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Related: Culture Forums, Support ForumsWhere is Owen Parfitt?
June 1768 a former tailor, now bedridden, named Owen Parfitt, was put into a chair outside his Shepton Mallet, Somerset, cottage by his sister. She returned to the cottage to make his bed. When she came to fetch him, his chair was empty. The village was searched but no trace of him was ever found.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)Thomas Strode, when digging his garden in 1813, about 150 yards from the cottage in which Parfitt had once lived, had found Parfitt's skeleton buried about two feet deep
Strode's view was not favored by Dr Butler who examined the bones in 1814 and considered them those of a young woman (probably a suicide, in light of the curious name "Board Cross" of that place, where the Lockyer woman had lived at the time of Parfitt 's disappearance)
Parfitt's sister reportedly favored the first hypothesis, on the grounds that Parfitt was a thief, a bandit, a smuggler, and a pimp who had practiced black magic in the West Indies. She reported hearing a loud noise before she discovered him missing
struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)When investigating cases of missing persons, it can be useful to clarify such discrepancies
Perhaps Parfitt's disappearance was first noticed in 1768, at which time people realized he had not actually been seen since 1763
struggle4progress
(118,338 posts)ODDS AND ENDS. UNDER this modest title, Mr. William Maskell has published a description of the small seaport called Bude Haven, along with six short stories ... We are waiting, indeed, for the appearance of a more serious work by Mr. Maskell which is in print and ought to be ready for issue, a descriptive account of the ivories in the collection at South Kensington; but as half of a loaf is better than no bread at all, we shall proceed to discuss the morsel that has been set afloat already this year on the waters of the literary sea ... "Owen Parfitt" is the history of one of those unexplained events that occur from time to time, and leave a long and deep impression from the utter absence of any clue to interpret their strangeness. Owen Parfitt, a poor man, absolutely a cripple, left for a quarter of an hour at the side of a road on the entrance to the town of Shepton Mallett, disappeared, and the most diligent research, and an interval of a hundred years, have failed to find a thread of any kind to guide the curious neighbourhood out of the mystery ...
http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/6th-april-1872/14/books-c
My Good Babushka
(2,710 posts)She was the one taking care of the invalid after his life of dissipation. A pretty thankless task.
Tuesday Afternoon
(56,912 posts)could have been.
frogmarch
(12,158 posts)Seriously, though, this is a fascinating mystery...once you discount the likelihood that he was abducted by ALIENS!