Leaving the main road and following an unused road a short distance east we come to the ruins of what was once the home of Cosmo F. Alling. Mr. Alling was born in Westville in 1841, the son of Lyman and Mary Hotchkiss Alling. He married twice, his first wife was Mary Francis Jones of Westville. A very lovely girl. But her married life was of short duration. She died of consumption a year after they were married.
Soon after her death in 1872, he came to Oxford and purchased of the Enos Candee heirs the house which is now the Episcopal parsonage and the farm on the hill, consisting of about 65 acres of land with two barns. At the death of his father, Lyman Alling, he came into possession of nearly $20,000. He then commenced the erection of a fine residence on the hill, and when completed it was one of the finest structures in the town. He spent his newly acquired wealth with a lavish hand. He would give wine suppers at the Oxford House and I have known him to spend a hundred dollars in one night. He was considered an up-to-date sport and a good fellow.
When at the zenith of his popularity he married for his second wife Miss Sarah Taxter of Westville and they began housekeeping in the new residence with prospects for a happy future. But the young wife did not take kindly to the dull monotony of her rural home and in less than one year of domestic infelicity she conceived a plan to get her husband out of the way. She had his life insured for a good sum and secured the insurance papers on the house and waited for an opportunity to develop her plans.
It came soon. One dark and stormy night he came home very much under the influence of whiskey. She took advantage of his weakness and locked him in a closest, then set fire to the house and made her escape down the road toward Oxford. Her husband in the meantime began to realize the situation and hearing the roaring of the flames and he a prisoner, by a superhuman effort, broke down the door and escaped just in time to be saved from being cremated.
The house was consumed with all its contents. After this he began a round of dissipation never witnessed in this town before or since. He soon squandered his little fortune and became an outcast, doing now and then a few day's work in order to sustain life.
After a while he became a recluse and occupied an old unoccupied house on Governor's Hill, on the Quaker Farms road and, being missed from his accustomed haunts for several days, an investigation was made with the result that he was found dead with the top of his head blown off by a shot gun. Thus ended the career of a once bright and prosperous young man.

Farmer.

Minnie.