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Subject: Excerpt Of History
Date: Thu, 23 Sep 2004 20:09:29 EDT
June 31, 1896 "Macleod Gazette" Canada West, future province of Alberta
"A curious case is now occupying the attention of the police court in
Winnipeg, two men being charged with stealing the body of a petrified man from a farm
in Minnesota. The story in connection with this petrified man is decidedly
romantic. The body was discovered on June 8th last by two farm laborers who were
putting in a culvert, buried in a bed of white alkali clay, three feet below
the surface. The body was then sold to a third party for $1000. In the
meantime the owner of the farm where the body was discovered heard of the incident,
claimed the body and replevied it. A compromise was effected by a company being
formed and the body was taken on exhibition through several towns. New
claimants then appeared on the scene in the persons of two old gentlemen names
Lecount, who state that the petrified remains were those of their father. The
company, however, got the body by furnishing a bond, and took it to Winnipeg fair,
where the Lecounts followed them and swore out warrants against them. The
Lecounts claim their father, Antoine Lecount, a French half breed guide, was
conducting a party of English tourists from Fort Garry to Fort Snelling. He was
accompanied by his wife and two sons, the prosecutors, who were then 10 and 11
years of age. This was 58 years ago. One of the English gentlemen was insane and
one morning seized a rifle and shot their father in the breast. The mother
and her two sons buried the body in the spot in which the petrified corpse was
found. Their only desire, they state, is to give their fathers remains a
Christian burial."
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