Where is Owen Parfitt?

[My Good Babushka]

June 1768 a former tailor, now bedridden, named Owen Parfitt, was put into a chair outside his Shepton Mallet, Somerset, cottage by his sister. She returned to the cottage to make his bed. When she came to fetch him, his chair was empty. The village was searched but no trace of him was ever found.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

1. the Original Waldo !!

[struggle4progress]

2. Two major hypotheses seem to be (1) that Parfitt was carried off by demons or (2) that

Thomas Strode, when digging his garden in 1813, about 150 yards from the cottage in which Parfitt had once lived, had found Parfitt's skeleton buried about two feet deep

Strode's view was not favored by Dr Butler who examined the bones in 1814 and considered them those of a young woman (probably a suicide, in light of the curious name "Board Cross" of that place, where the Lockyer woman had lived at the time of Parfitt 's disappearance)

Parfitt's sister reportedly favored the first hypothesis, on the grounds that Parfitt was a thief, a bandit, a smuggler, and a pimp who had practiced black magic in the West Indies. She reported hearing a loud noise before she discovered him missing

[struggle4progress]

3. There seems to be some confusion about whether he disappeared in 1763 or 1768.

When investigating cases of missing persons, it can be useful to clarify such discrepancies

Perhaps Parfitt's disappearance was first noticed in 1768, at which time people realized he had not actually been seen since 1763

[struggle4progress]

4. From a book review in The Tablet 6 April 1872

... Odds and Ends. London : James Toovey. 1872 ...

ODDS AND ENDS. UNDER this modest title, Mr. William Maskell has published a description of the small seaport called Bude Haven, along with six short stories ... We are waiting, indeed, for the appearance of a more serious work by Mr. Maskell which is in print and ought to be ready for issue, a descriptive account of the ivories in the collection at South Kensington; but as half of a loaf is better than no bread at all, we shall proceed to discuss the morsel that has been set afloat already this year on the waters of the literary sea ... "Owen Parfitt" is the history of one of those unexplained events that occur from time to time, and leave a long and deep impression from the utter absence of any clue to interpret their strangeness. Owen Parfitt, a poor man, absolutely a cripple, left for a quarter of an hour at the side of a road on the entrance to the town of Shepton Mallett, disappeared, and the most diligent research, and an interval of a hundred years, have failed to find a thread of any kind to guide the curious neighbourhood out of the mystery ...

http://archive.thetablet.co.uk/article/6th-april-1872/14/books-c

[My Good Babushka]

5. Doesn't anyone think it was probably Parfitt's sister who killed him?

She was the one taking care of the invalid after his life of dissipation. A pretty thankless task.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. or had someone haul him off to parts unknown, or paid someone to do the deed for her.

could have been.

[frogmarch]

7. He's on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/owen.parfitt


Seriously, though, this is a fascinating mystery...once you discount the likelihood that he was abducted by ALIENS!