The Murderer At The Door

In a recent article in the London Free Press it was reported that human bones had been uncovered outside the wall of the jail in Stratford, Ontario. "The discovery didn't come as a complete surprise" noted the columnist who speculates that the bones belong to Almeda Chattelle the first man hanged in Perth County. Chattelle's execution, in the spring of 1895. The hanging attracted a large group of onlookers who stood on top of the collegiate to witness the event. Almeda Chattelle, the murderer, was once a dinner guest in the home of the widow Harriottte McEwan. According to Gordon's account, the famous incident occurred when John (i.e., Gordon's father and Harriotte's son), Harriotte (Gordon's grandmother) and sister Agnes (Gordon's aunt) "were on the farm at lot 19, concession 3 in the Township of Downie. One afternoon John had gone to town and the two women were busying themselves about the kitchen preparing supper when a loud, insistent knock was heard at the front door of the house. The woman's hearts must have skipped a beat when they looked out for there stood a huge, hulking, bestial type of individual and in a day before the invention of the telephone, the homesteads were isolated from their neighbours. I should think the people would have been more concerned at that particular time because an unusually brutal murder had taken place near Listowel. A young girl, Jessie Keith, had been picking strawberries along the railroad track and had disappeared. You can easily imagine the consternation of the neighbourhood, and the organization of a man hunt that began in the anxious community. Tracking dogs were brought in and the local constabulary was led to a pile of brush which they removed and there they found the dismembered body of Jessie Keith who had before death suffered the fearsome experience of rape.
Undoubtedly, the press at that period would dwell on the lurid details of the happening and Harriotte and Agnes had read the weekly paper.

Afraid to refuse their unwelcome guest's request for a meal, they hurriedly set the table and placed before him a sample of their fare. His roving eyes and surly speech increased their uneasiness. Agnes took the kettle and placed it on the back of the stove but the quick-thinking Harriotte used the action to their advantage.
"Don't put the kettle at the back of the stove, Aggie," she remonstrated, "the men will be in at any time from the hay field!"
At the mention of the word, "men" the visitor gulped down the last remnants of food and asked where work might be obtained. When the flax-mill at Sebringville was suggested, he trod off down the road and disappeared from the sight of the two anxious women who had been sufficiently upset to watch him disappear from their position at the front-gate.
When the weekly paper was placed by the McEwan house that week by the carrier in his sulky and horse, Agnes ran out to obtain it. As she raced back, her mother knew something of importance and interest was in the news.
Breathlessly, Agnes thrust the paper at her mother and pointed to a picture on the front page. It was a picture of their supper guest that week and below it sat the caption: "Chatelle. accused murderer of Jessie Keith, apprehended and lodged in Stratford jail."
No doubt both women experienced a surge of physical weakness because of the news!" This story of how the McEwan women entertained the murderer of Jessie Keith must have been told often enough in the McEwan kitchen that Gordon remembered it 80 years later. But, how close to the actual truth is Gordon's rendition of an incident that happened in 1894, at least 20 years before he was even born? A survey of the newspaper accounts such as that above in the Toronto Daily Mail confirms that the essence of the story is remarkably accurate. Amelda Chattelle did murder Jessie Keith. The evidence shows that Chattelle travelled from St. Marys to Gad's Hill on October 18 and then on to Milverton and toward Listowel where he happened upon Jessie Keith. After the murder Chattelle headed east where he was apprehended in Erin. This sequence of events means that he visited the McEwans before the murder rather than after. Furthermore, the event happened in the fall rather than earlier in the season during haying as suggested by Gordon's story. Gordon's description of Almelda as a big heavy man is confirmed by the newspaper accounts. In Gordon's story there is a dramatic scene where Aggie opens the newspaper to see their dinner guest identified as the murderer of Jessie Keith. Although I have been unable to locate that picture of Amelda, one newspaper claims that Chattelle's picture was sent to the police in England because the manner in which Jessie Keith was disfigured had similarities to the Whitechapel murders perpetrated by Jack the Ripper. Even though the newspapers went into great detail in retracing Chattelle's journey from Alsia Craig through St. Marys and on to Listowel there is no mention of his visit to the McEwan's kitchen. Nonetheless, it is very likely that Almeda Chattelle did knock on the McEwan's door, that he did come in and was offered food, and furthermore, it is equally probable that Gordon's grandmother did frighten off the tramp by telling her daughter Aggie to move the kettle to the front of the stove because the men would be coming in from the fields.