1939-10-11 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL, OCTOBER 11, 1939.

TO-DAY'S

STRANGE BTORY

OF REAL PEOPLE.

PUZZLING CASE OF ELEAZAR WILLIAMS

By VINCENT TOWNE WHO are these that call themselves

my father and my mother? In stinct tells me that I am not flesh of their flesh, or bone of their bone."

little heir to the French throne was 8 years old. In the Prison of the Temple this princeling was placed in the care of Simon, the jailer, who kept him clothed

with in rags and besotted This suspicion morbidly haunted a brandy; who gave him a toy guillotine strange, dreamy lad who early in the to play with and who clubbed him un- past century ended a hiatus and came mercifully until he would sing an ob- back to normal senses after a hazy scene song mocking his dead parents. period of mental weakness, In his The cruel Simon was himself gull- case, due to extreme youth, mental re-lotined for his trouble and the little covery did not restore memory of Dauphin became lost to history. Sl- events happening before his lapse.

All that he knew was that he had suffered excruciating pain, which, others said, had resulted from a severe fall.

During the remainder of his years he searched for his identity. Accord- ing to the best evidence that he could gather he had been brought to nort- hern New York by the Indian squaw and half-breed farmer claiming to be his parents. They gave him the name Eleazer Williams and as such he was known through the remainder of his life although there were some who of- fered him the homage due to a prince, a king, a royal martyr who had been

cheated of his throne.

Eleazar grew to manhood among the Indians and adventurers of our Canadian frontier. A giant in stature and strength, fearless, he entered the War of 1812 and did brave service for the American cause, being severely wounded at Plattsburg.

His insistent claims that he was not the offspring of his alleged parents led to an investigation. Physicians who examined him proved to their satisfac- tion that he was not of Indian blood. Pressed with inquiries, his reputed mother once confessed that he was not her child.

Then there entered upon the scene a witness who was to start rolling a ball of evidence soon to grow to great size and start the tongues of two con- tinents wagging. This, was Skenon- douh, an Indian of the frontier, who took oath that two French noblemen had appeared upon Lake George in 1795 with a feeble-minded lad of about 10.

These great men turned their half- witted charge over to the Williamses, who afterward were in no want for money. Goodly sums came to them re- gularly from somewhere. And it was doubtless to escape the curiosity of their neighbours that they had moved from their former home. Investigation showed that the mother of Eleazar's foster-father, Thomas Williams, had experienced an adventurous career of her own. From the comfortable par- sonage of her father, the Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, Mass., she had been captured by Indians and carried to Canada, where she for- got the English language, Joined the Catholic Church, adopted Indian customs and habits and married an Indian John de Rogers.

Eleazar Williams was sent to school at Long Meadow, Mass., and after the War joined the Episcopal Church, be- coming a missionary among the Oneida Indians. In 1828 he was ordained Mis- sionary Presbyter and the rest of his life he ministered to the Indians of New York and Wisconsin.

In 1854 the Prince de Joinville, heir to the throne of Louis Philippe, went to Green Bay, Wis., to hold an impor- tant secret interview, with the Rev. Eleazar Williams.. Why did this great prince seek the humble mission- ary?

According to Eleazar Williams, the Prince de Joinville offered him hand- some bribes if he would agree to ro- nounce all right and title to the throne of France, but he refused the offer although preferring to continue his missionary work until his death. He afterward claimed to have known that he was none other than the "lost Louis XVII" of France, and to have let the Prince de Joinville know that he knew, The Rev. Eleazar William had never been known to utter an untruth. He was as God-fearing a man os over wore the cloth. Why should he invent such a story when he did not take ad- vantage of the notoriety that naturally resulted from it? Why should the Prince de Joinville search him out in the wilderness? Where else was the lost Louis XVII?”

At the time his father, Louis XVI. was guillotined by the Jacobins, the

mon's wife confessed that the child was carried off and Louis XVIII, had her locked up for life in a mad house This same Louis XVIII. thereupon or- dered the Abbe Dubois to sign a de- claration that the Dauphin had been buried in the cemetery of his church. St. Marguerite, and after refusing to

the Abbe was polsoned comply death.

to

The Duc de Berri after denouncing Louis XVIII.'s usurpation of the lost Dauphin's throne, was assassinated for his pains.

CALAMEIRE

In The Care Of Simon' The Jallor.

A zealous royalist, the Chevalier.,

Eleazar Williams died in Hogans- |tain considerable literature supporting d'Oeillet is said to have given Simon's wife $60,000 to let him kidnap, the burg, N.Y., Aug. 28, 1858, aged about the theory that he was that unhappy fear-crazed Dauphin and substitute for 72 years. Many who conversed with monarch's lost son and the rightful that princeling a weak-minded pea-him were impressed by his resem- heir to the French throne. If not, who sant lad.

blance to Louis XVI, Our libraries con-

was he?

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