close

Notice: Undefined offset: 0 in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/single_post_meta_query.php on line 43

Notice: Trying to get property 'paywall' of non-object in /usr/web/cs-washington.ogdennews.com/wp-content/themes/News_Core_2023_WashCluster/includes/single/single_post_meta_query.php on line 43

Vanished Part 2: A massive search and a convenient suspect

7 min read
1 / 3

This engraved illustration appeared in the June 13 edition of the Washington Daily Reporter, which was not yet capable of printing photographs.

2 / 3

Photo courtesy of Linda Stanley

Harry Lane’s father, Robert Johnson Lane Sr.

3 / 3

Photo courtesy of Linda Stanley

Harry’s mother, Sarah Ellen Moore Lane

The story so far: On June 10, 1893, after collecting $200 for his sales as a huckster, Harry Lane heads home from Washington for the family farm in South Strabane Township but never reaches there. The next day, Harry’s bloodstained hat is found, and murder is suspected.

Many farmers and friends of the Lane family searched the woods and fields for the corpse of Harry Lane on the morning of Monday, June 12, 1893, the day after he was reported missing. When more pressing duties called them away, others took their place in the hunt.

Around noon the blood-soaked hat was taken to Washington to be examined.

“One report has at least been exploded, and that is that the blood found in the hat of Harry Lane was that of a fowl,” the Daily Reporter stated. “Drs. Grayson, Scott and Acheson and Prof. Linton examined it and arrived at the conclusion that it was not the blood of a chicken as many had thought might be the case. They are positive that it is the blood of a mammal, and all the indications are that it is human blood.”

Later that afternoon a stone was discovered about 20 yards from where the hat was found. The newspaper reported: “This stone was of limestone, was flat and nearly the size of a dinner plate, weighing about five pounds. Near the edge was a dark spot which very much resembled blood. There were two sharp projections also on the edge which looked as if they might correspond to the two cuts on the bloody hat.”

The search for the body of his son grew even larger when Robert Johnson Lane offered a $100 reward to the person who could find it.

A trail of blood

Later in the week, drops of blood were seen along the east side of the road leading to Harry Lane’s house. It was explained at the time that the drops were not discovered sooner because they probably had been covered by dust from all the traffic of the searchers and only became visible after a rain had fallen Thursday night.

These developments drew the attention of Washington County’s district attorney and coroner, who joined the investigation led by County Detective William McBride. As an experiment, they took the horse that Harry was riding at the time he disappeared to the spot where the bloody hat was found. A man mounted the animal with the bridle thrown over its head and it was allowed to walk unguided. It passed Robert Lane’s house, than went past Harry’s house and continued north for some distance until it started up another narrow lane and stopped. At the spot, a clot of blood and some hairs – light brown and thought to be from a man – were seen on a fence post. Eyewitnesses told the Daily Reporter that this experiment was repeated several times with the same result.

The investigators began to theorize that Harry’s body must have been thrown over his horse with his head facing east, causing blood to be found on that side of the lane. The killer or killers then led the horse to the place near the Zediker farm, where the body was put on a wagon or other conveyance to be taken elsewhere, and the horse returned to the place where the crime was committed.

A suspicious neighbor

As a result of the experiment, McBride obtained a search warrant for the property of John Zediker, on which the post was located. The subsequent search of Zediker’s old brick home and the other three houses on the 1,300-acre farm turned up nothing. Zediker was questioned about his whereabouts on the night of June 10, and he and other members of the family stated that he was at home all night.

Attention soon turned another half-mile up the road to Zediker Station of the Baltimore & Ohio line, where a large oil tank was located. The cover to the tank had been tampered with, and the thought was that Harry’s body might have been dumped there. Some were sure that the body would be found once the 38,000-barrel tank had been drained of oil, and friends of the Lane family began raising money to do so.

Word of McBride’s search of the Zediker property got out, and soon all the talk in the neighborhood and in Pancake and on every corner in Washington was about the suspected killer and the bad blood that existed between his family and the Lanes. The Weekly Post of Pittsburgh, in a dispatch dated June 26, 1893, went into great detail about this animosity. “The Zedikers and the Lanes have lived long in that neighborhood but have never been friendly,” the article stated. “The Zedikers did not court the friendship of any of their neighbors. They belong to no church, while the Lanes are Dunkards.”

Zediker had for some spiteful reason stolen a horse from someone staying at his son’s home, according to the Weekly Post. Daniel Lane, who had seen Zediker leading the horse away, was called as a witness, as was a boarder at the Lanes’ house. That boarder, Emmett Gussman, happened to be dating Zediker’s half sister, and when he went to Zediker’s house to court her, Zediker knocked him senseless with a fireplace poker. When he regained consciousness, he fled the house without his hat and coat. He returned, in the company of Harry Lane’s farmhands, to confront Zediker, who was charged and jailed for assault. A few days later, Zediker convinced the magistrate to jail Gussman and the two farmhands – Stewart Early and Martin Kirkbride – on charges of trespassing and making threats. Harry bailed the three out of jail, for which Zediker was furious. The charges against Gussman and the farmhands were dismissed, and Zediker was ordered to pay $300 in fines and court costs.

The search intensifies

There was considerable pressure on the county commissioners to offer their own reward for finding the body, and finally, in the absence of the other two commissioners, J.E. Stewart relented and posted a $300 reward. And a private citizen, Charley Caldwell, began raising money by subscription for another reward of $500. These were great sums at the time, and the incentive to hunt for Harry’s corpse intensified. In the coming weeks, the Monongahela River near Brownsville was dragged, ponds and lakes were dragged and poked and teams of men on foot and horseback combed the hills and coal banks from Washington to Bentleyville.

“It is remarkable the interest which is manifested by the neighbors of the Lane family and by even persons from a great distance,” the Daily Reporter stated on June 17. “They are on the ground every day, and scores of men are willing at any time to take up the search. On Friday evening they could be seen coming from all directions…”

Meanwhile the Lane family endured not just their anguish but all the attention. “A constant stream of people from town and the surrounding country kept constantly coming and going,” the newspaper reported. “Teams were hitched by the roadside, while men reclined in the yard, and many sympathizing women went to the house and helped to console the deeply distressed members. Mrs. Lane was there with her child, a bright little infant over a year old, which frolicked on the porch and in the yard, keeping up a merry prattle, too young to realize the dark cloud which hung over the household.”

As they searched, the details of this dispute between John Zediker and the Lanes were retold and embellished, and the public’s animosity toward Zediker grew.

It would all come to a head a little more than two weeks after Harry Lane’s disappearance when a large group of searchers converged on the Zediker farm intent on finding evidence of that farmer’s guilt. That he had left the property in a hurry ahead of the men only fueled their suspicion.

Some had come with a lynching in mind.

Next: But what if there is no body?

CUSTOMER LOGIN

If you have an account and are registered for online access, sign in with your email address and password below.

NEW CUSTOMERS/UNREGISTERED ACCOUNTS

Never been a subscriber and want to subscribe, click the Subscribe button below.

Starting at $3.75/week.

Subscribe Today