also poisonous snakes involved, so close to the river. 2:31 [SPEAKER_01]: If you're living in Wabash County today and wondering which snakes you should be looking out for, don't worry, they've been exterminated. 2:39 [SPEAKER_01]: Timber rattlers were common in the area before being systematically hunted and removed from the ecosystem. 2:46 [SPEAKER_01]: hatred for these poisonous snakes were so intense that they would actually gather in groups after church on Sunday and kill them together. 2:54 [SPEAKER_01]: But at that time, these rattlers were plentiful in one more way to lose your life on the unforgiving American frontier. 3:03 [SPEAKER_01]: When James Lewis and Isaac Keller reached the French property, they were greeted in the yard by John and Sarah Hubbard. 3:09 [SPEAKER_01]: The couple was carrying what they described as sloppy buckets, but what that exactly meant is anybody's guess. 3:17 [SPEAKER_01]: Some would say that the buckets were full of blood and water, others, that it was only food and human waste. 3:23 [SPEAKER_01]: But either way, it was the Hubbard's and not the French's who met these visitors, and they did so out in the yard. 3:31 [SPEAKER_00]: They were already outside the house. 3:33 [SPEAKER_00]: And they see Isaac Keller and Lewis coming, and they say, don't worry, they're not here anymore. 3:40 [SPEAKER_00]: We're the only ones in the house, and they said, well, where did they go? 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: And they explained that Aaron French and family had been there only the night before. 3:49 [SPEAKER_00]: and that a relative had come up from Cincinnati on the train, which had just recently been installed in the area, and informed them that their father, who was a wealthy landowner in Iowa, had died. 4:01 [SPEAKER_00]: They had brought a two-horse wagon, told him to pack up everything that they could, and they were leaving tonight. 4:11 [SPEAKER_01]: Hubbard said French had been so excited by this new opportunity that he was drinking brandy and dancing around inside the cabin. 4:19 [SPEAKER_01]: He also said that French had sold him squatters' rights to the house, as well as its contents for $40. 4:26 [SPEAKER_01]: The last part explained what these visitors had immediately noticed. 4:33 [SPEAKER_01]: Now that sounds suspicious to me. 4:35 [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it does to you too. 4:37 [SPEAKER_01]: But TJ explained why it would not have been so alarming in rural Indiana in 1854. 4:43 [SPEAKER_01]: People didn't have large wardrobes like we do today. 4:47 [SPEAKER_01]: You would wear one set of clothes until you were through with it. 4:50 [SPEAKER_01]: Then you discarded and moved on to the next one. 4:53 [SPEAKER_01]: Poor people, transient people, tended to wear the used up outfits of those who could have forward new ones. 5:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Back then, people didn't really have closets and you would wear a set of clothes basically until that set of clothes disintegrated. 5:08 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's what these transients people would wear. 5:11 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you were wearing another person's clothing item that tended to raise some suspicions, but in the case of John Hubbard and his wife and son, there were no suspicions raised. 5:24 [SPEAKER_00]: they just let it go. 5:25 [SPEAKER_00]: As for their sudden midnight departure, people came and went all the time and nobody really thought anything of it. 5:34 [SPEAKER_01]: So the Hubbard took over the French family home. 5:37 [SPEAKER_01]: Their friends were saddened, but understood Aaron since of urgency to get well, and to collect an inheritance that would allow him to better care for his family. 5:46 [SPEAKER_01]: No investigation took place, and in the words of one 19th century historian, outside of his small circle of friends, the disappearance of French and his family, gave rise to but little or no comment. 5:59 [SPEAKER_01]: That would all change the following spring, when two local men went fishing on a day that can now was being drained. 6:06 [SPEAKER_00]: We're now through the winner of 54 into 55. 6:10 [SPEAKER_00]: Two guys go fishing on the canal because at that time the rivers of Indiana were not yet polluted with tons of industrial and farm waste and we actually had a lot of fish in the water. 