Workmen Unearth Human Skull, 1931

Here's a Hallowe'en tidbit from the pages of the November 20, 1931 Middleboro Gazette.

Workmen Unearth Human Skull

   Mystery surrounds the gruesome finding of a human skull by Calvin R. Hosford, Albert Carr and Fred Blanchard yesterday morning as they were excavating for a small building on the new state highway [Route 28] on East Grove street on Mr. Hosford's property. As the men were digging towards the wooded section, the skull, which was but a few feet under ground came rolling down into the loosened sand. Although the men kept digging there were no human bones found.
   Chief of Police Sisson was called and to him was delivered the skull which was brought to the police station and viewed by Medical Examiner A. V. Smith. It was large and broad and had been in the ground a long time and was evidently from a man of more than middle life. The teeth were wide and heavy and a worn space in the side showed the man to be a smoker having gripped his pipe tightly.
   A checkup was started by the police, but as far as they can learn there have been no missing persons reported for years and in the absence of any more bones of a human skeleton and marks of identification the case does not promise any solution. There were no marks of violence which rather explodes any murder theory from head injuries at least, but its depth under the ground also dispels any suicide angle.
   The case will probably find its way into the archives of the police as one of those unsolved mysteries you have read about.

   The location of the discovery was on Hosford's property known in deeds as the "Sharing Brook Lot", a portion of which is now occupied by The Cabin restaurant (formerly the Log Cabin). Despite the rareness of unearthing human remains and the even greater curiosity of discovering an incomplete human skeleton, the news was "buried" on page 4 of the newspaper.