The mansion above is called “Glensheen.” It sits on the shores of Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota. Glensheen was the site of the most notorious murder in Minnesota, the brutal murder of my great aunt, Elisabeth Congdon.
The Congdon family was once the richest family in Minnesota. In the 1890s, steel ruled. Steel is made from iron. Very few people knew that the iron ore in Minnesota was the best in the country. Chester Congdon knew. In a single decade, Chester went from flat-out poverty to a fortune worth $200 million.
It was the Gilded Age and Chester wanted to showcase his wealth. He built Glensheen. It is a thirty-nine room mansion built in the Jacobean style of an English country estate. Glensheen is magnificent.
The Congdons raised six children in Glensheen. They all married and moved out to raise their families except for Elisabeth, who remained at Glensheen. I think Elisabeth was lonely and wanted her own family, so in 1932, when she was 38 years old, she adopted a baby girl she named Marjorie. It is said that Marjorie was born a psychopath.
And so, in the opulence of Glensheen, Marjorie developed her criminal skills. She became adept at compulsive lying, forgery, fraud, theft, arson and assault and battery. Elisabeth protected her, every step of the way. She was convinced she could help her adopted daughter.
Marjorie married and produced seven children. As she aged, her mental condition grew worse. She coveted Elisabeth’s fortune and she allegedly manipulated her second husband into murdering Elisabeth. I must use the word “allegedly” as Marjorie was tried and acquitted of all charges. Since then, there have been more accusations and arrests for murder but no convictions. Glensheen may have produced one of the most brilliant female serial killers of all time.
This is a history I have lived with for so many years. When the Covid quarantine occurred, I decided it was time to research this story and tell it. Come with me, inside the extreme wealth of the robber barons and their Gilded Age castles as I piece together the story of a horrible crime.
Copyright © 2014 Antoinette Hart Wellman
Strychnine in the Marmalade 