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Show Nature Marked Crave of Murdered Soldier By the roadside near the old Hosmer place, between Avon and Caledonia In western New .York, a wild flower grows that la interesting because it Is the only one of Its kind In all that region, but that Is still more Interest- ' ' lng because It la connected with a strange, true story of the War o 1812. One Sunday afternoon IS October, 1814, a large body of troops from Fort Niagara, near Buffalo, encamped to cat tbelr midday rations on their way to Sackett's Harbor. They had been paid the day before, and were Jovial and lively; but before night the body of dead soldier was discovered in a clump of bushes, not far from the smoldering . embera of the camp fire. There was a bullet bole through his head; and an attempt to conceal bla body indicated that he had been murdered. mur-dered. Word was promptly sent to the officer of-ficer in command of the troops and by , , a roll call he discovered that two stragglers had been left behind when the troops resumed their march. One of them was the dead soldier. John Alexander from Connecticut The other oth-er was suspected of the murder, arrested, ar-rested, tried and punished. John Alexander Alex-ander waa burled by the side of the road where he waa found, and there the matter dropped. But the following follow-ing year a plant "of a species unknown before in that region sprang up on the grave, and the next year two other stalks of the same, plant appeared a few feet from the first one. Little attention at-tention was paid to them at first, but gradually people noticed that the same unknown plant sprang up vigorously-each vigorously-each year in the same spot and flourished flour-ished and blossomed about the time, of the wheat harvest Finally, a visiting botanist recognized recog-nized it as false gromwell, a plant that It Indigenous to the toll of Connecticut; Con-necticut; and tome one remembered that Connecticut Was the soldier's home state. How came this Connecticut Connec-ticut plant to grow ou that lonely, neglected neg-lected grave beside that New York road? people asied. Wat there In the-toldler'a the-toldler'a pocket a letter from loved ones at home containing the flower oft the plant, which had ripened Into teed: and taken root t The mystery has never b n solved, but the flower ttlll blossoms every year on the spot where the murdered soldier wat burled more than a cn- turr ago. . -. |