Post by sue75 on May 4, 2013 11:24:13 GMT -5
"The Tales The Trees Tell in Perryville Park"
by Erika Quesenberry Sturgill
May 4, 2013
"The confessions, or perhaps testaments, to these murders lead the modern-day researcher to the Internet in search of articles on such murders, but without dates or places, it is a near impossible task for any but the most gifted of researchers with plenty of time. Another confessional carving, however, is for a much more well-known case. On one particular tree is carved, “Baby Lindbergh was murdered by Wheedle who is a C&P Telephone man, not a Baltimore rumor, a Newark story.”
This carving, of course, refers to what was dubbed in 1936 by Baltimore’s H.L. Mencken, “the biggest story since the Resurrection,” the kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., in Hopewell, N.J., the child of world-famous aviator Charles A. and Ann Morrow Lindbergh. The 20-month-old toddler was abducted from his family home March 1, 1932, and two months later the tike's body was found on May 12, 1932, dead from a massive skull fracture. A two-year investigation followed in which Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime, followed by a 1935 trial. Convicted of first-degree murder Hauptmann was executed by electric chair April 3, 1936.
That veterans, or a veteran to be more accurate, at Perry Point would be so deeply concerned with the case isn’t that much of a stretch. It was a preeminent national news story of the day and New Jersey isn’t that far away. The military even played a role in the investigation. Among the military colonels who joined the investigation were Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, and Wall Street lawyer Henry Skillman Breckinridge, who was also, coincidentally a graduate of West Nottingham Academy in Colora.
Schwarzkopf, Breckingridge, Linbdergh and William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, a WWI hero, believed the kidnapping was done by organized crime figures. Even Al Capone, then in prison, offered to aid in the search — for money or legal favors.
The conspiracy theories over the Lindbergh case still exist to this day even hoaxes of people claiming to be the now adult C.A. Lindbergh, Jr., but in Cecil County there is a tree that stands as a strange but intriguing monument to this mystery and many other trees equally as mysterious."
by Erika Quesenberry Sturgill
May 4, 2013
"The confessions, or perhaps testaments, to these murders lead the modern-day researcher to the Internet in search of articles on such murders, but without dates or places, it is a near impossible task for any but the most gifted of researchers with plenty of time. Another confessional carving, however, is for a much more well-known case. On one particular tree is carved, “Baby Lindbergh was murdered by Wheedle who is a C&P Telephone man, not a Baltimore rumor, a Newark story.”
This carving, of course, refers to what was dubbed in 1936 by Baltimore’s H.L. Mencken, “the biggest story since the Resurrection,” the kidnapping of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr., in Hopewell, N.J., the child of world-famous aviator Charles A. and Ann Morrow Lindbergh. The 20-month-old toddler was abducted from his family home March 1, 1932, and two months later the tike's body was found on May 12, 1932, dead from a massive skull fracture. A two-year investigation followed in which Bruno Richard Hauptmann was arrested and charged with the crime, followed by a 1935 trial. Convicted of first-degree murder Hauptmann was executed by electric chair April 3, 1936.
That veterans, or a veteran to be more accurate, at Perry Point would be so deeply concerned with the case isn’t that much of a stretch. It was a preeminent national news story of the day and New Jersey isn’t that far away. The military even played a role in the investigation. Among the military colonels who joined the investigation were Herbert Norman Schwarzkopf, superintendent of the New Jersey State Police, and Wall Street lawyer Henry Skillman Breckinridge, who was also, coincidentally a graduate of West Nottingham Academy in Colora.
Schwarzkopf, Breckingridge, Linbdergh and William J. “Wild Bill” Donovan, a WWI hero, believed the kidnapping was done by organized crime figures. Even Al Capone, then in prison, offered to aid in the search — for money or legal favors.
The conspiracy theories over the Lindbergh case still exist to this day even hoaxes of people claiming to be the now adult C.A. Lindbergh, Jr., but in Cecil County there is a tree that stands as a strange but intriguing monument to this mystery and many other trees equally as mysterious."