10/19/10

Vital Records Extracted from the Yates County Chronicle

Editor: Stafford C. Cleveland

January - April 1870

31 March 1870

Jonathan Lunger whose murder is recounted in the news of the day, was for several years a resident on Keuka Lake, where he led the same life he is described to have followed on the Cayuga. His boat was his residence, which in winter was drawn up on the beach and made habitable for winter quarters, usually in a cove near the end of Bluff Point, at a place called Lonesome Harbor…. His family at that time consisted of himself and wife and the little girl. Two dogs were his constant associates. About four years ago he left Keuka lake and took up a similar abode on Cayuga Lake.

From the Trumansburg Sentinel. On the shore of Cayuga Lake, a little south of Goodwin’s Point, lived a man named Jonathan Lunger, who employed himself in boating and fishing for the most part of the time. He with his wife and daughter Annie lived in what was once a boat, roofed over and made into something of a dwelling. On Monday, March 21^st, between one o’clock and daylight, this dwelling was destroyed by fire, and in the debris of the building was found the charred remains of what is supposed to have been Jonathan Lunger and his wife….. For the last year or two a man named Miles Ferguson has lived a part of the time with Mr. Lunger. He has been in the Workhouse at Rochester, and seems to have borne no very good reputation in this town. This man, who was seen near the premises on Sunday (so we are told), has been missing, as also the girl Annie, since the time of the fire…. Deputy Sheriff Fish left town on Monday afternoon in search of the couple, and up to this writing has not returned…. LATER, Officer Fish returned on Wednesday, and reports Annie Lunger in custody.—An officer was in pursuit of Ferguson, and it is probable that he is by this time under arrest.