1905-06 Volume 30 No 1–5 - Phi Delta Theta Scroll Archive

2i6 THE SCROLL.including the elder Pierson, went in a body to the fraternitylodge, to prepare for the initiation, and from there committeeswent to find the candidates.Mr. Pierson declined an invitation to go to meet his son atthe abutment, and the committee which went to meet himwas composed of a senior (young Pierson's roommate), apost-graduate and an alumnus. At the end of the bridge,between the rails, they found the basket with its contents undisturbed,but tfie boy was not there, and no reply was madeto their whistles and calls. Thinking he might have crossedthe bridge, they started to cross it themselves. About twentyfeet from the end, they stumbled over the boy's lifeless body.Thej' carried the body off the bridge as they heard the collegeclock strike ten. Young Pierson's watch had stopped at9:4r. He had been run over by a locomotive and lenderwhich crossed the bridge at that time, and which was not onthe regular schedule of the railroad.Two members of the committee guarded the body whilethe third went to the home of Wm. E. Pierce, president ofKenyon College, and at 10:15, gasped out the stor}'. Thebody was taken to Dr. Pierce's home and prepared for burial,and thence was taken to the Pierson home at College Hill,Cincinnati, on a special train leaving Gambier at 4 o'clockSunday morning. The body was moved from Gambier andthe blood on the bridge was washed off before the coronermade an examination, but he went to Cincinnati and inspectedthe remains.Just how young Pierson happened to be killed is an unsolvedmystery. The fraternity men assert that be was sentto the bridge alone, and their theory is that he fell asleep onthe track, as he had been awake during Friday night awaitinghis father, who was expected at midnight but did not arrive-until about daybreak. Moreover, 3'oung Pierson is said tohave been a great sleepy-head."Rope, cotton and bandages were found near the bridge,some of them bloody. The coroner claims that marks on thewrists and ankles of the deceased indicated that he had beenbound, and that a microscopic examination of the clothingworn by young Pierson resulted in finding many small particlesof rope fibre.The elder Pierson exonerated the members of the fraternityfrom all blame. In an interview which he gave out. November4, he said that without his knowledge the Dekes could nuthave tied his son to the railroad, as he (the father") was with