This College Student Vanished In 1897 After Going For An Afternoon Fall Walk By Herself
In November 1897, a 19-year-old Mount Holyoke College student left for an afternoon walk by herself and vanished without a trace. Her disappearance remains unsolved over a century later.
Bertha Lane Mellish grew up in Killingly, Connecticut, and went on to pursue higher education at Mount Holyoke College, located in South Hadley, Massachusetts.
She was known as an extremely intelligent young woman who was skilled in a range of subjects, from chemistry and botany to French and Greek. She’s also remembered for her “cheerful disposition.”
Leading up to the day she went missing, Bertha penned what would become her final letter to her father. In the correspondence, she wrote, “Something very important is to happen four weeks from yesterday, namely, my first debate here, and my last, too, probably.”
Despite that, the tone of her letter was reportedly quite positive, and Bertha even discussed an upcoming project she’d be working on.
“I am going to write a personal essay on ‘The Philosophy of Applause.’ Please, papa, write me all your own personal views on that subject,” her letter read.
Then, on November 18, 1897, she disappeared. That Thursday started off typically, and Bertha practiced French with some peers.
Later, at about 1:00 p.m., she spoke to a friend known as Miss Eaton and asked whether she’d like to join her for a walk.
Bertha and Miss Eaton were regular afternoon walking partners, but that day, Miss Eaton turned down the offer. So Bertha went by herself, and it wasn’t unusual for her to go on walks alone, which was motivated by her passion for botany.
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Witnesses saw her leave her dorm and go to a local post office. Bertha was also spotted walking toward Smith’s Ferry.
Additionally, at 4:15 p.m., a campus employee claimed to have seen Bertha running along the cliffs. This final sighting has not been confirmed.
Regardless, she never arrived for her following class. Someone went to check on Bertha at her dorm, and they found many of her belongings left behind, including her money, watch, and purse. A book was left open on Bertha’s table as well, yet she was nowhere to be found.
Both local community members and students came together as a search party, looking for Bertha, who was described as five foot five, with dark auburn hair and brown eyes.
They scoured Bertha’s frequently walked areas for any sign of her, which is how footprints were discovered, leading from a road to a cliff overlooking the Connecticut River.
To determine whether Bertha left the footprints, the searchers got a pair of her shoes from her dorm and compared them. Her shoes were apparently the same size as the footprints and sparked two theories about her disappearance.
Some suspected that Bertha had lost her balance and fallen in the river; meanwhile, others thought she might’ve taken her own life. This prompted seven men to begin searching the waterway, but no clues were found.
Bertha had recently written a fictional story entitled “La Petite: A Story of Mattawaugan Mill,” and the female protagonist commits suicide by jumping into the river.
Her recent work seemed to support the theory in Bertha’s case, but nothing else in her life indicated that she was struggling with her mental health.
Another twist in the case came when a witness said they’d spotted Bertha at a Hartford, Connecticut, train station the day after she went missing. This sighting was never confirmed.
From the start, Bertha’s case received widespread attention, and as media outlets in multiple states covered her disappearance, people began to think of other theories, like elopement, temporary insanity, and foul play.
There was no evidence of foul play, though, and Bertha wasn’t dating anyone at the time she went missing.
Bertha’s parents, Reverend John Mellish and Sarah Mellish, weren’t in good health, either, meaning Bertha’s older sister, Florence, was relied on for much of the investigation.
At one point, Florence traveled to Florida after hearing a woman who looked a lot like Bertha had been detained in the state. Unfortunately, it proved not to be Bertha.
The following year, 1989, a man who stated he’d known Bertha came forward after a dismembered woman was found in Bridgeport, Connecticut’s Yellow Mill Pond. He identified the remains as belonging to Bertha, but again, this turned out to be false.
Another man, Henry S. Robinson, even began sending various letters to Bertha’s parents. He was 41 years old, worked as a farm laborer in Waterford, Connecticut, and claimed that Bertha was still alive and using different aliases.
Henry reportedly threatened to release taboo information about Bertha in an attempt to extort money from the Mellish family.
Authorities arrested Henry for blackmail, and in the end, it was found that the woman he thought was Bertha had actually been someone else.
Bertha’s father passed away in 1909, and her mother followed in 1912. Neither of them ever found out what truly happened to their daughter.
Today, Bertha’s case has remained unsolved for over 127 years, and with the passage of so much time, it’s unlikely that answers will ever be gleaned.
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