The Mystery of the Missing Bridegroom
From Time to Thyme
By Paula Dunn
There’s an intriguing story in Haines’ 1915 Hamilton County history about a bridegroom who mysteriously disappeared on his wedding day almost 160 years ago. Very few specific details are included, however, so I decided to try to find more information.
I wasn’t overly optimistic since no names or exact dates are provided and Noblesville newspapers for the time periods involved no longer exist.
Luckily, I found plenty of details in the May 21, 1911 Indianapolis Star. (An entire page!) Using that information, I discovered that a number of newspapers all over the country picked up the sensational tale in 1911.
The story began in 1867 when Sarah “Sally” Vert and her fiancé, Eugene Woodmansee, set an Aug. 15 date for their wedding. (The Star spells her name “Virt,” but most local references to the family use “Vert.”)
The ceremony was to take place at 8 p.m., at the Vert farmhouse in the Little Chicago neighborhood (the area around Little Chicago Road and State Road 38.)
That evening the wedding guests were greeted by a home and yard filled with candlelight and a huge feast that had been prepared for “the most lavish affair that had ever taken place in that part of the country.”
Everything was perfect . . . except the groom never showed up.
Eugene had to travel to Noblesville from his home in Illinois, but there was no question that he made it here. Reverend E. F. Hasty, who was to perform the ceremony, encountered him on the southwest corner of the courthouse square just as the minister was preparing to leave for the Vert home.
Reverend Hasty offered to give the young man a lift in his buggy, but Eugene declined. He told the minister he’d hired a buggy of his own, in case the couple decided to return to town and take a train somewhere after the ceremony.
The reverend left, assuming that Eugene would follow shortly.
That was the last time Eugene Woodmansee was ever seen alive.
Years passed, and the heartbroken Sally eventually married someone else. She died in 1888, never knowing what had become of her first fiancé.
Fast forward to January, 1911.
Bert Cloud, who lived in the general area occupied today by the new apartment buildings near the Conner Street bridge, was digging in an old shed on his property when he uncovered some human bones.
His curiosity piqued, he kept digging, hoping to find the rest of the skeleton.
According to the Star, a couple of nights later Cloud had a dream in which he unearthed an old trunk containing a complete human skeleton.
Inspired by his dream, the following day he dug deeper into the hole and found a rotting old trunk with a complete skeleton inside. The body had been bent double to fit the space, but was well preserved.
Uncovered with the remains were a piece of tissue paper with “E” written in ink and a distinctive ring. The discovery of the trunk’s contents led some of the town’s older residents to recall Eugene’s mysterious disappearance 44 years earlier.
Someone tracked down the widow of Eugene’s brother and sent the ring to her. Mrs. Woodmansee recognized it immediately as the twin of one owned by her late husband. She said the two brothers had been given identical rings by their father on their 21st birthday.
A few months later, five more skeletons were uncovered a few feet from the original hole. The discovery of those remains, stacked up against the wall of an old cellar, appeared to finally solve the mystery of Eugene’s disappearance.
Cloud’s shed had been built on the site of what had been a rather unsavory roadhouse. The general conclusion was that Eugene and the other victims had probably been robbed and murdered by people at that roadhouse, possibly as the result of a card game.
