Lou’s View: DEATH OF A SCISSORS-GRINDER
By Lou Bernard
You know what they say: “The criminal always returns to the scene of the crime.” It’s a common staple of murder mysteries written by Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. It’s right up there with the lesser-known rule: “Sometimes the criminal doesn’t return but confesses on his deathbed years later in the hopes someone will mail the confession back to the scene of the crime.”
Okay, maybe that one only happened the once.
It revolved, more or less, around a letter received in 1880. It was August 19th, and the Clinton Democrat ran a short article describing the situation. Before I get into the actual article, I need to recap, the way they did. Let’s go back three years, to an incident that happened in Castanea, which was about seven years old by this point.
In the fall of 1877, a skeleton was found in Harvey’s Gap, where the Bald Eagle Mountains run through Castanea Township. Now, nobody who finds a skeleton says,”Oh. Hunh. Interesting,” and goes on about their day. The police looked into it, and discovered two things. First, they found that it was the local scissors grinder, which was apparently an actual career once upon a time. And second, that he’d been murdered.
And then nothing really happened. It wasn’t solved immediately. Time passed.
So skip ahead to the summer of 1880. A local man in Castanea received a letter from a friend who had once also lived in Castanea, but moved out west. (Most of these people were never named in the press, including the scissors grinder.) The letter contained the news that John Roff had died—Also a former Castanea resident, who had moved out west as well, somewhere near the letter-writer.
So, for those keeping score, John Roff had died. The friend knew about it, and wrote to Castanea with the news. And also included the news that, just before dying, Roff had confessed to murdering the scissors-grinder.
“We are informed that a letter has been received by a citizen of Castanea Township from a friend in the west, stating that John Roff, who left Castanea some years since, recently died out there, and before his death confessed to having killed the scissor grinder, whose skeleton was found in Harvey’s Gap, Bald Eagle Mountain, during the fall of 1877,” the Democrat reported. This is the kind of phrase I’m wading through as I try to untangle this whole situation. If you’re having a hard time keeping up with the story, due to the lack of names and the jumping around in the time-frame, just know that I also am having a hard time keeping up. But I’m trying.
The incident, as relayed sort of fifth-hand to the newspaper, went like this: The scissors-grinder was traveling to Nittany Valley, and stopped to stay with Roff overnight along the way. In the morning, Roff gave him directions, which sent him through the gap in the mountain. Then, having sent the grinder on his way, Roff followed him and killed the man. Then he left the body to be discovered a few months later, presumably spoiling some other traveler’s day.
The motive, also confessed on the deathbed, was that the scissors grinder had been carrying fifteen dollars, which evidently was worth a whole lot more in those days. (Yes, I am aware that people kill each other over parking spaces all the time.) The confession lined up with the information collected at the time of the skeleton’s discovery; police had made a note that the skeleton seemed to be carrying other items, but no money.
So a letter was received and then relayed to the newspaper, and a three-year-old mystery was cleared up. And over a century later, I found the article in the archives, and copied it. I’d really like to cut it out and put it on my bulletin board, but my scissors are too dull. I’d get them sharpened, but I can’t find a scissors grinder. Apparently John Roff killed the last one, dammit.
