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Lanny Nunn?
A History of the Elkland PA Area
Moderator · Yesterday · 24 August 2018
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John Christy Wetzel
Potter or Tioga? A sad story: "Blue Run is situated about five miles from Gaines. It is connected with the outside world by a branch track leading off from the trestle at Gurnee Junction, where the road from the Gurnee mines joins the main track of the Addison & Pennsylvania road, and is about six miles below Sabinsville and two miles below Davis station. It is a little hamlet, located in a ravine, composed of fifteen or twenty houses and a saw- mill, owned by Waite & Atwell. The settlement sprung into existence about four years ago, when the mill was erected for the purpose of working up the pine and hemlock timber in that vicinity. At this place Frank Hancock and family resided, he being employed as a fireman at the saw- mill. Hancock was a native of Potter Brook, Potter county, and was married at Jasper, N.Y., eleven years ago, by Rev. T.V. Moore, to Miss Libbie Wygant, of Goodyear, Cameron county, this State.
Five children were the result of this union:
- Gracie,
- Jason,
- Hannah,
- Susie and
- Willie,
all under ten years of age at time we write.
He murdered four of them while they were asleep, and then, after stabbing himself slightly several times, committed suicide by hanging."
Source: Page(s) 1092-1097 History of Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest, Pennsylvania. Chicago, J.H. Beers & Co., 1890.
Transcribed May 2006 by Nathan Zipfel, Published 2006 by PA-Roots
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Kathy Scheible
So what happened to the wife and the 5th child?
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John Christy Wetzel
Since you asked... I wondered too. It seems to have been a little more complicated:
Mrs. Frank Hancock Confesses to Murdering Children and Husband on Deathbed
From the Patriot (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania), dated July 23, 1891:
Submitted by Denise Hansen
A Woman's Terrible Crime
An Unfaithful Wife Confesses on Her Deathbed to the Murder of Her Family
The Husband Was Always Blamed
Austin, July 22 - A startling story comes from one of the lumber camps at Kettle Creek, this county, the truth of which interested parties have started out to investigate. In April 1889, the people of all this region were horrified by the news that Frank Hancock, a lumberman, living at Blue Run, near the Tioga and Potter county line, had murdered four of his children and committed suicide by hanging himself in his house. The news was made known by Hancock's wife, who had been absent from home on the night of the tragedy. At the coroner's inquest it was developed that Hancock was jealous of his wife, with good cause, and that he had frequently upbraided her for her unfaithfulness. The fact was brought out also that the chirography of Mrs. Hancock resembled in a remarkable manner that of her husband. Many who knew Frank Hancock well refused to believe that he could have committed the shocking crime of which his alleged note declared him guilty, but, on the strength of the evidence submitted, a verdict to the effect that he had murdered his children and himself was rendered. Mrs. Hancock left Blue Run after the investigation was over. She was soon heard of as an abandoned hanger-on of the lumber camps, living with this and that rough lumberman.
A few days ago a messenger from the Kettle Creek camp went to Coudersport, the county seat of Potter county, with the startling story that Mrs. Hancock had died in camp, and that before dying she made a confession, which not only acquitted her husband of the murder of the children, but which declares that she herself and two of her paramours, whom she names, but whose names are not made public, murdered her husband and children. The confession is to the effect that she had become alarmed at the threats that her husband had made against her, because of her persistent unfaithfulness, and, egged on by the two men, she resolved, with their aid, to put Hancock out of the way. The plan was to chloroform him when he was asleep, hang him to a rafter and place a note in his pocket, as if written by himself, stating that he had committed suicide and why.
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John Christy Wetzel
That still leaves a child, and... why kill the kids anyway? Still more questions...
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