Chapter 18: A visit to the Switzerland Road
Imagine the scene on the morning of February 11, 1874, when 12 jurors and Deputy Sheriff Keene piled into the largest sled the community could find, named General Grant after the top Civil War Union general and President of the United States.
The General Grant needed a large team of horses to haul her across the frozen ground, but she had proven her mammoth capacity four years earlier when she successfully towed “a few dozen” of the laziest and biggest men attending a fat men’s convention at the Twin cities participated during a wintry parade of stout visitors.
That morning, a bitter wind drove snow across the highways and byways of Lewiston and Auburn, so cold that the Lewiston Evening Journal joked it was a fine day as long as you had access to a glowing grate.
Keene steered the big sled onto Switzerland Road so the jury could trudge around the spot where prosecutors said the body of Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” Lowell was found last fall, three and a half years after her disappearance.
Eben Pillsbury, an attorney for accused killer James M. “Jim” Lowell, suggested the visit, telling the judge that by seeing the location, the jury “could better understand its surroundings.”
Attorney General Harris Plaisted, who handled much of the prosecution in the courtroom, agreed the tour made sense. He convinced the judge to also add “several locations around town” from Lewiston to help the jury envision other important events he wanted them to be aware of.
When they returned to the courtroom after a little over an hour, the jury saw a crowded courtroom with people jostling for a view and many accepting the reality that they would have to stand all day to attend the trial.
The Journal noted that fewer women were in attendance than on the first day, perhaps because “the morning brings with it domestic demands that cannot be neglected.”
Still, it was said, there were many young women struggling through a rough crowd to find decent seats.
Much of the early testimony rehashed the same material found in the investigation and prosecution, with much focusing on the material and construction of the dress Lizzie wore.
Eventually, prosecutors had to convince the jury that the body found in the woods in 1870 was all that was left of Lizzie.
At this distance, however, the identity of the skeleton is so certain that it is a pointless endeavor for anyone who has not had to serve on this jury to describe the types of fabrics, stitching and the like in detail.
Even then, few doubted it was Lizzie, in part because no one had ever thought of anyone else that it might be. There were no other missing women in the community.
And it wasn’t the kind of place a stranger would randomly choose to lay down for an eternal nap.
Still, Androscoggin attorney George Wing and Plaisted had a case to build. And the first step was to convincingly argue that those bones belonged to Lizzie.
That was the easier part of the equation, though Pillsbury valiantly tried to refute the claim that Lizzie had provided the skeleton.
The more difficult piece was showing that Lowell had both the opportunity and the desire to kill his wife.
Annie Maney, an assistant to Sophronia Blood, Lizzie’s landlady, told the court she remembered Lowell coming into the house after tea that night and then taking Lizzie for a walk after she had put on her new black dress.
“They went up to the Bates,” Maney said, possibly referring to the mill or college. However, both were in the right direction for someone who was eventually headed for the Swiss road.
Another woman, Frances Jepson, told the court she saw Lowell and Lizzie “up there where the town pump is” on Main Street that night, walking away from the river.
“They both bowed and spoke,” Jepson said. “They rode.”
Blood said the couple rode in an open carriage with a white horse pulling them.
Blood said she stayed up late to see Lizzie when she returned, but that her friend didn’t show up that night.
The next day, Blood said she was keeping an eye out for Lowell, and when she saw him she asked him, “Where’s Lizzie this morning?”
Lowell claimed he left her outside Blood’s door when the factory clock struck 10. If she never came in, he said, she probably “got off with that damn circus boy” she spoke to earlier.
“He wasn’t looking at me,” when he spoke, Blood testified. “He seemed to be looking down at his feet.”
Lowell also told Jepson the next day that his wife had gone out with a man from the circus.
Both Jepson and Blood said Lowell told them a few days later he had gone to Portland in search of Lizzie but found the circus had moved on. He told them he couldn’t find them.
This is the 18th chapter in a series that will run every Sunday for most of the year. Follow the secret to here.
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