The Murdered Maiden Student : A Tribute to the Memory of Miss Josie A. Langmaid

On the morning of October 4, 1875, the beautiful 17-year-old Josie Langmaid did not show up for school. When Pembroke Academy staff notified her family, a search party was assembled. That night the party found her decapitated and violated body in the woods near the school and discovered her head the next morning.

Following the initial arrest of innocent parties, the actual murderer was identified as French-Canadian woodcutter Joseph Lapage. Tried and found guilty, he admitted to his crime (as well as a similar murder in Vermont) on March 15th, 1878 and was hung the following day. The town of Pembroke placed a monument to the victim near the murder site, with directions to the sites where her body and head were discovered. Keeler's forty-page poetic eulogy is preceded by a brief account of the crime and a description of the monument .

REFERENCES: Not in McDade, which records three other titles on the Langmaid murder.

CONDITION: Good, extremities rubbed, first few leaves with some foxing and soiling.