NEWS: John A. SHADE Murder, 1876, Shade Gap, Huntingdon County, PA

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Forrest Shade <fdshade@aol.com> 

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  Murder! Terrible Tragedy at Shade Gap.  Dr. J. A. Shade The Victim.  
The Murderer, C. A. Reese, Safely Lodged  in Jail.  

  It becomes our duty as a chronicler of public errata, this week, to 
inform our readers of a most heart-rending and terrible death of one of 
our most valuable and distinguished citizens.  It is not our purpose to 
anticipate or prejudice a trial, but to give facts as we understand 
them.
  Thirty-four years ago there settled at Shade Gap in this County Dr. 
J. A. Shade, a medical practitioner.  Physicians were then few and far 
between, and he had a range of practice extending over a territory in 
which there are now some fifteen physicians.  He became well and 
favorably known and was highly respected as a citizen.
  The doctors business prospered, he gathered enough to build a home, 
and a daughter and son were added to his family.  In the midst of this 
life of comfort and happiness, came the enemy and blasted all, and as 
the event now proves culminated the desolation with a most fiendish 
murder.
  Some years ago one C. A. Reese stole away and married the daughter of 
the doctor.  She was then a mere girl.  The marriage of a man so 
worthless gave great offense and sorrow to her parents, and as event 
proved was productive of anything but domestic bliss.  Reese and his 
wife separated and she returned to her fathers house.  A suit for 
divorce was tried in the court about a year and a half ago, and Mrs. 
Reese was duly divorced.  The picture then presented in the evidence of 
brutal treatment and abusive epithets, we refrain now to repeat.  If 
half the testimony concerning his conduct was true, it presented a 
spectacle horrible enough to justify the antipathy of the Shade family.
  To these troubles of Dr. Shade was added another.  His son, a young 
man of promise and upon whom parental affection hung as a tender vine, 
took sick and died suddenly while attending medical lectures in 
Philadelphia.  This was of course a heart crushing blow.  But there was 
always consolation in the thought the God is too good to be unkind, and 
that what he does is in some way the best.  But another event soon came 
in which there was no such consolation.
  Reese had declared when the divorce was granted that he would have 
his wife again in spite of her father. Instead therefor instead of 
abiding the decision of the Court, he made it his study to entice her 
from the parental roof the clandestine interviews in which he secured, 
owing to the weakness of poor woman's human nature under such 
circumstances, she did not seem capable of resisting he promises and 
entreaties.  The old flame was revived and she loved again more 
strongly and judiciously, as one day, in the absence of her parents 
from home, Reese came there and again stole her away. 
  Mrs. Reese again besought the parental roof for protection.  Of 
course Dr. Shade received his daughter.  He would have been inhuman not 
to do so, even though her errors had been many fold more grievous and 
annoying to her aged parents. 
  It appears that Reese went there about Wednesday last and in the 
interview with his wife, pulled out a loaded pistol and told her "I may 
just as well tell you now that this has death in it for someone, and I 
guess you are the victim."  She then fled from his presence and in 
order to be away from his neighborhood, she came to Huntingdon and 
adjourned to the house of W. II Woods, Esq.  On Thursday Reese came to 
this place and went to Mr. Wood's house and asked to see her.  She 
declined to see him on grounds of fear of personal violence.  He 
pleaded for her to see him for just two minutes, but she refused.  Had 
she come out no doubt is was the intention to shoot her down then and 
there. 
  In the evening we noticed Reese standing in the door of the 
Presbyterian Church, during the children's Thanksgiving services.  
Whether he was watching there for Mrs. Reese or not, we cannot tell, 
but probably that is what took him there, as a man with murder in his 
heart would not be likely to seek church services. 
  On Saturday morning Reese left Orbisonia for Shade Gap.  He had made 
threats in this town and in Orbisonia that he would kill Dr. Shade, 
charging him to be the cause of his wife refusing to live with him.  At 
about 11 o'clock Reese entered the office and drug store of Dr. Shade 
which adjoins his house and commenced an altercation with him.  Dr 
