THE ROMANCE OF A BOTTLE NOTE (1902)
******************************************************************************************************************************** Brownstone Detectives investigates the history of our clients’ homes. The story you are about to read was composed from research conducted in the course of one of those investigations. Do you know the history of YOUR house? ******************************************************************************************************************************** Floating along in the water, down the southern shore of Martha’s Vineyard, came bobbing a corked green beer bottle with what looked suspiciously like a note inside. Coaxing the bottle to shore with a stick, Harold A. Thomas barely got his shoes wet in retrieving the missive. It was certainly a distress call from the survivors of a sunken ship marooned on some unknown exotic island. Upon uncorking the bottle, Thomas fished the note out with some effort, unrolled the coarse paper, and began to read the nicely penned lines therein: “On board the good old ship Southwark the first day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and two, we, the ‘Smart Set,’ have assembled in Cabin No. 5, to celebrate the last night of a most agreeable voyage.’ Not the note that Thomas had expected, his hopes of saving the daughter of an ambassador or the owner of a large and profitable railroad company, were suitably dashed against those great rocks that had so recently been the cause of the imagined marooning. Thomas, hoping to salvage something from his discovery, read on. “A reward of $5 will be given to any mortal or immortal who will bring this note to Howard S. Parker, 414 Madison street, […]
