How To Elope

When I was about to get married, I had the great idea of planning a wedding about 15,000 miles from where I was living. I was living in Hong Kong and decided Duluth, in Minnesota, would be an appropriate place to host and toast our marriage. I also had the bright idea of having the ceremony in the Glensheen Mansion. All my great ideas survived until my wife (to be) heard the whole story.

The Glensheen Mansion is a beautiful old place on the shores of Lake Superior built 99 years ago with a fortune made in timber and mining by Chester A. Congdon.

When I was young, my dad used to tell me tales of my grandfather working as a carpenter in the place. There were always tales of gold faucets and elevators for the horse-pulled carriages. All great, fantastic, visions of hidden doors and lurking secrets. And then in 1968 they filmed Rosemary’s Baby at the mansion. That certainly changed things.

For those of you who may have missed the Roman Polansky tale, Rosemary’s Baby is a quaint story about a woman who discovers that her pregnancy is actually part of a satanic ritual. “The film explores human interactions in a disturbing and negative manner, in the circumstances that take place on a daily basis, occurrences that we take for granted - the polite handshakes of neighbours.”

And then in 1977, an intruder entered Glensheen, Before leaving with a basketful of stolen jewelry, the intruder used a satin pillow to smother Chester’s last surviving daughter, Elisabeth Congdon, after killing the heiress’s nurse, by beating her with a candlestick. All, crimes set in motion by a hastily hand-written will penned just days before the killings. Elisabeth’s son-in law, Roger Caldwell, was convicted of two counts of murder. Her adopted daughter Marjorie was acquitted.

The drama, the terror, the Clue-like “candlestick in the library” mystery. Just the perfect place for a wedding.

We eloped.