Shade told him to get out whereupon Reese took a stick of wood and 
struck the doctor over the head cutting a frightful gash and leaving 
some of the flesh upon the stick.  Being prostrated by this blow the 
Doctor tried to crawl out of his office, at the back door, on his hands 
and knees, being unable to rise, but conscious of the danger.  Reese 
then stepped up to him as he was crawling away and, with a six shooter 
revolver, shot the Doctor down through the right shoulder, and then 
again along the right temple crushing the skull but not entering it.  
The Doctor's body then fell over on the back, and the face was turned 
up, when Reese again put his pistol up to his right eye and shot him 
upward and backward through the brain. 
  Reese then fired to kill Mrs. Shade who had come to the scene.  A 
bullet aimed at her head lodged in the door jamb, just above her head.  
Reese then reloaded his pistol and started to the direction of 
Orbisonia.  A crowd of the citizens then gathered and among others came 
ex-sheriff Neely who happened to be working at Shade Gap at the time.  
After paying some attention to the body, the Sheriff inquired after 
Reese.  He had fled, and no one seemed willing to run the risk of 
capturing the desperado.  Finding no one else willing to go, the 
Sheriff who was lame at the time, mounted the Doctor's horse and rode 
after him as hard as he could.  Having gone some three miles he 
suddenly overhauled Reese . . . . pistol who still retains it as it was 
loaded when taken.  Neely took him back to Shade Gap and that night by 
six o'clock unaided placed Reese securely in jail, and that too without 
using a handcuff.  Neely deserves great credit for his promptness and 
resolution in catching so dangerous a man. 
  The whole matter termination in this horrible tragedy is full of 
lessons, and it is hoped young men and young women and older ones will 
profit by the warnings therein contained.  Reese has made several fatal 
mistakes besides this last fatal crime.  After his wife was divorced he 
should have stayed away from her, he had no right to go where she was 
or to entice her again from the parental roof.  And back of all this, 
we take the position that no man has the right to marry a minor girl  
without the consent of her parents.
  Some persons who read yellow covered novels think it romantic and 
smart to have a big time in stealing a girl from her parents, but these 
wonderful love scrapes nearly always end in sorrow.  Our girls in this 
age are relative impatient of parental restraint, prone to be "smitten" 
by any graceless scoundrel who winks at them, and the form entangling 
alliances that lead to a multitude of sorrow.  Of all the steps taken 
in life, there is no one so important as that of getting married.  It  
determines the destiny of this life, and we fear also in many cases, in 
the life to come to those who rush into ill considered relations.
  No doubt Mrs. Shade, who is the most ____ able lady, has the sympathy 
of all who know her or her husband.  In this her hour of her heart's 
desolation, may He comfort her who went to the grave of Lazerous, and 
whose smile can alone console us in hours of such deep distress.  May 
she have his presence to support her and mitigate her deep distress. 
  As a citizen, Dr. Shade will be missed.  He was a man of considerable 
ability and good mental culture.  He was gentle, affable and humorous 
in his intercourse and kind and loving in his family.  As a politician, 
he was well known and in former years often came as a delegate to the 
County Conventions of the Republican Party of which he was a devoted 
member.  He once (1854) was elected as Director of the Poor for the 
county.  In 1872 Dr. Shade was one of the  conferees for this county in 
favor of the editor of The Globe for Congress - a campaign that 
instigated a series of memorable political troubles in this 
county now happily ended. 
  When Dr. Shade settled at the Gap thirty-four years ago, there was no 
town there, only a storeroom and a residence or two.  Since then it has 
become quite a snug little village, and the nearness of the railroad at 
Orbisonia infused new life into the village.  The doctor, as a matter 
of course became one of the fathers, and in fact had resided there 
longer than any other citizen.  This terrible murder of a citizen so 
well known has of course, made a great excitement in that locality.  
Reese will get his trial at the next term of Court. 

The Globe, Huntingdon PA, December 5, 1876

Transcriber's Note:  The marks made by the bullets are yet be seen in 
the house where the shooting took place.  The house was last known to 
be owned by John Swan.