The Hartford Herald

A Romance of the War.

That truth is stranger than fiction is again proven in the curious story of how a trooper in Torrey's wild riders regiment found his mother after forty years. The trooper, Tom Williams, Troop K., at Jacksonville left last week for Fort Meade, Florida, to see a mother whom he has thought dead for many years. She is now 84 years of age and she will see a boy she has mourned for dead many years.

Many years ago the family lived on the border. Indians made a raid and killed Williams' father. The mother, with heroic spirit, bravely fought off the Indians, killing several, when she was knocked down by the merciless blows of a tomahawk wielded by a red demon. Tom, then a youngster of 7 or 8, was taken with the band. He lived with them and was for a year or two subjected to the worst kind of treatment. He bears scars where slits were made and skin torn off by the inhuman red-skins in their efforts to 'harden' him. He also forgot the English language.

One day the band he was with met defeat and he was rescued by the whites. It took several years to win him back to civilization. He was then a strong, healthy youth of 18 or 20. He took up the cowboy's pursuit and lived in Wyoming. He enlisted under Col. Torrey and came here.

In some manner his strange story leaked out, and in some way his old mother, now living at Fort Meade, South Florida, 200 miles south of here, was informed of it. She communicated with friends here. Williams was informed of the fact that his mother still lived. In less than twenty hours he secured a furlough, and he left to see his old mother. It was a queer story, and his comrades crowded to the depot to see him off and wish him all manner of good luck and good wishes.