TRAYLER. Three brothers, William, Henry and Archibald Trayler, were born of respectable parents, in Green county, near the line of Adair county, Kentucky. They came to Illinois about 1829. William settled near Greenbush, Warren county, more than one hundred miles northwest of Springfield. Henry married a sister of Eli C. Blankenship, a merchant of Springfield, and settled at Clary's Grove, about twenty miles northwest of Springfield. It was then in Sangamon, but now in Menard county. Archibald was unmarried, and engaged in business in Springfield, as a carpenter and builder, in partnership with Reuben Radford, the latter of whom went out of the business, when Mr. Trayler associated himself with a Mr. Myers, under the firm name of Trayler & Myers. Mr. Trayler owned the lot on which the Episcopal Church now stands, at the corner of Adams and Third streets. He had a dwelling house there, and Mr. Myers, having a family, kept the house. Mr. Trayler boarded in his own house, with his partner. William Trayler was somewhat given to telling marvelous stories, and a little inclined to boasting. With that exception, the three brothers were sober, industrious and retiring men. For ten or twelve years after coming to the State, nothing occurred in their lives unusual to the settlers in a new country.

It has become a proverb that "truth is stranger than fiction." This was never more completely verified than in the events I am about to relate, concerning these three brothers, who became victims to the most remarkable case of circumstantial evidence on record, one that would, if given in proper terms, be of absorbing interest to the legal profession. I must, from necessity, make my statements as concise as possible. Hon. William Butler, deceased, is my authority for what I have said of the birth and parentage of the brothers. I have gathered all the other information from the older citizens of Springfield, files of the Journal and Register newspapers, and from an elaborate article that first appeared in the Quincy Whig, and copied into the Springfield Journal of April 23, 1846. The latter is principally true, but contains some glaring errors, which, by the aid of men who took part in the proceedings, I have been able to avoid.

A man about fifty years of age, by the name of Archibald Fisher taught school in Monmouth, Warren county, Illinois, and in that vicinity. He also worked at odd jobs when he was not regularly employed. He was unmarried, economical in his habits, and lived in the families of the people wherever his business called him. In that way he had saved a few hundred dollars, and at the beginning of the events I am about to relate was making his home with William Trayler, who was then a widower, with several children.

Mr. Fisher, wishing to enter some land, he and Mr. Trayler started for Springfield together. They set out in a buggy without springs--called a Dearborn wagon--drawn by one horse. On Sunday evening they reached the house of Henry Traylor, and the next day all three came to Springfield, Henry riding on horseback. They arrived about noon, Monday, June 1, 1841, and stopped at the house where Archibald Trayler boarded. After dinner the three Traylers and Fisher left the boarding house in company, for the purpose of looking about the town. At supper time the three brothers returned, but Fisher, having stepped aside, as they were passing along a foot path among the trees in the northwestern part of the city, did not appear. After supper all the others went in search of him. One by one they returned, as night approached, but without any tidings of Fisher. The next morning the search was continued, and up to noon was still unsuccessful. William and Henry, having expected to leave early that morning, expressed their intention to abandon the search and start for home. This was objected to on the part of the boarders, because it would leave Fisher without any means of conveyance. They continued to search the remainder of that day, but at night William, who evidently felt greatly disappointed at being detained so long, hitched up his buggy and started without the knowledge of his brother, Archie, who, missing him, followed on foot, and overtook him just as he was entering the water at Hickox mill, on Spring creek, near where the O. & M. railroad now crosses. Archie called to William, and remonstrated against his going until the mystery was cleared up. William turned around in the water, and they both returned to Springfield. Notwithstanding all this, William and Henry started for home the next day. The mysterious disappearance had to that time attracted but little attention. Three or four days later, Henry returned to Springfield for the purpose of making a more diligent search, and with his brother, Archie, and some of the boarders, another day was spent, and he returned home. On Friday, June 12, James W. Keyes, the postmaster in Springfield, received a letter from Mr. Tice, the postmaster of Greenbush, Warren county, saying that William Trayler had returned home, and was circulating the report that Fisher, the man who had left there with him for Springfield, was dead, and with something of a boastful manner, stated that Fisher had willed his money to him, and that he had gained about fifteen hundred dollars by it--a much larger sum than Fisher was supposed to possess. Postmaster Tice requested the Springfield postmaster to give him all the information on the subject that he could. The contents of that letter were made public, and the excitement became widespread and intense. Springfield had, only the year before, adopted a city organization, with about two thousand inhabitants. The mayor, William L. May, and Josiah Lamborn, the attorney general of the State, headed the movement to ferret out the mystery. Men were formed into squads, and marched about in all directions, so as to leave no spot unsearched. Examinations were made of wells, and every conceivable place where a body might be concealed.

