Love and Suicide
Defiance Democrat (Defiance, Ohio) 1871 April 15
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Miss Marry Jane Lovell, a young lady, was found dead in a thicket in a wild,
secluded region in faint township, RosS county, on Thursday morning, under
circumstances that point unmistakably to suicide. For several years past a
criminal intimacy has existed between her and a man named John S. Blackburn, a
cattle dealer, of Greenfield, Highland county. He is married and has five
children—two daughters and three sons. Miss Lovell was about twenty-five years
of age, unmarried. and possessed of rare personal attractions. She resided with
her aunt at Leesburg, but was known to visit Greenfield frequently, where she
invariably met Blackburn, and was known to bear him company up and down the
railroad to Cincinnati. On Monday the pair visited Cincinnati, and Miss Lovell
was last seen alive by her neighbors on the evening of that day.
At midnight Wednesday, Mr. Mark Marshal of Greenfield, was roused from bed by Hugh Milligan, a brother-in-law of Blackburn, who told the Marshal that Miss Lovell was lying dead at Cliff Run. Being questioned, the informant stated that he had his information from Blackburn, who told him he saw her take poison there that night and throw away the bottle. The marshal and his party reached (he designated place at four o'clock Thursday morning, and on the right bank of Cliff run the body of the woman was found in a thicket of pawpaw bushes rigid in death, with mouth and features distorted by the sharp agony of the last struggle, the eyes staring wide open, and the whale posture indicating the most terrible throes of mortal dissolution.
The poor creature was handsomely attired in black, and there was a scrupulous neatness of toilette that indicated taste and refinement. An abaca dress, black velvet cloak, black hat, feather and veil and black lasting waiters comprised the outward covering, while all beneath was spotless white and of the finest fabric. A coroner's jury is investigating the case, and the belief is general that the verdict will be death by suicide.
Blackburn is at his home in Greenfield, to all intents and purposes insane. He told his brother-in-law Milligan that he and Miss Lovell walked from Greenfield on Monday night to Milligan's farm. and there procuring a horse the pair rode down to the wilderness where the wretched woman offered up her life. "You will find her dead there, I tell you," he repeated again and again to Milligan. "I saw her take poison and throw away the bottle. She wanted me to take some, but I would not, and she took it and died. I tell you she is down there, dead."
Such was the plain and terrible statement of the tragedy which this guilty man made and reiterated to his kinsman. What prompted the night ride to the lonely glen where the body of the woman was found? The aspect of the place is forbidding, and its solitude is seldom disturbed by human presence. In all Southern Ohio, a more wild and romantic spot could scarcely be found.
Note: John Samuel was charged with 1st degree murder and found guilty. A small Portions of the court document is here