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Clendenen Murder
by Lou Bernard, Curator
The message came across the telegraph on a cold November night in 1903: "I am shot and dying. Send help."
Railroad telegraph operator William H. Clendenen had been in his tower along the tracks, a short distance from McElhattan. Clendenen was a large man, over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, with dark hair, good looks, and a serious expression. He was thirty-one years old.
Dispatcher Harry Clay read the message, and sent a team out to investigate. They found Clendenen battered and dead, shot twice and finally clubbed with a spike maul taken from a nearby tool house. He had made an attempt to fight off his assailant, and finally sent a message for help as he died.
The railroads had been plagued by a series of robberies that year, with desperate bandits preying upon the isolated telegraph towers. Coroner W.J. Shoemaker viewed the body, and immediately declared it murder. His inquest stated,"W.H. Clendenen came to his death by means of three wounds inflicted by a .38 caliber revolver....Also by having the left side of his skull crushed by means of a ten-pound spike maul. Said wounds were administered by the premeditated, felonious, and malicious act of some party or parties unknown, who murdered W.H. Clendenen against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania."
The community was outraged. Theories and rumors flew; some people thought the motive was robbery, while others declared it a fit of jealousy over a woman.
Clendenen was buried in Linnwood Cemetery under a stone that read,"He died at his post." At the funeral, Constable Ellis Meyers arrested a man named William Mitcheltree as the killer. Mitcheltree immediately hired W.C. Kress, a Civil War veteran who later became an attorney. Kress, in his usual fashion, had his client released within hours.
The police then went into a frenzy of investigation. Aided by detectives hired by the railroad company, they accused several potential suspects. Encouraged by the community and the newspapers to make an arrest, they made several. A five hundred dollar reward offered by the railroad only confused matters. An aged peddler, several vagrants; all were arrested....And then released.
No one was ever convicted of the Clendenen murder. Weeks later, the final article on the subject ran in the Clinton County Times. It began,"The Clendenen murder mystery is still as profound as the day it was committed."
The handsome, popular telegraph operator never received justice. The article concluded,"Somewhere in the land walks the modern Cain with a guilty conscience, to whom the name Clendenen must sound like a death knell every time it rings upon his ear."