WRITER'S NOTE:Today's column contains descriptions that might be disturbing to some readers. This is a troubling story. In fact, it is one that I have been agonizing about writing for at least two years, since it was brought to my attention by a researcher. But the incidents retold here depict a whispered element of life in 19th and early 20th century Jefferson County and, indeed, throughout the nation. They happened, and they are part of our history, so I submit that they should be told, if for no other reason than to honor the young innocent lives that were simply thrown away. Family names have been purposely omitted in cases where the mothers were not criminally convicted.

His work day had barely started as railroad employee James L. Stitt walked the tracks in Carthage, near the shore of the Black River.

He noticed something in a "quiet spot" of the river at around 8 that morning of Aug. 18, 1924. The 41-year-old summoned a fellow worker, George Osborne, and together they pulled a small body onto the shore, between a railroad bridge and the automobile span extending to West Carthage.

They alerted a village cop, Merrill C. Tooker, who in turn sent word to the county sheriff, William E. Button, and the district attorney, E. Robert Wilcox. Together the officials made a rushed trip to the twin villages.

What the five men viewed that day was the body of a baby girl, just a few hours old. Her windpipe had been severed with a sharp instrument, her lifeless body tossed into the river.

"This is one of the most horrible crimes that I have been called upon to investigate since I took office," Mr. Wilcox, 61, told a Watertown Daily Times reporter that afternoon. He had been district attorney for two years and seven and a half months.

But he was no stranger to heinous crimes.

Back in 1908 he had been defense attorney for Mary E. Farmer, the ax murderess of Paddy Hill who became the first woman in the state to be executed in the electric chair.

"It would seem at this time that this child was born of a woman who was perhaps hastening to some country resort where she intended to give birth secretly to an unwanted child and thereby hide her shame," the district attorney surmised.

The assumption: birth had occurred on a New York Central train, and the slain newborn had been thrown out as the train passed over the bridge after leaving the Carthage station. The train, having three sleeper cars, had journeyed from New York City and had arrived in Carthage at about 5:45 a.m.

Police in Watertown, Ogdensburg and Massena were asked to interview passengers who got off at the respective stops. Nobody was aware of a childbirth on the train, leading the sheriff and the district attorney to a second theory: the mother was local, likely unmarried, and she or her helper had dropped the unwanted offspring from the highway bridge.

Mr. Wilcox listed the case as murder. The killer was never identified.

As sad as the incident was, the district attorney probably should not have been so stunned. He had investigated two earlier cases of infanticide and had successfully prosecuted one of them.

There was the stabbing murder of a day-old boy whose body was found in an outhouse on a farm about four miles from Sackets Harbor on April 9, 1922. The unmarried 24-year-old mother, Florence Roacher, admitted to the killing, saying she already had one illegitimate child, a 5-year-old boy, and did not care to bring up another.

She pleaded guilty two months later to second-degree manslaughter and was given a sentence in the Western House of Refuge for Women, Albion.

Mr. Wilcox's reports to the county Board of Supervisors also listed another investigation, one that seems to have escaped the scrutiny of newspapers. On Dec. 1, 1923, an unidentified 2- or 3-day-old infant was found dead from a fractured skull. That also was called murder.

In a span of 30 years, from 1881 to 1911, coroner reports revealed at least 19 cases of infanticide, in which only one person was criminally charged. That was in November 1886, in Evans Mills.

Susan, 23, "is ignorant, and at this time scarcely realizes the enormity of her offense," the Times bluntly reported.

Her newborn son was found in an outhouse, covered in a heap of muck. Examination revealed multiple puncture wounds from a pitchfork.

"It is a very peculiar case, and the gossips of the town are all agog," the Times report continued, revealing that the unmarried woman had four children born to her, but only one, a 3-year-old girl, was still living.

The coroner, Dr. Charles M. Rexford, issued a warrant for her arrest.

Her case went to trial in June 1887, and she testified that she never saw the baby, did not know if the dead child was hers and denied taking a weapon to the infant.

Thomas F. Kearns, one of the most prominent criminal attorneys in Northern New York at the time, additionally argued in her defense that there was no evidence to either prove the victim was the same child born to Susan or that it had breathed separate from its mother. With the latter argument, he contended that there was "no clear affirmative evidence of a separate existence," the Times reported.

A jury acquitted her.