6:20 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was an easy way to supplement your income to go down and catch a whole lot of fish. 6:26 [SPEAKER_00]: And the canal was particularly helpful for that because the canal was shallow. 6:31 [SPEAKER_00]: And they needed to drain the canal periodically to repair the walls. 6:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The walls of the canal were actually made of stone. 6:38 [SPEAKER_00]: And just stacked stone, kind of like an old well, if you've ever seen that. 6:43 [SPEAKER_00]: So periodically, critters, ground hogs, muscrats, etc. 6:47 [SPEAKER_00]: would burrow into that wall and then it would spring a leak. 6:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And the canal would naturally start draining and it was expensive to keep pumping the water into it. 6:55 [SPEAKER_00]: So they would drain it down. 6:57 [SPEAKER_00]: And that was usually a great time to go fishing because the water would only be a few inches deep, but it would be completely filled with fish. 7:04 [SPEAKER_00]: All you had to do was scoop a net down and off you go. 7:07 [SPEAKER_01]: But rather than fish, they found the body of a man pinned to the floor of the canal by a large weight tight against its torso to prevent it from floating. 7:17 [SPEAKER_00]: No one recognized the body. 7:19 [SPEAKER_00]: It was very badly decayed because it had spent the winter under ice in the canal or underwater. 7:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody knew who really who that was. 7:28 [SPEAKER_00]: and so at that time they would call it was called a coroner's jury. 7:32 [SPEAKER_00]: The coroner's jury would look over the body and determine whether or not any sort of foul play was involved. 7:39 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have a person called a coroner. 7:42 [SPEAKER_00]: They would just call a bunch of random people together and if they thought there was foul play, then 7:48 [SPEAKER_00]: A court case would proceed, so it was kind of just like a committee of lay people making a good guess. 7:54 [SPEAKER_00]: What happens is the coroner's jury looks at this body. 7:56 [SPEAKER_00]: They still cannot determine who it is in the canal. 8:00 [SPEAKER_00]: But they find that the skull has been broken in numerous places, probably with some sort of hammer, and also some of the flesh was still attached, and it had what they would call today defensive wounds. 8:12 [SPEAKER_01]: unable to determine anything more of the man's identity, or his matter of death, the local coroner, David Squires, did what anyone in his position would have done. 8:21 [SPEAKER_01]: He invited the entire county to come and look. 8:24 [SPEAKER_01]: It sounds macabre, but at that time, there were no better options. 8:28 [SPEAKER_01]: The only way to ID the body was to have someone recognize him in person. 8:33 [SPEAKER_01]: The first photograph would not appear in an American newspaper until 25 years later in 1880. 8:39 [SPEAKER_01]: So what squires sent out to the newspapers were descriptions of the body, doubling as invitations for all the help he could get. 8:47 [SPEAKER_01]: One notice, written by naming the flutter, the general editor of the local paper, the 8:56 [SPEAKER_02]: Last Friday, the body of a man was found in the canal about 21 miles below town near the farm of Mr. Carter. 9:03 [SPEAKER_02]: A jury was summoned by the coroner and after viewing the body rendered a verdict. 9:08 [SPEAKER_02]: The deceased, whose name is unknown, came to his death by blows inflicted upon the head with a club, and also the blows inflicted by a knife or other sharp instrument. 9:20 [SPEAKER_02]: The deceased is supposed to be an Irishman about 45 years of age and about 5 feet 6 inches high of fair complexion, dark hair and some gray. 9:31 [SPEAKER_02]: Had on drawers made of coarse mac and neck blanket, two striped shirts, the inter-partly worn, the other nearly new, a pair of old cotton drilling pants, and a pretty good vest, with a woolen comfort around the neck, a blue sack. 9:48 [SPEAKER_02]: coat of felt cloth and a pair of tight knit kit boots with red Morocco fronts. 9:54 [SPEAKER_02]: A pipe was found in the red vest pocket. 9:57 [SPEAKER_02]: Above the right temple was the appearance of a scar that had been healed over. 10:02 [SPEAKER_02]: The body was very much decayed and in all probability has been in the water all winter. 