The following is an article that appeared on the front page of the Chambersburg Public Opinion. As with any case regarding the disappearance and unexplained death of a youth, this story attracted a good deal of local press coverage.
Public opinion Chambersburg Saturday November 23rd 1912
Mack Irvin’s Remains Found In Mountains After 3 Years; Skull Fractured And Lead Slug In Bones
Town Lad Went Hunting With Paul Johns In 1909; Johns Came Home Alone And Nothing Ever Heard Of Irvin; Coroner Will Hold Inquest Today; Johns Held In Cage As Witness
After lying in a wild and lonely place on Broad Mountain, two miles from the nearest human habitation, since some time in October 1909, all that remained Mack Irvin was brought to St. Thomas yesterday and given to the Undertaker Sellers to prepare for burial.
This opens up a case that has brought uncertainty to the home of Mr. and Mrs. James Irvin of Water Street for the past three years. While they sometimes felt that Mac was dead, they never knew.
After attending a show here October 14 1909, Mack Irvin, then aged 13 years, and Paul Johns, then age 16 years, left here on a hunting trip. They walked to Edenville, where they slept a while and then started up the mountains hunting, this being the opening day of the hunting season.
Mack had worked with his father hauling lumber in that part of the county, and he knew the district well despite his tender years.
That night young Johns, who is a son of Mr. and Mrs. Frisby Johns, returned home alone. The next day he told the Irvin family that he had left Mack “in the middle of the road in the mountain,” and that Mac said he intended walking over to his uncle’s, John Buck, not far from Willow Hill.
As young Irvin had on several occasions gone away on these walking trips nothing was thought of it for several days. But when it was learned that he had not arrived at Buck’s the family begin to be worried. The fact of the disappearance of the youth was published, but nothing was ever heard of him.
Some time later young Johns told his mother and she told Mrs. Irvin that he knew that Mack was in the West and that he would return some day. This is a significant statement.
This was the way the case stood for over three years.
On Wednesday Walter Foreman and Robert Pittinger, young man of Greencastle, were out hunting. From Edenville they wandered on the Broad mountain, which is about two miles from County Auditor John Foreman’s place near Franklin Furnace. There on the hill between Devil’s Half Acre and Wolf Hollow, in a place that is rocky and full of scrub oak, they saw a bone lying. They investigated, thinking at first it was a deer bone. Then they saw a human skull and some clothing. In picking up a piece of the coat several human rib bones stuck to it. This was enough for the young men. They marked several trees and left the place.
Yesterday morning Coroner Maclay was notified of the find. He had the two young men go to the spot and secure the bones and remnants of the clothing. They brought the remaining to Undertaker Sellers at St. Thomas and there Corner Maclay examined them.
The Coroner decided to go to the scene and with Dr. John H. Kinter, John Foreman, Irvin and James Shatzer the trip was made. They drove to about a mile and a half of the place and then had to walk over the rough mountain.
In digging in the place where the bones had been found they stirred up some more bones and also found a leaden slug. Most of the bones of the body were recovered, some being gone however. The skull showed the marks of squirrels having gnawed it and it is supposed mountain animals carried off the other bones. There was one shoe remaining.
The remnants of the clothing were brought to town by Coroner Maclay last night. The father and several of the brothers of the Irvin boy examined them and positively identified them as being the parts of clothing worn by Mack the day he left home.
This establishes without doubt the fact that the bones are the remains of young Irvin.
How he met death is far from solved. There are scores of conjectures, all of which at present can be used in the case.
However the Coroner did learn in Edenville that before the two boys, Irvin and Johns, had left that village they had some sort of a fight. The Edenville people say that they had only one gun. The Irvin people think they had two guns, both the property of Johns.
In the account of the disappearance in Public Opinion at the time it was stated that they had only one gun and that Johns brought it home with him when he returned that night.
It was a shotgun and the leaden slug found with bones was as big as a hickory nut. It is stated however by firearms experts that such slugs are sometimes used in shotguns.
The slug was not found in the skull, but there is a good-sized hole in the left side of the skull, which looks like it has been inflicted by a bullet. There is a decided fracture of the skull, extending over the top. The slug could have fallen out the skull after the brain tissue had decomposed.
How came the hole in the skull and the fracture? Where did the lead slug come from? These two queries are yet unanswered.
Another thing was discovered by the Coroner and his party. Over the place where the bones lay a sapling had been placed. The sapling shows unmistakeable signs of having been chopped with an axe and then placed over the remains.
It looks like some one may have shot the lad and then placed the tree over the body. But if the shooter went to that much trouble, why did he not bury the body? The condition of the remains show that they had not been buried under earth and where they were found is not particularly wild.
A wild bullet may have hit the lad and killed him. The presence of the hole in the skull and the lead slug remove the conjecture of his being lost. Anyhow the place where his body lay is on the top of the hill that leads down to a road that goes to Mount Parnell.
When Coroner Maclay communicated his first findings to District Attorney Nicklas that official requested Chief Klenzing to secure young Johns. He was married last week to a daughter of David R. Porter and was working in the woolen mills. Chief Klenzing went there and got Johns.
On the outside Johns asked the Chief why he was being taken and the Chief told him that they had found the remains of young Irvin. Johns replied: “Is that so?” He showed no fright and went on to say that he and Irvin had gone up the mountain on Oct. 15, 1909, and that Irvin had left him on top of the mountain. He told the Chief he could take him to the very place.
That was about all Johns would say. He was placed in the cage and held as a witness, pending development. Last night when it was learned that Irvin had undoubtedly been killed, Chief Klenzing and Deputy Sheriff Robert Walker questioned Johns further, but he did not make any damaging statements. He maintains he left Irvin and came home and that is all he knows about it, he says.
In order to get as many facts as possible Coroner Maclay decided to hold an inquest. This will be held in the St. Thomas Hotel, beginning this morning at 10 o'clock. The following will be in the jury: John Foreman, Irvin Shatzer, Edenville; Johnston Gillan, Calvin Spidal, John Eberly and Calvin Sellers, St. Thomas.
Evidence will be adduced establishing the identity of the remains; the fact that Irvin and Johns quarreled will be shown, and that death likely came from the lead slug and fractured skull will be offered.
Young Johns will be given an opportunity of testifying before the inquest if he desires.
Young Irvin is survived by his parents and these brothers and sisters: John, Harvey, Russell, Wilber, Ralph, Mrs Bessie Rockwell, Mrs. W. O. Rummell, Mrs. J. O. Gossert, Mabel and Grace, all living in town except Russell who lives in Altoona.
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