Fields - Foster
Source: Crawfordsville Weekly Journal 16 June 1888
When the old Christian church was removed from where it has stood for nearly fifty years, the remains of an old slate tombstone was discovered under the floor. It bore chisled on its surface the name of Foster Fields, and also contained the story of his death. This incident brings the oldest inhabitant to the front with a lot of reminiscenses. Foster Fields and John Bloomfield were neighbors in Ripley Township many years ago, and quarred about a lane which led between their farms to the residence of Fields. One day during the absence of Fields, Bloomfield placed a fence across the lane and waited near by for Fields to return. He came in due time, and dismounting from his horse threw the fence down, Bloomfield came out of his hiding place, and a wordy war was the result, ending in Bloomfield striking FIelds over the head with a stake, cracking his skull, and left him dead on the ground. Bloomfield was arrested and tried for his crime but went acquitted. He was a sour, morose man with a humped back and sinister countenance, and this deformity and the plea of self-defense set him free, as there were no other witnesses to the tragedy except himself and the man he killed.
How the stone bearing the name of the murdered man came to be under the church is a mystery. Some of the old settlers say that he was buried in the Old Town cemetery, and others hold to the story that his grave was made in the woods at the edge of the village, probably where the old church stood. If the bones of a man are found there when the excavators commence their work everyone will believe that they are the bones of Foster Field (sic), who was the second victim of the Genius of Murder in Montgomery County.
When R.K. Krout heard of the discovery of Foster Fields tombstone under the Christian Church, he went to see it. He was a resident of Ripley Township at the time the murder was committed and remembers all about it and its attendant circumstances. The murder occurred in 1839 and the date on the tombstone is 1829, which discrepancy shows it to have been rejected on that account. He says also that the cutting he at once recognized as that of John Speed, and accounts for its presence under th ehouse from the fact that many years ago the house foundation was repaired and among the stone procured for the purpose was a lot of rejected stone from Speed's marble yard, and this stone was among them. The body of the murdered man was buried in what was at that time known as the Seceder Cemetery, west of Yountsville, there being a church of that branch of Presbyterians located there at that time. - kbz
Note: As a notation for this, Foster Fields was listed in the Crawfordsville Record 9 Jan 1836 as having a letter waiting at the Crawfordsville PO and if not picked up it would be sent to the general post office as a deal letter by 31 March. - kbz
*****
Source: Crawfordsville Record 10 May 1834
SMILING BALL, WILL stand the present season at the stable of the subscriber, 2 1/2 miles SW from Crawfordsville, on Mondays and Tuesdays of each week; and the remaining four days at the stable of John HUGHS in Crawfordsville, where persons wishing to breed from him, can call, examine him and make such contracts as may suit the parties .... FOSTER FIELDS - kbz