Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

It was March of 1924, up in Renovo. Actually, it was March of 1924 everywhere, but today I’m writing specifically about Renovo. More specifically, a mysterious death that occurred there, and was never really solved.

I’m talking about James Alonzo Harvey.

Over the years, there have been some mysterious deaths in the county. There are plenty of stories of people turning up dead with no explanation, being murdered and nobody ever convicted, and random bodies and skeletons turning up without any actual answers. Harvey’s death was one of these, contributing to the history of Clinton County in that mysterious and fascinating way that we’re known for.

Harvey was twenty-four years old, a World War I vet. He was working in his job as a railroad mechanic, and got off work at 4:30 PM. Normally, I’d say that it was the last time anyone saw him alive, but that wasn’t exactly true.

It was the last moment anyone saw him coherent, for sure, and more or less the time the mystery began.

At 11:30 that same night, Police Officer Zimmerman found him lying in the alley between Third and Fourth Streets, and according to the Clinton County Times, he was “in a helpless condition.” Thinking him to be simply drunk, Zimmerman took him to the borough building to sober up with some help from a security guard. When he wasn’t showing any improvement by noon the next day, a local doctor was called in, and Harvey was taken to the home of his mother, where he lived. The doctor examined him there, and found out that he had a broken neck that partially paralyzed him. This had probably not been improved any by moving him twice.

That was Tuesday. The next day, Wednesday, Harvey died at about three in the morning.

As it was largely unexplained, an investigation was held—It was pretty reasonable to assume Harvey had died of the broken neck, but exactly how he’d gotten it was a mystery. So four local doctors were called in first: Graydon Mervine, Thomas Roach, Frank Dwyer, and O.H. Rosser. These were all reliable men and good doctors, notwithstanding that one of them had failed to notice a broken neck. They examined the body, and diagnosed Harvey with an acute case of “Damned if we know.”

Each doctor had a different idea of what might have happened. None of the ideas were conclusive, and none of them matched anything the other doctors believed. The county coroner, John D. Bailey, held an inquest, and interviewed Zimmerman and the security guard. He spoke with Harvey’s co-workers to verify when he’d left the shop. He checked the scene. All of this accomplished pretty much nothing.

The county detective and the state police checked into it, and also failed to resolve anything. Harvey’s injuries remained as mysterious as they’d ever been. The inquest stated,”That one James Alonzo Harvey, died on the morning of Wednesday, March 26th, at 3 AM, as a result of an injury suffered on the night of Monday, March 24th, the manner in which the injury was received being unknown.”

A funeral was held that Saturday at the Saint Joseph’s Catholic Church, with military honors and conducted by Reverend Joseph Diamond. Harvey was buried in Saint Joseph’s Cemetery.

And if you’re looking for more definitive answers, don’t bother, because nothing further was ever found out. Harvey’s death remains unsolved to this day. James Alonzo Harvey died of a broken neck, without explanation, and has stayed a mystery for almost a hundred years.