MARY KNIGHTS/ BEAN/ TAYLOR/ COWAN
Not to be confused with this Mary Knight-------https://www.tumbleweedstripod.com/post/murder-in-1856
The Mary I am talking about this time around was from a small village in Maine called Dixmont. Mary, the daughter of a Civil War Vet, Jonathan Knights and his wife Apphia, trolloped through life doing whatever she needed to do to come out on top sprinkling healthy doses of narcissism and murder all along the way.
This story begins when Mary weds a farmers’ son by the name of Willis Bean. Willis had dreams of ditching the family farming business and becoming a doctor. Mary jumped on this wagon quicker than you can say “Sorry for your loss” and decided to study medicine as well…..how convenient. But you know what isn’t convenient? Having three small kids with very little money coinciding with grandiose dreams of making it big.
Willis and Mary both enrolled in a school where for $25 dollars you could get yourself a diploma with very little studying or knowledge in the subject. Around the same time the youngest child of the happy couple “died in her sleep” which raised quite a few bushy eyebrows.
When the baby was found in bed, not breathing, Mary’s response was “oh right, she died a half hour ago.” Allegedly. Still, it couldn’t be proven that this psychopath soon to be doctor had suffocated her baby, but the small town gossip was there none the less.
You want to know what else will make the town folk gossip? When your remaining two toddlers die of stomach problems, that’s what. Still, the babies were buried in the local church and the whole thing was forgotten about.
So let’s stop right here for a second. If someone was taking a barefooted walk down a nature trail or stirring a pot of herbs while singing sweet Stevie Nicks songs, she was automatically hung, but a woman who quite clearly is killing her children (and quite frankly I think her husband was in on it), everyone just grabs a shovel and moves on like nothing happened.
Eventually, Willis and Mary enrolled in a similar Cracker Jack University in Ohio and packed up to pretend to study medicine. Before they left, Willis convinced his parents to buy a farm where he would live once he returned to Maine after his studies. His parents, who likely felt sorry for his son having lost all three kids and having a blind side for their child, fell for this hook line and sinker.
Not long after moving to Ohio, Willis was found dead without any explanation from the doctor wannabe’s at Cracker Jack University. It was later decided that it was due to stomach ailments similar to the ones that his two baby girls died of prior. Poor Mary, all alone in this cruel world took refuge at her late husbands’ parents house….awkward. Two weeks later, no one could find the mortgage papers that had gone unrecorded (because Willis and Mary were as fraudulent as the school they attended) and Mary became sole owner of the farm that Willis’ parents had called home. Just like that.
So, she sold it, kept all the money and rendered the Beans homeless. With a reputation like this one you would think men would have stayed away from her. But humans aren’t the brightest of species and she soon met George Taylor, a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge.
This oblivious fool died not long after they said their wedding vows of the same damn stomach problems as Willis and his two oldest children. The only good part of this one is at least they didn’t have children together. Thank you, Lord.
So, being a member of the Odd Fellows, it was assumed that George had a hefty insurance policy. Jokes on you Mary, because George didn’t pay his Odd Fellow dues, meaning there was no insurance money! HA! However, Mary was given a collection of moneys that the other Lodge members had contributed too, since George had let his insurance lapse. Give me a break.
Now, oblivious fool number three was Elias Cowan. Elias owned a farm that Mary assumed would someday be handed down to her. When Elias began to show signs of stomach ailment, no one was surprised. No one did anything but no one was surprised either. Elias miraculously survived “death by Mary” becoming the only one to ever survive her.
According to his grave stone he didn't die at all.....
During their wedded bliss, several buildings on the farm had burnt to the ground which had some more people scratching their heads wondering why all of the valuables were bundled up and put out of harms way prior to the fires? Mysterious……
Then, Mary discovered that the farm wouldn’t be handed down to her in the event of Elias’s death. A good portion of it would go to Elias’s eight year old adorable little boy, Willie. This boy was routinely treated like garbage by the antisocial Mary and beaten simply for being around. Sorry for the shock folks but Willie died of stomach trouble after consuming some green apples.
At this point someone said, “you know, maybe someone needs to put a stop to this Mary chick.” And so Willie’s body was sent away to have an autopsy and lo’ and freakn’ behold! The amount of arsenic in this poor little boy would have taken out an elephant.
Elias, likely feeling foolish, lucky and unlucky all in one shot, survived the ordeal and likely spent the rest of his days feeling the tongue waggers' stare upon his back whenever he needed to go into town.
Mary was arrested in 1896 and began her life imprisonment in the Thomaston Prison. Mary claimed innocence over and over but no way would anyone believe it since everyone had gotten together prior and decided an investigation was to take place if her third marriage ended the same as the other two.
Why wasn’t Elias in the loop is what I want to know. This is what I hate about small towns. Every one stands around and gossips for the sake of their own entertainment, but no one will actually HELP. It’s no better today.
In 1898, just three years after her trial, Mary died after bearing yet another child while in prison. Her body was taken to where her parents lived in Etna but was then taken to Plymouth in order to be buried alongside her murder victims in an unmarked grave. I have a feeling this is a most restless family plot.
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