Case Closed, Opened

This column originally appeared on Sunday, Dec. 21, 2008

For those of you keeping track, I've got one mystery solved and another opened.

Don't know what I'm talking about? I refer you to the question I raised last week about a great slab of stone that sits quietly on the east side of North High Street across from the West Chester Golf and Country Club. It had no obvious purpose, with the possible exception of annoying me because I had no idea what it was. I am, after all, as news editor of the hometown paper, expected to keep on top of local items of interest, such as the reason behind West Chester's designation as the "Athens of Pennsylvania" (two locations on Gay Street that serve souvlaki, for those of you keeping score) or what the "B" in "B. Reed Henderson High School" stands for (I'm not telling, for those of you inquiring.)

I mentioned last Sunday that I could not divine what the stone slab was all about, and as luck would have it the following day two things happened: my telephone rang, and I picked it up to hear the gentle and thoughtful voice of Dr. F. Peter Rohrmayer.

Dr. Rohrmeyer has lived in West Chester since 1939 and practiced medicine here so long that by the day in May 1980 when he retired he had actually become pretty darn good, if not perfect, at the whole "doctor" thing. Dr. R informed me in his gentle and thoughtful way that the stone slab was not a slab at all but in fact the remnants of a horse trough that had been built by the person who owned the property along North High Street back in the days when horses were a regular sight on West Chester streets. He said that in years past, it had even been decorated at Christmastime, and that occasionally it would be festooned with flowers in the years after horses became its primary interest.

It's function, thus, was similar to the stone fountain that stands outside the Historic Courthouse a few blocks to the south, quenching the thirst of beasts of burden, and thus accounting for another place that state Sen. Andy Dinniman could have taken his pet (a labradoodle, as far as I can tell, for those of you wanting to know) dog for a drink if he had actually been alive in the 1890s.

But what Dr. R. really had to tell me about the old trough and fountain had nothing to do with the thirst quenching business, and all to do with a mystery that has gone unsolved to this very day.

It seems that on the top of the fountain was a bronze statue of a boy and a dog (no obvious relation to the current state senator from the 16th Senatorial District of Pennsylvania, for those of you checking your Pennsylvania Manuals.) Dr. R. said he remembers seeing the statue even after horses disappeared from High Street, until one day sometime after the end of World War II. Suddenly, the statue was no longer there. Gone. Stolen. Unlawfully removed without permission of the rightful owner.

The good doc related that the conventional wisdom at the time was that some miscreant had wrenched the statue from its moorings to melt it down somehow and sell the metal for whatever bronze was selling for in post-1945 West Chester. But, he said, one day before he retired he had a patient sitting in his office who told him the real story behind the theft.

The man, who Dr. R. said was in the plumbing trade, told him that he had a friend who had the statue sitting in his garage, plain as day. Being the gentle, thoughtful and lawfully minded general practitioner that he is, Dr. R. urged the man to come clean and go to the police with the information so that the statue could be recovered and returned to its proper place. But the man demurred and passed away without letting the doctor know the name of his (presumably) thieving friend.

So there you have it.

Somewhere, in some corner of Chester County, perhaps, sits a statue of a boy and a dog in a garage on top of a stack of old National Geographic magazines. And the folks who move it out of the way every now and again to get at the badminton set it blocks probably don't even know where it came from.

And that's a shame, for those of you taking notice.