A club was found with some hair attached to it. It was confidently believed that the murder had been committed with that weapon, but it was afterwards demonstrated that the hair was from a cow.

This search was continued until Saturday afternoon, when it was determined to arrest William and Henry Trayler, and officers started for them on Sunday morning. Henry, being nearest, was brought to Springfield on Monday. The mayor and attorney general took him in hand and used every device to elicit information of the supposed murder, but he protested his innocence of any knowledge on the subject. He was reminded that the circumstantial evidence was so strong that he, with his two brothers, would certainly all be hung, and that the only chance to save his own life was for him to become a witness on the part of the State. He withstood all the pressure until Wednesday, the seventeenth of the month, when, protesting his own innocence, he stated that his brothers, William and Archibald, had murdered Fisher, by hanging him to a tree, without his knowledge at the time, that they had temporarily concealed the body, that immediately preceding the departure of himself and William from Springfield, on the second or third of June, William and Archie communicated the fact to him, and engaged his assistance in making a permanent concealment of the body; that at the time he and William left, ostensibly for home, they did not take the direct road, but, wending their way through the streets, entered the woods at the northwest of the city, and that on approaching, where the body was concealed, he was placed as a sentinel. He then entered into a minute description of the murder, going into the smallest details. He said that his brothers entered a thicket of underbrush, where the body was concealed, placed it in the buggy, moved off with it in the direction of Hickox mill pond on Spring creek, and soon after returned, saying they had put it in a safe place; that Archibald went back to town, and that William and himself found their way to the road, and proceeded to their homes.

Until that disclosure was made, the character of Archibald was such as to repel all suspicion of his complicity in the matter, but he was at once arrested and hurried to jail, which was probably the best thing that could have been done for him, for he was in great personal danger from the infuriated populace. Search then commenced anew for the body. The thicket was found, and indications of a struggle under a small tree, bent over as though the hanging might have been done there. A trail was also visible, as though a body had been dragged to where the tracks of a buggy were to be seen, tending in the direction of the mill pond, previously spoken of, but could not be traced all the way. At the pond, however, it was found that a buggy had been down into the water and came out again. Hundreds of men were engaged in dragging and fishing for the body. Becoming impatient, the dam was cut down on Thursday morning, the eighteenth of June, and the water drawn off, but no body found.

About noon that day the officers, who had gone to arrest William Trayler, returned with him in custody, accompanied by a gentleman who called himself Dr. Gilmore. Then it was ascertained that William Trayler had been arrested at his own house, on Thursday, the sixteenth of the month, and started for Springfield, stopping at Lewiston, Fulton county, for the night. Late in the night Dr. Gilmore arrived there and told the officers that Fisher was alive and at his house; that he had followed them to give the information so that the prisoner might be released without further trouble. The deputy sheriff--James Maxcy--very properly refused to release him on the word of an entire stranger, and they continued their journey to Springfield.

Dr. Gilmore told the officers that when he heard of the arrest of William Trayler for the murder of Fisher, he was a few miles from home; that when he returned to his own house he found Fisher there; that he would have taken Fisher with him in pursuit of the officers with the prisoner, but that the state of Fisher's health would not admit of it. The doctor further said that he had known Fisher for several years, and that he was subject to fits of temporary derangement of mind in consequence of an injury to his head, received in early life. The doctor still further stated that Fisher told him that the first he knew after visiting Springfield, he found himself in the vicinity of Peoria. Being nearer to his home than to Springfield, he proceeded at once to Warren county, without the slightest thought of his acts leading to the injury of any other person. On their arrival at Springfield, Dr. Gilmore's statement was made public, and at first the people seemed to be struck dumb with astonishment. When the news was communicated to Henry Trayler, in the jail, he, without faltering, re-affirmed his own story about the murder of Fisher. The idea was at once taken up by the crowd that Dr. Gilmore was in collusion with the murderers, and that he had invented that story as a ruse to secure their release and escape. The Doctor was permitted to remain at liberty, but was regarded with strong suspicion. About three o'clock that afternoon Mr. Myers, the partner of Archibald Trayler, started with a two-horse carriage, accompanied by Egbert M. Mallory, to ascertain whether Fisher was alive or not, and if so to bring him back to Springfield.

