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Benwell Murder
In February of 1890 Frederick C. Benwell, a young Englishman, was killed in the Blenheim swamp. The law accused Reginald Birchall of the murder and, on November 14th, he was hung in the Woodstock Jail Yard. Although many people believe that Birchall was the murderer, there was never any solid evidence or a guilty plea to accuse him justly. Was Birchall rightly accused? You decide. As a young man at Oxford College, England, Reginald Birchall was often swindled by "money lenders" (also known as money sharks) who would prey on students who needed money and lend it to them at high interest rates. After his schooling he was swindled by the Farm Pupils Industry, an industry of young Englishmen of education and culture whose fathers paid substantial sums of money to farmers in other countries to have their sons taught the art of farming. He traveled to Ontario to help at a farm and, after observing the poor quality of the farm and realizing that he had been swindled, left for Woodstock, with his wife. He lived in Woodstock, with his wife Florence Stevenson, for a period of time after the farming experience under the name of Lord Sommerset. In the spring of 1889, they suddenly departed Woodstock to return to England. Birchall needed to make money quickly and decided to send his own ad to the Farm Pupil Industry. He received two responses that interested him. One from Frederick C. Benwell and the other from Douglas R. Pelly. He told the men that he had two farms in Canada, one near Niagara Falls and the other near Woodstock. They travelled to the United States and from there Birchall left to visit the farm near Woodstock. That evening, Birchall returned, alone, claiming that Benwell had decided against the Woodstock farm and to continue on his own. This seemed like a valid story until the newspaper appeared claiming that a man had been found murdered in the Blenheim Swamp.
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