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Amherst Bulletin Wednesday, May 3, 1989: A Look Back: William O'Brien's skeleton was found in 1904 ( Text )
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Amherst Bulletin Wednesday, May 3, 1989: A Look Back: William O'Brien's skeleton was found in 1904
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Amherst Bulletin Wednesday, May 3, 1989: A Look Back: William O'Brien's skeleton was found in 1904
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A2023.001.005
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Amherst Bulletin Wednesday, May 3, 1989:
A Look Back
By DANIEL LOMBARDO
Jones Library Curator.

In last week’s “A Look Back” we saw a young Pelham man dash out of his house in the middle of the night, wearing nothing but his nightshirt. It was Sept. 3, 1901, and the man had been drinking hard cider with his mother and stepfather.
He had become angry, possibly delirious, and leapt from a window and ran into the night. A lengthy manhunt by nearly 75 men turned up nothing. But three years later, two woodchoppers discovered a skeleton on Mount Lincoln.
William G. O’Brien was 39 years old when he died. He made a very precarious living as a woodchopper, and he and his wife had to live with his stepfather, Reuben - Allen, and his mother. The house was on the road leading to Mount Lincoln, and the family was only one of several in the area that lived in poverty.
Eventually everyone, including Northampton Detective McKay. and Amherst’s Sheriff David Tillson, gave up the search for O'Brien and all but forgot him.
On Sept. 20, 1904, Peter Pierre and his son made their unnerving discovery of O’Brien’s skeleton. The Belchertown pair had been cutting wood on Mount Lincoln for about three weeks when they came upon the remains in the undergrowth.
The skeleton lay on its back with its arms beneath it and roots growing up between the bones. Without disturbing the remains, the Pierces hurried to Belchertown, marking trees along the way so that their steps could be retraced. In Belchertown they first notified Sheriff Barton, then Detective McKay, medical examiner Dr. C.F. Branch, and Sheriff Tillson were informed.
By means of an unusual fracture of left leg, certain characteristics of the facial bones, and a bit of shirt, the remains were identified by E.P. Bartlett and others. The body had been found within three- quarters of a mile of O’Brien’s house. Yet dozens of searchers and sheriffs had missed the body in the dense woods in their nearly three months of looking in 1901.
While rumors of foul play had surrounded the mysterious disappearance of William O’Brien, it appeared most likely that he died of exposure after passing out from the effects of the alcohol.

The old map at right shows the Mount Lincoln area of Pelham, where O’Brien’s skeleton was found.
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