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The 1952 disappearance and probable murder of gold-mine heiress Margaret Clement is one of those mysteries that doesn't seem much like a mystery at first - an elderly woman living on land brought out from under her the year before she vanished, by a greedy and impatient land developer...
Perhaps it's the story of the Clement sisters themselves that makes this the eerie case that has haunted many people over the years, including my grandmother who would tell me the story of "The Lady of the Swamp" when I was a child (and folks wonder how I developed morbid interests...) and show me old newspaper clippings she'd collected. I recall seeing the photograph of Margaret and Dingo reproduced above and feeling both immensely sorry for her, and wishing we knew her because she looked so interesting.
Margaret's father Peter, a humble bullock-driver, had the sheer luck to purchase cheap shares in what turned out to be a very lucrative gold mine. On his death in 1890 his children inherited a fortune. They spent the rest of their youth travelling Europe and hobnobbing with royalty. In 1907, after the marriages of the other two of the four Clement sisters, the unmarried Margaret and Jeanie purchased 'Tullaree', a grand but problematic homestead built on reclaimed swampland in South Gippsland, Victoria.
Margaret and Jeanie continued living the high life as well-to-do ladies with a staff of eleven, including footmen, and an elegant carriage. They hosted parties attended by the creme of Melbourne society which were gossiped about for months. But the sisters were essentially clueless about running the estate; they trusted the wrong men to help them manage it, and through their own extravagance and the dishonesty of the managers the girls were in serious financial trouble by the 1920's. In years to come, they were forced to start selling off portions of the land to keep up with their debts and if not for a caveat placed on the mortgage would have been evicted.
The Clement sisters, once the darlings of high society, grew old and reclusive as their poverty worsened and Tullaree declined. The mansion crumbled, and the farm gradually returned to the thick swamp it originally was, isolating Margaret and Jeanie on the one high hill upon which the house stood. They came to rely on relatives to deliver food to them across the swamp, but also were known to don rubber boots and wade into town through bogs infested with deadly snakes, bats and feral rats to reach a local store, where they bought tins of food to be carried home in a sugar sack.
Jeanie died in 1950. Police were forced to wade through what had become miles of wild wetlands and tangled blackberries to recover her body and were shocked at the dilapidated condition of the once stately 17-room home.
Margaret was alone now, but for her much-loved dog Dingo, and kept herself entertained by reading detective novels by kerosene lamplight. The house was a gothic ruin that had declined so far as to lack even the most basic amenities, but Margaret wouldn't budge from it. Locally, she was still considered quite the 'gentlewoman' despite her poverty and eccentricity.
In 1951, apparently kindly neighbours Stanley and Esme Livingstone promised Margaret a lifelong cottage tenancy if she would remove the caveat so they could buy Tullaree, which was sold to them for a small portion of its later worth. Margaret vanished in 1952, aged 72, and few had doubts that Livingstone had her murdered - in fact he was rumoured to boast of it - but police could find no body and there was no concrete proof.
The media had a field day and fashioned the "Lady of the Swamp" into a legendary tale of murder and buried treasure. Another suspect was Margaret's disinherited nephew, who unsuccessfully contested her will and the sale of the property. Speculation was rife, and the story took years to fade from the news. In 1978, the skeletal remains of an elderly woman, a shawl and a purse, and - ominously - a hammer and a shovel, were unearthed a few miles from Tullaree but the body has never been conclusively proven to be Margaret's.
The Livingstones are both dead now - Stanley preceded his wife, who died shortly before the police were to interview her yet again - and thus it's likely that nobody will ever know what really happened to the Lady of the Swamp.
The 1952 disappearance and probable murder of gold-mine heiress Margaret Clement is one of those mysteries that doesn't seem much like a mystery at first - an elderly woman living on land brought out from under her the year before she vanished, by a greedy and impatient land developer...
Perhaps it's the story of the Clement sisters themselves that makes this the eerie case that has haunted many people over the years, including my grandmother who would tell me the story of "The Lady of the Swamp" when I was a child (and folks wonder how I developed morbid interests...) and show me old newspaper clippings she'd collected. I recall seeing the photograph of Margaret and Dingo reproduced above and feeling both immensely sorry for her, and wishing we knew her because she looked so interesting.
Margaret's father Peter, a humble bullock-driver, had the sheer luck to purchase cheap shares in what turned out to be a very lucrative gold mine. On his death in 1890 his children inherited a fortune. They spent the rest of their youth travelling Europe and hobnobbing with royalty. In 1907, after the marriages of the other two of the four Clement sisters, the unmarried Margaret and Jeanie purchased 'Tullaree', a grand but problematic homestead built on reclaimed swampland in South Gippsland, Victoria.
Margaret and Jeanie continued living the high life as well-to-do ladies with a staff of eleven, including footmen, and an elegant carriage. They hosted parties attended by the creme of Melbourne society which were gossiped about for months. But the sisters were essentially clueless about running the estate; they trusted the wrong men to help them manage it, and through their own extravagance and the dishonesty of the managers the girls were in serious financial trouble by the 1920's. In years to come, they were forced to start selling off portions of the land to keep up with their debts and if not for a caveat placed on the mortgage would have been evicted.
The Clement sisters, once the darlings of high society, grew old and reclusive as their poverty worsened and Tullaree declined. The mansion crumbled, and the farm gradually returned to the thick swamp it originally was, isolating Margaret and Jeanie on the one high hill upon which the house stood. They came to rely on relatives to deliver food to them across the swamp, but also were known to don rubber boots and wade into town through bogs infested with deadly snakes, bats and feral rats to reach a local store, where they bought tins of food to be carried home in a sugar sack.
Jeanie died in 1950. Police were forced to wade through what had become miles of wild wetlands and tangled blackberries to recover her body and were shocked at the dilapidated condition of the once stately 17-room home.
Margaret was alone now, but for her much-loved dog Dingo, and kept herself entertained by reading detective novels by kerosene lamplight. The house was a gothic ruin that had declined so far as to lack even the most basic amenities, but Margaret wouldn't budge from it. Locally, she was still considered quite the 'gentlewoman' despite her poverty and eccentricity.
In 1951, apparently kindly neighbours Stanley and Esme Livingstone promised Margaret a lifelong cottage tenancy if she would remove the caveat so they could buy Tullaree, which was sold to them for a small portion of its later worth. Margaret vanished in 1952, aged 72, and few had doubts that Livingstone had her murdered - in fact he was rumoured to boast of it - but police could find no body and there was no concrete proof.
The media had a field day and fashioned the "Lady of the Swamp" into a legendary tale of murder and buried treasure. Another suspect was Margaret's disinherited nephew, who unsuccessfully contested her will and the sale of the property. Speculation was rife, and the story took years to fade from the news. In 1978, the skeletal remains of an elderly woman, a shawl and a purse, and - ominously - a hammer and a shovel, were unearthed a few miles from Tullaree but the body has never been conclusively proven to be Margaret's.
The Livingstones are both dead now - Stanley preceded his wife, who died shortly before the police were to interview her yet again - and thus it's likely that nobody will ever know what really happened to the Lady of the Swamp.
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