Hart - Hattie - receives money
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal Monday, 21 August 1893
A special to the Indianapolis Journal from Shelbyville, says:
Today’s Journal, in a dispatch from this place, stated that John Hogan, blind and deaf, aged 60 years, thought to be poor, had on his death a bandage on his arm containing $1,200. In searching the house today $1,000 more was found, together with a pension check calling for $216. He and Miss Hattie Hart came here from Crawfordsville last spring. He has one daughter living, although disowned by him years ago. He also has a brother in Ireland. The impression is that he willed Miss Hart all his possessions, but the will has not been found.
This more detailed account is found in yesterday’s Inter-Ocean:
Last February there came to this city an old man who gave his name as John Hogan. He was almost blind and very deaf. As soon as he came to the city he went to a real estate office and stated that he wanted to rent property. He was questioned in regard to his family and said he had none. A suitable house was found for him and he at once furnished it lavishly, although looking like a tramp himself. The neighbors were somewhat surprised and all questions asked of the old man were unheeded. This morning a little boy, who at times waited on him, went to his house to see him. He spoke to the man but received no answer. The boy gave an alarm. The neighborhood gathered in, and one, more bold than the others, took hold and shook the body, and found him dead.
The coroner was notified and found two revolvers in the bed and a large file. The latter had blood on it, but there was not a mark on the lifeless form to show that Hogan had been struck by it. One the left arm sewed up in a sack was $1,200 in greenbacks. An administrator was at once appointed and the property turned over to him. Later in the day the latter with a number of neighbors was going through the dead man’s effects and in the tray of an old trunk found $1,216 in bank certificates and checks on different banks over the country, and fourteen $20 gold pieces.
A strange man and woman were seen to enter the house at a late hour the night before his death, and as he was known to have a large amount of money besides the sums found, it is thought that the large amount was taken and the old man was poisoned. To some he would tell that he had relatives in Chicago and to others in St. Louis. That the old man was murdered is the general belief. The coroner will hold an inquest and every effort will be made to ferret out the mystery.
The Chicago Herald of today contains the following cheerful information regarding the affair:
The John Hogan affair develops more mysterious as the investigation proceeds. Coroner Bruce today held an autopsy with locked doors while the late residence and sidewalks were lined with anxious neighbors and spectators. Dr. Samuel Kennedy, an analyst, now has his stomach, and it is thought his examination will show the man was poisoned by strange persons who went to the old man’s house mysteriously and disappeared in the same way. Hogan has $3,500 in a bank at Lebanon, this state, also a check on a bank in Crawfordsville of $1,300, and the coroner’s investigation will probably develop more money. Hogan’s death is still shrouded in mystery and who he is, and, if he has any relatives where they are. The persons that appeared at his late residence have been traced to Cincinnati, coming and going. Miss Hattie Hart, who resided with the old man, and had been the same as a daughter to him during his blindness, and who happened to be away from home at the time of his death, is now lying prostrated.
Hogan purchased the John Street property of W. C. Carr and resided there with the young woman who, as his daughter, led him around the streets. His bandaged arm will be remembered by all and the somewhat tardy knowledge that the bandage contained greenbacks will be received by Crawfordsville toughs with groans of anguish. Shortly before he left here he removed to High Street, and was a neighbor of old Billy Kelley, whose children led him about when his “daughter” was not so inclined.
Hogan is the father-in-law of John McLaughlin, formerly a clerk in Con Cunningham’s store. Mrs. McLaughlin is now dead and he is in Lebanon -- thanks muches "S" for this great article