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Dull photos..? Definitely. But that history..? I suppose it might be something else so maybe this post still got it's place. Anyway, everything did start when I once again where diving deep into digital Finnish newspaper archive. It contains all newspapers that here were published from late 1800s to 1950s or something like that. I was searching information about one abandoned villa, but then one article did get my attention while searching. Next day I was on the road already.
I must say that if that farm were isolated and surrounded by dark woods back at 1923, it pretty much still were same.
P.S. Like I wrote, photos are dull, containing not much more than dull views to forests that once were fields and there are LOT of text (with my bad english), so be warned.
So once upon a time there was a little farm called Korpihuhta, “in a completely secluded place” (as stated in the news), in the woods with few quite small fields. There was a neighbor going to visit on a Sunday in July 1923.
But when already in the yard of the farm, that poor neighboring noticed that the cattle were untreated and house's window was broken, did not dare to go closer and went to get help.
When they returned to that farm and broke locked front door, they had a horrible sight. On the floor of hallway lay the owner of the house, Juho Evert Appelqvist - age 43, 10 months and 2 days - in his blood, his head beaten with an axe and his mother Maria Serafia Koppahuhtan, aged 80, 2 months and 3 days, crossed on the bed, also murdered brutally with axe.
It was not known for sure when the murders had taken place, but probably either on Friday or Saturday during the day, as both victims were in full clothing. Police suspected there were two or even three murderers because three bloody axes were found in the room.
All objects were scattered in the room. It was not known, of course, how much money had gone to the murderers' journey, but the police still found 700 (240 dollars or so) worth of the deceased's money from across the room. When they left, the murderers had locked the door, broke the window, and left through it to the unknown.
In August, a auction were announced in the newspaper. There were mentioned things like:
-Growing hay and grain (barley, rye and oats)
-Roofing material
-Planks
-1 horse
-3 cows
-Calves
-Chickens
-Agricultural equipment
-Household tools
-Shoemaker's sewing machine
-Woman's and man's clothes
-Bedding clothes etc.
Auctions must be payed immediately and if anyone had any unresolved issues with the estate, they were asked to tell those in same auction.
Pretty soon the cops found the perpetrator; it was a man named Einari Mannelin, who already had convictions for at least the production of moonshine and other offenses.
Mannelin had changed the landscape after committing the act. However, already in December, the police found out that the man was staying around small town called Sodankylä in Northern Finland, 900 kilometers to north from that farm.
Mannelin, was hinted that the police were following him, deciding to flee to Russia under the guidance of two locals. But after traveling for some time towards the Russian border, the guides decided to kill their guided by shooting him in the head with shotgun. The motive was, that they told after freezing, how Mannelin was constantly praising him with his large money reserves, which in the end were only FIM 2,000 (under 700 dollars in today's money), which definitely wasn't that much.
Sadly Korpihuhta name does not exist yet in the early 1900s maps. At the same time, some of the fields are still marked on the 1981 map, but no buildings can be found even on the maps of the late ’50s. I suspect that the buildings were demolished quite soon after the atrocities; building materials were at least traded in newspapers long after that tragedy.
The locations of the ancient fields, after being afforested, were quite easy to found, but I could not get closer than this place of the farmhouse. A square area slightly elevated from the rest of the terrain between a large and a smaller field. Here it it might or may not be.
As I walked out of there, I wondered how life in those peripheral corners has felt since then. Two people brutally killed with an axe and a murderer still free. In the the dark of autumn, living without electricity and so on, not mentioning the trips to the back of the yard... it may have been even colder than usual.
After all, when I browse maps, I often think about what kind of stories are hidden behind which place name. With this one it definitely were dark.
Somehow, however, that trade in growing grain concretizes how the story of a farm ended in axe blows on a July day almost a hundred years ago. Now there ain't nothing more left than name on map and those fields which are turning into forests.
And one more thing, before anyone asks. No, I definitely didn't feel anything. I mean of course I did feel sad for those murdered people, but like anything else... no. And I'm 100% sure that it would have been same with everybody else without knowing places history. I don't believe afterlife or anything like that.
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Maybe this dead and frozen tree fits well to this post's off-topic-bonus-photo. It was taken few weeks ago at the small lake in the wilderness.
But after this sad story, HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!
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