Hotchkiss over the telephone last evening said that he remembered Butler but that there was little about his case to distinguish him from the other insane patients. The bodies had been dropped into the basement through a cleverly constructed trap door.Īn added note near the end of the story added specifics from Butler’s doctor while he was at Jamestown: It is believed by the authorities they were murdered by Butler while employed by him as farm hands. Workmen excavating under a house occupied until a few years ago by Eugene Butler, who died in 1913 in state insane asylum, unearthed the remains of six men. Victims Dropped Into Basement by Cleverly Made Trap Door.” The story read: Bodies Are Those of Men Who Worked for Butler on His Farm. “Gruesome Find by Workmen in Old Basement. He gradually became worse and was brought here and taken before the insanity board.īy 1915, Butler had been dead for years and many had no doubt nearly forgotten about the strange man who had occupied the now-vacant farmhouse on the edge of Niagara, but on June 27th, 1915, the Bismarck Daily Tribune’s headline announced a horrifying discovery in large type: SIX BODIES WITH SKULLS CRUSHED ARE FOUND AT NIAGARA, N.D.Īre Believed To Have Been the Victims of Eugene Butler, an Insane Patientīeneath the terrible headline, other details were disclosed in successively smaller fonts. Those who are familiar with the case state that he lost his mind through his hermit habits. In spite of the fact that he had made many friends, he continued to live alone on the farm, doing all the work about the house.Ībout ten years ago he was noticed to have changed considerably and at times at night would ride his horses at breakneck speed about the country. He was accounted a moderately well fixed farmer. He rapidly improved the land and built a substantial home. He picked out three quarters of a section of land near Larimore and started in to farming. We’re also offered a further glimpse into Butler’s story:īutler came to Grand Forks County in 1880 with a number of others, from New York State. The story, “ Filing of Petition Recalls Old Case,” details the appointment of Butler’s former attorney as the administrator for his estate and concludes that his estate would be divided between two brothers, a nephew and a niece. Niagara’s historic one-room school in 2014.īutler lived an apparently uneventful 8 years in the State Hospital in Jamestown, but in November of 1911, two weeks after his death on October 22nd, 1911, Butler’s name again appeared in the paper, this time the Saturday, November 4th issue of the Bismarck Tribune. At any rate, Eugene Butler was deemed insane and committed to the State Hospital in 1904. Second, Butler was actually 54 years old at the time, not 40. Butler’s home was reported as being in a tiny railroad stop known as “Shawnee,” but today we know he lived in Niagara, about 6 miles to the northwest.
In hindsight, there are a couple of clarifications that should be made to the Herald story. In addition to the hallucination that all the women have designs on him–owing probably to its being a leap year–Butler claims that men are in the habit of coming to his home during the night, forcing him to get up and dress and take long walks and horseback rides.
He is probably the wealthiest man who has ever been committed to an asylum from this county, his property being valued at from $40,000 to $50,000. Butler is about 40 years of age and has lived by himself for years on a farm at Shawnee.
On February 4th, 1904, the Jamestown Weekly Alert republished a story that ran a few days earlier in the Grand Forks Herald:įrom brooding over the hallucination that all the widows and old maids in the country wanted to marry him, Farmer Eugene Butler became insane and was committed to the insane hospital at Jamestown. The townsfolk had no idea that, in the coming years, the story of Eugene Butler would get much stranger. It was strange behavior from a man who was known to be a wealthy, successful farmer, if somewhat reclusive. It was Farmer Eugene Butler again, who had recently started riding his horses late at night, yelling at the top of his lungs. The sound of galloping hooves punctuated the quiet countryside. In the early 1900s, residents near the tiny town of Niagara, in the new state of North Dakota, began to hear strange noises in the night.
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