Show A T STEWARTS BODY The Story of Its Mysterious Disappearance AXD SUBSEQUENT RECOVERY At a Cost of S2OOOO the Relatives Secured the Return of the Remains Re-mains They Are Now Safe A T Stewarts Body NEW YORK October 29The mystery which has so long enveloped the fate of the body of the millionaire dry goods dealer Alexander T Stewart forms the subject of a chapter in Superintendent Wallings book which is soon to be published The ex superintendent professes to give the only true story of the stealing of the body and also alleges that the body was subsequently returned to a representative of Judge Hilton The remains were buried in St Marks church yard corner of Second Avenue and Tenth Street in an underground vault the entrance to which was covered by a flag stone which in turn was sodded over level with the surrounding sur-rounding surface so there was no outward out-ward evidence of its location After the theft of the body the first clue came from General Patrick H Jones expostmaster of New York who notified Walling that an exsoldierwho had served under him claimed to know something about Stewarts body and with proper encouragement would give information leading to its recovery The 8 perintendent submitted sub-mitted the offer to Judge Hilton who declared that he would never pay one cent for Mr Stewarts bones unless they came accompanied by the thieves in irons General Jones a few days j later gave the police a package expressed ex-pressed to him from Boston containing contain-ing the coffin plate wnjeh was identified identi-fied by the engraver who had done the work To complete their identification the robbers sent a piece of paper t sat fitted exactly the hole in the velvet coverof the coffin cut out by the liie es when the body was removed udge Hilton remained unalterable and the case was dropped by the authorities In January 18S2 General Jones called at headquarters He brought with him a parcel which contained the silver knobs and several of the 1 audIts belonging be-longing to the coffin in which the body had been buried He also showed some letters which he receiv d They purported pur-ported to have been written in uanada and were signed by Henry G Romaine One letter which contained the piece of paper promised that if further proof was required to send the coffin plate upon the insertion of certain personals in the New YorkHerald This was done Under date of Boston I January 311879 a letter came saying the plate was sent from there to avoid the scrutiny of the custom officials on the Canadian border The plate was received and identified General Jones I was instructed in case the relatives were ready to negotiate for the remains i to insert this personal in the Herald Canada will do business Counsel This was done at Judge Hiltons request re-quest The reply which came from Boston on the 11th of February set forth the terms upon which the body would be restored They were as follows fol-lows First the amount to be paid shall be 200OCO Second the body will be delivered to yourself and Judge Hilton within twenty miles of the city of Montreal and no other persons shall bs present Third the money to be placed in your hands or under your control until Judge Hilton is fully satisfied when you will deliver it to my representative repre-sentative Fourth Both parties to maintain forever an unbroken silence in regard to the transaction Judge Hilton refused to agree to the terms proposed and further declined to negotiate nego-tiate through the medium of a personal Romaine soon ordered Mr Jones to break off all communications with Judge Hilton and open negotiations with Mrs Stewart No notice was taken of this request but in March Judge Hilton made an offer of 25000 for the body General Jones made the fact known to Romaine who respectfully but firmly declined This closed the correspondence cor-respondence The robbers becoming discouraged now offered to sell the body for 100000 Mrs Stewart Stew-art was willing and ordered her representatives to pay the amount They delayed matters until the figure was reduced to 20000 which was accepted ac-cepted The conditions of the delivery were severe A messenger with the money was to leave New York city at 10 p m alone in a onehorse wagon and drive into Westchester County along a lonely road which was loaf cated on a map sent by the thieves Some time before morning if the man was acting in good faith and was not accompanied or followed by detectives he would be met and given further directions di-rections A young relative of Mrs Stewarts undertook the hazardous task and was met by the thieves and after the money was delivered and certaih formalities carried out the body was delivered to him the next night The body was conveyed to the cathedral An empty coffin had been already deposited in the cathedral at the dead of night Two men transferred trans-ferred the body to it from the trunk Then they placed the coffin in an inaccessible in-accessible vault beneath the dome If any one should again touch unbidden the vault which holds the bones of the merchant millionaire the touch would release the hidden spring which would shake the chimes in the tower and send an instant alarm throughout the town |