The Hartford Herald

FROM TAYLORTOWN.

TAYLORTOWN, Sept. 15, 1875.

A FORTUNE BEARING TREE.

Last spring Mr. Ham. Brown hired a young man from Butler county, by the name of Austin Brown. Said young man told Mr. Brown the following curious incident: He said seven or eight years since, a man of very doubtful character, stayed at their house for some time. He gambled whenever opportunity offered. Said man's name was Bill. Bumpus (or so he styled himself). While Bumpus was staying with Brown, he (Bumpus), heard that some men were at Rochester for the purpose of arresting him, when he heard this he took Brown with him in the woods, placed $1700.00 in a hollow tree, (nine hundred dollars in greenbacks and the rest in gold and silver), and told Brown that if the men arrested him, and he heard nothing from him in eighteen months, for him to take the money and use it. The men did arrest Bumpus, and Brown never has heard from him since. Brown has been afraid to take the money for fear that there might be something wrong in regard to it, but last Saturday night (so he says) he went and got the money, which he says he now has.

Some people remember the arrest of Bumpus, although it is a strange story.

N. B.—Brown has been trying to play the devoted to a handsome widow, but has a rival in a gentleman who told said widow that he had $1700.00 in cash. I wonder if Brown's luck will not turn the current in his favor?

H. B. T.