Mysterious Disappearance Part 2

“Boston I. Taylor was one of the oldest settlers of the county, coming here from Ohio, in 1848 or 1849. He was an industrious, hard-working, exemplary citizen, an elder in the Presbyterian Church and considered one of the best citizens in that settlement. No one suspected that he was otherwise until the fall of 1865, when having become enamored of a widow named Elizabeth Bundron, formerly a Miss Moore, and conceived the strange idea of going away with her and her family. His attachment to the woman began in charity, he taking provisions to her cottage on his farm.

But it finally grew into a criminal intimacy, the result of which could only be hid by flight. So he began the work of building himself a boat, off in the woods, on the banks of the Des Moines, and told his family on Friday, that he was going to Des Moines and that he would not return until the following Tuesday. So on Friday night he transported all of Mrs. Bundron’s furniture, with some provisions, to his boat, with a wheelbarrow, and during the night he, with the woman and her two children, launched out into the river.

He was seen in Red Rock on his way down, having stopped there for supplies, and nothing more was ever seen or even heard of him until the summer or fall of 1878. It was supposed that he had long since died, but (last year) the woman’s daughter wrote back to Hartford inquiring for the whereabouts of some of their relatives, and a correspondence was opened with the postmaster at that place, and it was ascertained that the old man had died only a short time before. From the correspondence it appeared that they had gone directly to Spring Hill, Pike county, Missouri and had settled down to work, and where he was considered as being an honest but poor man.

He had taken only a small amount of money with him, and this was probably soon spent. He raised one child by this woman, and lived there for nearly thirteen years, in utter ignorance of his own family in Warren County. He passed by his full name the same as here, but his wife and five children here were never able to find any trace of him. It is another of those inexplicable actions, and no one has ever been able to construct a plausible theory why he should thus act.”

From THE HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY, IOWA, containing a history of the Counties, its Citizens, town, etc. 1879