10:07 [SPEAKER_02]: We have heard a rumor that some time ago, a cap was found near the place where the body was discovered, and the cap had a cut in the back part and was smeared with blood and human hair. 10:18 [SPEAKER_02]: There seems to be no doubt in the minds of those who saw the body taken from the canal that the man was murdered. 10:25 [SPEAKER_02]: The wounds on the head and neck could have been made in no ordinary way. 10:30 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, lots of people come by to view the body just because it's such an exceptional circumstance. 10:37 [SPEAKER_00]: And there was no TV or video games or anything in Orphodcast, so no one really had anything else to do. 10:42 [SPEAKER_00]: So lots of people came to look at this body and kind of out of a sense of morbid curiosity. 10:49 [SPEAKER_01]: Eventually, they identified the victim as an Irish immigrant named Edward Boyle. 10:55 [SPEAKER_01]: He was described in the Wabash Gazette as being quote, well educated and have an ambieable industrious disposition. 11:03 [SPEAKER_01]: He was skilled at reading and writing, and was also described as holding a large sum of money in silver and gold. 11:10 [SPEAKER_01]: Boyle had been a canal worker before moving over to the railroad and falling ill himself in the harsh and deanne climate. 11:18 [SPEAKER_01]: Once the corner had identified Boyle's body, a collective effort began to retrace his final steps. 11:24 [SPEAKER_01]: He had been last seen in early December after boarding with a local family near the canal. 11:29 [SPEAKER_01]: The family, that of John and Sarah Hubbard still living in the former home 11:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The way he ended up in the house is Richard Hubbard the son, the wheelbarrow operator, met him working at the canal, and offered to take him home in the wheelbarrow, and then he could rent the place out in Rich Valley, because they were about a quarter mile from the canal as it was, so it was a good location for a job. 11:55 [SPEAKER_00]: He lives there about four months with John Hubbard his wife and son, and then Ed Boyle becomes ill, 12:03 [SPEAKER_00]: This came out later in court that Ed Boyle was a Catholic and he met with the priest and offered the priest several hundred dollars in gold coins in exchange for different funerary rights. 12:18 [SPEAKER_00]: But then he recovered miraculously. 12:21 [SPEAKER_01]: When Ed Boyle recovered, the priest gave him back his money, and who was the person who brought him to that meeting on the back of his well-borrowed before guarding him away again, with jingling pockets full of precious metals, Richard Hubbard, of course. 12:36 [SPEAKER_01]: Departing the drug store later that day, Ed Boyle would not be seen alive again. 12:41 [SPEAKER_00]: Another thing to think about in the murder of Edward Boyle is money basically doesn't exist. 12:48 [SPEAKER_00]: The amount of cash in the community is so small, because almost everything is bartered or it's on credit, because you're not gonna have cash year round. 12:58 [SPEAKER_00]: You might end up with cash at some point. 13:01 [SPEAKER_00]: We have like early ledger books for stores. 13:04 [SPEAKER_00]: There's one that was in Wavash and one that was in Rich Valley and you would come into the store and get whatever it is and they would just write down, 13:11 [SPEAKER_00]: so and so owes me $3.20 and whenever they finally acquired three dollars they were expected to come in and give it to you. 13:20 [SPEAKER_01]: All to say, in a town where money was scarce, $500 was a relative fortune, carrying it in your pocket, and the form of gold and silver was like putting a bull's eye on a chest when the Hubbard connection became public, the town was electric with speculation. 13:37 [SPEAKER_01]: In hindsight, the French disappearance was awfully suspicious, no one had word from them since. 13:44 [SPEAKER_01]: When Boyle had first disappeared, neighbors had visited Rich Valley looking for him, as they had with the Frenches. 13:50 [SPEAKER_01]: They were greeted with a similar story. 13:53 [SPEAKER_00]: So again, Lewis and Keller show up, and they see that Boyle has come and gone. 13:59 [SPEAKER_00]: And they asked John Hubbard and his wife where he is. 14:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Hubbard responds that he was a literary man who could read and write. 14:07 [SPEAKER_00]: That was established. 