Without waiting for the return of Myers and Mallory, the Traylers were brought before proper officers for preliminary examination, on the charge of the murder of Archibald Fisher. Henry Trayler was introduced on the part of the State, and on oath testified that his brothers, William and Archibald, had murdered Archibald Fisher, re-affirming all the minutia of his former statements, and at the close bore a rigid cross examination without faltering or exposure. It was also proven by a respectable lady, who was well acquainted with Archie, that on the Monday afternoon of Fisher's disappearance, she saw Archibald Trayler and another man, who she identified as William Trayler,--then present--and still another, answering the description of Fisher, all enter the timber at the northwest of town, and an hour or two later, saw the two former return alone. Many other witnesses were examined, giving a combination of testimony that seemed to weave a net-work of circumstances about the prisoners, from which it would appear to any other than a legal mind, to be utterly impossible to extricate them. It was also proven that Archibald Trayler had passed an unusual number of pieces of gold coin. The buggy tracks in the mill pond were unexplained, as the prisoners were the only persons who could give any light upon that subject. The evidence of a struggle in the thicket, under the bending tree, where the handing was supposed to have taken place, was unexplained, although it was afterwards proven that school children had been using the tree as a support to a swing. These and mony other points of evidence, the intricacies of which space forbids that I should follow out, were before the court.

When the prosecution had introduced all their evidence and rested the case, one of the attorneys for the defense, Hon. Stephen T. Logan, arose, and with every eye turned towards him, said that on the part of the defendants, he would introduce a single witness only.

Archibald Fisher, in full life and proper person, was then conducted slowly into the presence of the court. Messrs. Myers. and Mallory had returned late in the evening before--June 21st--with Fisher, and the friends of the prisoners kept him secreted until the proper time. The effect may be imagined, but can not be described. A gentleman who was cognizant of the proceedings from beginning to end, and who is now a judge of one of the courts of Illinois, describing the appearance of one of the prisoners in the court room, says: "Archibald Trayler was as fine looking a man as I ever saw. When his own full brother was testifying that he was a murderer, he stared at him with a look of astonishment, settling into an appearance of stoical indifference, that seemed to say, 'there is no hope of relief, therefore I must calmly endure the worst;' but when the man he was accused of having murdered was led into his presence, he broke down and gave vent to his feelings in a flood of tears, followed by uncontrollable fits of sobbing and moaning."

By this time it began to dawn on the minds of the people that the threats of death to all three of the brothers had so wrought on the mind of Henry Trayler as to destroy his competency as a witness. A feeling of indignation immediately sprung up against May and Lamborn, who had led in the prosecution, and it only lacked a bold leader to mob and hang them. The feeling was so intense that Judge Logan, who had defended the prisoners, felt it his duty to come to the rescue of their prosecutors. He made a pacific speech, in which he exhorted all to abide by the laws. It had the desired effect, and all dispersed without violence.

A public meeting of the citizens of Springfield was held on the evening of June 22, 1841, to express sympathy with the brothers, who had passed through that worse than firey ordeal, and particularly with their fellow citizen, Archibald Trayler, whose character had never been tarnished with the slightest shadow of reproach. That sympathy was of little avail. His fine, manly countenance was never again lighted up with a smile. He made some feeble attempts at business, but wandered about, avoiding all society, pined away, and died in less than two years. One who knew him well, says: "If ever a man died of a broken heart it was Archibald Trayler."

William Trayler died in less than a year after the trial.

Henry Trayler lived several years after the death of his brothers, but was never known to speak of the mournful event after his departure from Springfield at the close of the trial. He died in Menard county, and one of his sons, if not more, are among the most respected citizens of the county. It is said that the three brothers never met after they passed out of the court room.

If the unhappy and afflicted being who was the innocent cause of all the trouble, had wandered away and died on the open prairie, much of which had not then been trod by the foot of man, William and Archibald Trayler would, beyond a reasonable doubt, have been executed as his murderers, and that upon the force of surrounding circumstances and the testimony of their own brother, who would doubtless have become hopelessly insane, caused by threats to make him confess a crime never committed, and afterwards by the appaling effects of his own testimony. The world would probably have looked on and called it retributive justice. Such may and doubtless has been the effect of circumstantial evidence, in cases where the truth was never known.

Thus ended one of the most remarkable affairs of its kind on record. Many points and circumstances connected with the case are yet enshrouded in mystery, and will ever remain so.