A glimpse at the other 18 cases, a few having also not been reported in the paper, follows.

nMay 18, 1881.An infant was found in the Black River near Dexter and was examined by Dr. Edward Sill, coroner.

nMay 12, 1885.A servant girl had an illegitimate child and buried it immediately in the town of Antwerp. Dr. G.H. Wood, coroner, conducted an examination following exhumation.

nAug. 21, 1887.At Brown's Bay, Wellesley Island, the body of a baby boy, wrapped in a woman's dress skirt, was found in the St. Lawrence River.

"There is not the slightest evidence as to the mother of the child, but it is a clear case of infanticide," said the coroner, Dr. George M. McComb. An examining physician, Dr. H.G.P. Spencer, said that "it is my opinion that it was dead before thrown into the water."

nApril 9-10, 1895.Dr. W.H.H. Sias, coroner, determined that a baby found in the raceway of one of the pulp mills between Watertown and Brownville was stillborn.

nJune 9, 1895.Boys fishing along the Indian River in the town of Antwerp found a pillowcase in the water. Opening it, they found the body of an infant girl. No inquest was conducted by the coroner, Dr. DeWitt C. Rodenhurst.

nJune 9, 1897.At around noon, the body of a baby girl was found in the Black River at the rear of 85 Factory St.

The infant had been wrapped in the open-bottom remains of an old tin pail and in a cloth and "was cast alive and weighted into the Black River to drown, just as one would treat the superfluous and undesired members of a litter of newborn kittens," the Times reported.

"The crime ... is one difficult, almost to impossibility, to trace, and in all probability the inhuman mother who cloaked her shame with murder will never be known or punished." Dr. Andrew J. Dick was the coroner.

nApril 9, 1898.Dr. Frederick C. Peterson, coroner, determined that a dead baby found in the Black River near 18 Newell St. "had never breathed."

nApril 25, 1899.An infant girl's body was found in a privy sink at Theresa. The mother, Sarah, 41, a woman of "unsavory reputation," the Times reported, was not indicted by a grand jury. The coroner, Dr. Rodenhurst, determined the baby was 8 to 10 days old.

nMay 10, 1899."ANOTHER INFANT SACRIFICED," the Times headline read, recognizing a growing trend. An illegitimate baby born at Antwerp was buried under leaves and brush in the woods at Spragueville. Although the mother was identified, she was not prosecuted. Officials called this one "a case of neglect and ignorance." Dr. Rodenhurst was again the investigating coroner.

nAug. 27, 1899.An infant body found in the Black River behind Jefferson Brass Works on Newell Street was dead when born, Dr. Sias, coroner, determined. The baby had been thrown from a dam and was caught in an iron pipe.

nApril 8, 1900.An infant found in the flume of Knowlton Brothers mill was stillborn, Dr. A.I. Dick, coroner, determined.

nMay 27, 1902.An infant girl found in the rack of the Harmon Paper Co. flume, Brownville, had been born alive, the coroner, Dr. Frederick R. Calkins, ruled.

nMarch 1, 1904.Dr. Calkins was unable to make any determinations about an infant's body found in the rack of a flume at Taggart Brothers paper mill.

nOct. 16, 1908.The death of a girl about 51/2 months old, found near the Court Street bridge, was "probably criminally produced," said Dr. Charles E. Pierce, coroner.

nJune 13, 1909.The body of a girl not more than 2 days old was found in the Knowlton Brothers rack. Dr. Pierce ruled the cause as drowning, believing she had been thrown from the Court Street bridge. "A clear case of infanticide," the Times reported, but police, with no leads, were not investigating.

nSept. 18, 1909.Dr. Pierce examined an infant's body that was found in the racks at No. 4 mill. There was no way of identifying the unclothed baby.

nJan. 31, 1910.Another baby was found in the flume of the city electric light plant. Dr. Herbert L. Smith, coroner, ordered it buried.

nApril 16, 1910.Dr. Smith ordered another burial of an unidentifiable infant, found in the Taggart Brothers flume.

nJuly 7, 1911.A third burial ordered by Dr. Smith was of a male child, born premature, also discovered at Taggart Brothers.

Julia E. Gosier, director of the Lyme Heritage Center, Chaumont, discovered this dark history during her research of county coroner reports filed with the Board of Supervisors. We acknowledge her assistance in this story, along with research conducted by county historian James W. Ranger, and Lisa Carr, Times librarian. Timothy J. Abel, director of the Jefferson County Historical Society, assisted with photo reproduction. Special thanks go to sketch artist Janna Shaffrey-Cooke.