14:09 [SPEAKER_00]: He had written some things for Lewis who was himself a literate. 14:12 [SPEAKER_00]: So they knew that and he said he'd got a job, school teaching in Lafayette, which is a town about 45 minutes away. 14:19 [SPEAKER_00]: By car today, so then it would have been days, 14:21 [SPEAKER_00]: So it was out of reach. 14:23 [SPEAKER_00]: They assumed, okay, reasonable enough story. 14:27 [SPEAKER_00]: People come and go all the time. 14:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Voil had actually quit working at the canal and was working on the railroad. 14:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So even more reason to be gone and out of town. 14:36 [SPEAKER_00]: So again, multiple disappearances all relating to one guy in one house, but nobody really pays any mind. 14:43 [SPEAKER_01]: With the discovery of Boyle's body, the Hubbard's story about him, becoming a schoolteacher, was verifiably false. 14:51 [SPEAKER_01]: Additionally, Locals had noticed this once poor family spending substantial amounts in gold coin, even while the railroad that John worked on closed for winter and had not been paying out. 15:03 [SPEAKER_01]: Four days after Boyle was found in the canal, on March 27th, the Wavass Sheriff and his 15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: so they go over and immediately arrest John Hubbard and his son Richard and take him away to jail on suspicion of having murdered Ed Boyle. 15:23 [SPEAKER_00]: During this time, a few different things happened, not trying to be politically incorrect, but at the time they determined that Richard Hubbard was what was then called an idiot that he was incapable of doing anything for himself and that he had 15:43 [SPEAKER_00]: He was actually given a piece of paper, which state certified him as an idiot. 15:49 [SPEAKER_00]: And if he ever gotten trouble, or was supposed to sign a contract, he would show this paper that says idiot, and then they couldn't do a contract with them. 15:59 [SPEAKER_00]: He couldn't be accused of certain crimes because he didn't have the mental capacity in the state's view of doing that. 16:07 [SPEAKER_01]: The term idiot sounds harsh to modern years, but it was once something like an actual legal status rooted in the 8th Amendment to the Constitution and its prohibition of quote, 16:21 [SPEAKER_01]: There was no standard ice document for quote, idiot status, but Richard had custom paper work from the local government declaring him incapable of crimes like these. 16:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So they released him and he testified to the police that he had just driven Ed Boyle to and from work in his wheelbarrow on his way to work on the canal and he didn't know anything bad had happened to him. 16:46 [SPEAKER_00]: So they determined that Richard Hubbard was more or less harmless than let him go. 16:50 [SPEAKER_01]: When the Hubbard's were taken into custody, interest in the small family, living on the fringe of the community, went from zero to a hundred in the span of a day, murdering those days, and small towns like this, was an almost exotic crime. 17:05 [SPEAKER_01]: But the descriptions that began appearing in newspapers of the couple, John and Sarah, you might think they were describing a strange new mammal that had just been 17:15 [SPEAKER_01]: and which was being held down town in a one-cell public zoo. 17:20 [SPEAKER_01]: The following description is from the Wavash Intelligenceer. 17:24 [SPEAKER_02]: The old man, John, is about 50 years of age. 17:28 [SPEAKER_02]: His dark sandy, fine curly hair, a little gray and rather thin. 17:33 [SPEAKER_02]: He is about five and a half feet high, strongly built, and somewhat chunky. 17:38 [SPEAKER_02]: His face is large and full. 17:40 [SPEAKER_02]: His forehead is rather low and recedes back very slantingly. 17:44 [SPEAKER_02]: He has a thick, short neck and large head. 17:48 [SPEAKER_02]: He has a clear, quick flashing eye of a dark grayish color protruding from the socket and rolling about in an uneasy, restless manner. 17:57 [SPEAKER_02]: He has thin compressed lips, rather a small, well-formed mouth, a nose slanted straight down from between the eyes, 18:05 [SPEAKER_02]: and rather long thin and sharp. 18:08 [SPEAKER_02]: A wrinkle extends from each side of the nose to the corners of his mouth, which added to a devilish smile, which playing one as continents gave him a fiendish expression. 