#conestogo

"THREE YEARS AND TEN LASHES," Berlin News Record. July 12, 1913. Page 1 & 7. ---- Henry Trupp, of Conestogo came up this morning before His Honor Judge Chisholm for sentence, he having pleaded guilty to having seduced Frieda Wheelin, a girl under the age of fourteen years, contrary to the criminal code.

E. W. Ciement defended the prisoner and in a lengthy address made an able plea for leniency for his client.

Ward H. Bowlby, K.C., Crown Attorney moved for the sentence of the Court.

His Honor in passing sentence, delivered a seathing rebuke to the prisoner for the crime he had committed, telling him he should rather have been her protector than her seducer. "The deed you have committed was a dastardly one. You are selfish, low, base, vile. I could sentence you to life imprisonment and a flogging besides," said His Honor.

"The law abhors such a crime as you have committed, and has made the punishment severe and rightly for what would a community be if such men as you were allowed to run free. I will not sentence you to life but I hope the sentence I am about to impose will not only act as a deterrent but also as a warning for others. The sentence is 'That you he confined in the Provincial Penitentiary for a term of three years and that one month after you go there you receive a flogging of ten stripes."

There are so many photos of Laura and her family and friends on or around a single car bridge that I always assumed would be long gone.  

But it seems Mom’s bridge is still there where Glasgow Street crosses the Conestogo River in her home town, Conestogo, Ontario .  Doing a little online research I discover the bridge:

“...is among the oldest metal truss bridges remaining in Canada. Constructed in 1886 by the Hamilton Bridge Company, which at the time was known as the Hamilton Bridge and Tool Company...”