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Post by stella7 on Mar 2, 2015 15:58:40 GMT -5
I have a book called Hopewell:A Historical Geography and in the Chapter about Farms it says that there was a barn fire at the Stout Farmstead on Moore's Mill-Mt Rose Rd, the night of the kidnapping. Does anyone know anything more than this about the fire? Did it happen later that night? Could it have taken needed law enforcement away from the kidnapping investigation?
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Post by hurtelable on Mar 6, 2015 17:04:37 GMT -5
That's quite interesting. Was Stout (the presumed owner of the barn) ever questioned by law enforcement with regard to the fire? About how far away from Highfields and how far away from the site where the child's body was found would that Stout barn be located?
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Post by stella7 on Mar 6, 2015 21:14:41 GMT -5
Honestly, I had never heard about this fire before so I don't know the answer to your questions. Look at the map that I posted before, find Mt Rose. If you go north from Mt Rose toward Hopewell, the baby's body was found near the second bend in the road closest to Hopewell. If you see the Mt Rose Distillery, Moore's Mill Rd is to the left just below it going towards Marshall's Corner. www.hopewelltwp.org/maps_documents/17_HistResources.pdf
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Post by stella7 on Mar 6, 2015 21:16:57 GMT -5
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2015 21:32:14 GMT -5
Honestly, I had never heard about this fire before so I don't know the answer to your questions. Look at the map that I posted before, find Mt Rose. If you go north from Mt Rose toward Hopewell, the baby's body was found near the second bend in the road closest to Hopewell. If you see the Mt Rose Distillery, Moore's Mill Rd is to the left just below it going towards Marshall's Corner. www.hopewelltwp.org/maps_documents/17_HistResources.pdfI had never heard about a fire in the area the night of the kidnapping. Do you think it might have been set to cause a diversion or something? Nice find on that book. You can learn all kinds of useful information by reading various resources like this.
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Post by stella7 on Mar 9, 2015 19:51:15 GMT -5
Yes, especially when you're not looking for them. This was a paragraph about round-roofed dairy barns!
I don't know what to think about this, could well be just a coincidence.
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Post by feathers on Sept 17, 2015 21:53:26 GMT -5
This might or might not shed some light on the fire. I was reading a book called “Newsreel Man” by Charles Peden, who was, as the name suggests, a newsreel photographer. His last chapter is about the mass of reporters and photographers that descended upon Hopewell on getting news of the kidnapping. He described how the reporters were gathered about on March 2 and stated:
“As the first shadows of evening fell, a chill crept into the air, and someone built a small bonfire. It was a foolish thing to do in a spot so overrun with dry grass, and before long the Hopewell Fire Department had to be summoned to extinguish the spreading blaze. (Later, we learned that many papers carried full page banners announcing that a farmhouse had burnt adjacent to Lindy’s home. It was the first indication of the hysteria that was to follow the case.)”
What is particularly remarkable about that last statement is that the book was published in 1932 and Peden was writing this chapter on March 10, 1932. The hysteria had just begun!
Obviously memoirs like this should be taken with a grain of salt, but the book does provide a very contemporary account of the first days of the case from a reporter’s point of view.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2015 10:13:03 GMT -5
]What is particularly remarkable about that last statement is that the book was published in 1932 and Peden was writing this chapter on March 10, 1932. The hysteria had just begun! Obviously memoirs like this should be taken with a grain of salt, but the book does provide a very contemporary account of the first days of the case from a reporter’s point of view. Checked out this book and the chapter that covers the Lindbergh kidnapping. Peden covers the first nine days and does a really great write up of the hysteria surrounding this kidnapping from a reporter's view. You get a really good description about the terrain and the difficulty of locating the Hopewell house, how the small town of Hopewell was besieged by the news media, Mr. Gebhart's distress (and fear) when he encounters all the reporters who need to use his phone booth. He brings out the frustration of the reporters with Colonel Schwarzkopf because so little information is coming from the Lindbergh home. One of the tips the reporters did receive was about Princeton Junction where a strange man was seen getting off the train there. No doubt this was the Rev. Peter Birratella arriving to meet with Breckinridge and Rosner! Peden also mentions some of the questions/comments that are floating around the corridors of the State House in Trenton; questions such as "Has Ellis Parker been brought in?" and "Something's not kosher". Some of the questions Peden brings up at the end of this chapter are still questions being asked today. Here is a link to the online edition of this 1932 book for anyone who would be interested in reading this chapter on the kidnapping. After you click on the link, at the top of the page where it says "jump to" type in 113 and then click on go. It will take you to the chapter on Hopewell. babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000035137607;view=1up;seq=15Thanks feathers for mentioning this book!
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