18:20 [SPEAKER_02]: In short, his whole appearance marks him a man capable of committing any crime, no matter how revolting. 18:27 [SPEAKER_02]: He has an active, ready, well-informed mind, and if it had been properly directed, he might 18:35 [SPEAKER_02]: His son is a chip off the same block, but his features are no strongly marked in any respect. 18:42 [SPEAKER_02]: Neither has the mental ability of his father. 18:45 [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, he hardly seems to have any mind. 18:48 [SPEAKER_02]: Mrs. Hubbard, his wife, is about 45, has a masculine frame, is of dark complexion, has regular but strong marked features, and a continents alternately pleasant and sour. 19:02 [SPEAKER_02]: If she was unconnected with the murder, no one, perhaps, would mark anything finish or wicked in her expression. 19:10 [SPEAKER_02]: Long association with her husband and a participation in his crimes has no doubt obliterated all the virtue which should characterize her sex. 19:20 [SPEAKER_02]: With different associations, she might have been a good and virtuous woman. 19:25 [SPEAKER_02]: Poor woman, got only knows her feelings and temptations and trials by which she has been brought to her present deplorable condition. 19:33 [SPEAKER_00]: They also had problems pinning anything on John Hubbard because just like today, you need physical evidence. 19:40 [SPEAKER_00]: You can't just make an assumption because they lived together. 19:43 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't have a murder weapon. 19:45 [SPEAKER_00]: They didn't know when the murder happened or where or how the body got to the canal, so it's a really shaky case. 19:52 [SPEAKER_01]: No matter how jaded their physical descriptions of John may have been, the sheriff needed heart evidence to prove his guilt. 19:59 [SPEAKER_01]: Everything so far was entirely circumstantial. 20:02 [SPEAKER_01]: Local officials were so unprepared for a case like this that they didn't even have handcuffs to put on the hobbits when they arrested them. 20:10 [SPEAKER_01]: They had to go to the local blacksmiths and have them made. 20:13 [SPEAKER_01]: Incidentally, those very handcuffs custom forged for the arms of John Hubbard. 20:19 [SPEAKER_01]: are currently on display in the county museum. 20:22 [SPEAKER_01]: Similarly, there was a gel cell, but there was no lock. 20:26 [SPEAKER_01]: They had to go back to the blacksmith for one of those two, which is also currently on display one block from my studio. 20:34 [SPEAKER_01]: Due to the lack of evidence against the Hubbard's, the Sheriff and Deputy began ease dropping on all of Sarah's visits and the hopes that she might slip up and give them some clue for the prosecutor to work with, in court. 20:47 [SPEAKER_01]: They gave every impression that the couple were alone and assumed a concealed position nearby, far enough to be out of view, yet close enough for your shot. 20:57 [SPEAKER_01]: Most of the conversations were typical husband and wife stuff, talking about each other, and their son, for whom John was particularly worried. 21:05 [SPEAKER_00]: One of the main problems is what they're going to do with Richard, because he's been declared an idiot by the state, so he really can't work anymore, because he can't sign an employment contract legally anymore. 21:17 [SPEAKER_00]: So they were genuinely worried about what was going to happen to their son because he was pretty much unable to do anything and couldn't support himself and John Hubbard who was the only working member of the family was in prison. 21:29 [SPEAKER_01]: On April 8th, roughly 12 days after his arrest, John leaned forward toward the end of another mundane conversation and asked in a hushed tone, how was the family in the basement? 21:41 [SPEAKER_01]: The two lawmen must have looked at each other in mutual confusion. 21:45 [SPEAKER_01]: At the French House, there was no basement. 21:49 [SPEAKER_00]: It was a step-up house, so you had about 18 inches between the floorboards and the ground, and you would walk up. 21:57 [SPEAKER_00]: because if flooded so often in the reason the area is called rich valleys because the soil was particularly rich due to the constant flooding. 22:06 [SPEAKER_01]: As soon as the implications of that question became clear, the two men went to their horses, gathered a posse, and rode out to rich valley, fearing the worst.
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