This story is free excerpt from my book, Ordinary Heroes of Old Delmarva: Inspiring True Tales of Courage, Kindness, and Community. More info about the book here. The chapter, “From Grief to Grace: A Marydel Whodunnit,” exemplifies the virtue of forgiveness. Lots of other stories about lots of other virtues are in the book. Here goes:
Forgiveness is not weak. It takes courage to face and overcome powerful emotions.
—Desmond Tutu
Every murder is shocking. But some stand out even by the heinous nature of the crime.
That’s how it felt in the first weeks after Charles Pippin died in January 1909. The setting was so unlikely! Little Marydel, which straddles the Maryland/Delaware border west of Dover, had just 40 homes, a couple of stores, a grist mill, and a cannery.
Crime was rare, serious crime unheard of. An undertaker by trade, Pippin was a “great favorite” in town, “a genial soul, a kind-hearted, helpful, cheerful citizen.” Folks loved it when his “sweet, clear” singing voice rang out at church services and camp meetings.
They loved the fact that he had recently proposed to a popular young schoolteacher, Maud Hummer. His burial, according to one old newspaper article, drew “the largest number of people, perhaps, ever seen at a Marydel funeral.”
Pippin died in a most strange and shocking manner. He had a starring role in a musical farce titled “The Only Girl,” an amateur production that raised funds for the music ministry at his church. He was on stage, in character, snatching a glass of wine from another character and downing it in a big, angry guzzle. He knew immediately that something was wrong.
“Oh, that burns bad,” he improvised, going off script. “Give me some water, quick.”
A fellow performer caught on. The water that soon appeared helped, but not much.
“Only by manifest pluck and determination [did Pippin] struggle through the play to the end.”
By the time he got home Pippin was deathly ill. Someone sent for a specialist. That doctor guessed it was a case of poisoning. Ten bedridden days passed. Then Charles Pippin took his last breath. What happened next:
“The little town of Marydel was thrown into an intense state of excitement.”
A Poisoned Atmosphere, Full of Rumors and Suspicion
Put this in perspective: Is there somebody like Charles Pippin in your town, your neighborhood? Thinking that way about my home of Cambridge, Md., a couple of faces leap to mind. Both are regulars in local stage productions. Both are blessed with “sweet, clear” singing voices. Both are A-plus citizens and neighbors. If either died in the manner of Charles Pippin, well, I can’t even get my head around the volcano of emotions that would erupt in town.
“Coroner W.G. Smith … declares that the case shall be worked to the finish and that, whoever the guilty parties may be, they shall receive the punishment deserved. That the poison was administered by some person who had a grudge against one of the members of the amateur company is considered certain.”
The coroner convened a formal inquest, assembling a jury of local citizens. They agreed on the cause of death, a “poison of some kind unknown.” One big-city newspaper writer jumped to the conclusion that the suffocating small-town atmosphere in which the crime unfolded would make it easy to solve.
“In a little town like Marydel the likes and dislikes and the petty squabbles and jealousies of nearly every member of the community are public property and there ought not to be any very great difficulty in finding the guilty party and tracing a motive.”
It’s true that small towns are not always Norman Rockwellish idylls of neighborliness. And it’s especially true when it comes to rumors and suspicions around local controversies. The grapevine in Marydel buzzed with theories untethered from facts and evidence. One rumor: One of the other actors must have been the intended victim, as Pippin was beloved by all. Another rumor pointed the finger of blame at Pippin’s betrothed, Maud Hummer. The theory? Love gone wrong.
“Citizens of [Marydel] are awaiting with anxiety the result of the state chemist’s examination of the stage wine…. Since it has been learned that Pippin’s sweetheart took a white powder to the theatrical entertainment … special interest is taken in the examination of the white sediment in the glass from which Pippin sipped his doom.”
Can you hear the hushed, all-knowing whispers ricocheting around the small town? The fact-free explanations, shifting this way and that while passed from neighbor to neighbor like in a game of telephone?
“Nearly every member of the [theatrical] company felt a finger of suspicion was being directed [at them at some point during the investigation].”
The Culprits Come Clean
Finally, on Jan. 28, news came of a development in the case that was based on actual facts instead of idle speculation:
“It is stated upon good authority that bichloride of mercury, one of the most deadly poisons, was found in some of the fluid [examined by] State Chemist Penniman at Baltimore.”
Train Station, Marydel
Finally, State’s Attorney Elmer Deen and Detective Pohler—none of the old newspapers give his first name—had something to go on. The sale of bichloride of mercury is a crime today, but that wasn’t the case in the early 1900s. It was used as a household disinfectant and sometimes, as a treatment for syphilis. Investigators sifted through store records and asked around about who had purchased the stuff recently. Then they received an anonymous letter, postmarked from Philadelphia, suggesting that they take a look at Samuel and Maude Pippin.
Despite the same last name, these Pippins were no relation to the dead man. But they were his friends. They were also involved in the theatrical production. In fact they had delivered the sipped-his-doom concoction. It was supposed to be some sort of raspberry vinegar cocktail. Next the investigators learned that these new Pippins had been in recent possession of bichloride of mercury. That bottle had gone missing.
The Marydel rumor mill must have been running at warp speed by the time the Pippins sat down with State’s Attorney Deen. The couple probably arrived at that session in dread fear of ending up as prime suspects, and that fear seems to have led them astray, as they told a couple of fibs and smudged a couple of facts.
“The Pippins had not talked as freely as they should and admitted things only after considerable questioning. In short, [State’s Attorney Deen] is not satisfied with their statements.”
The Pippins broke down in the end, confessing not to murder but to a horrible accident. Maude thought she had disposed of an empty bottle of bichloride of mercury by tossing it down a well. But she’d thrown away the wrong bottle.
“[Once Mrs. Pippin heard that the state chemist had identified the poison, however] she began to fear that the bottle she threw down the well was not her poison bottle and that one of the bottles labeled for the play by her husband must have been the bottle which had formerly contained her corrosive sublimate solution.”
Forgiveness Comes in Three Steps
In speaking to the media after her confession Maude Pippin touched on a concept that sounds not so much from the 1900s, but from our 21st century. Modern-day psychologists, mindfulness teachers, and self-help gurus talk and write often about the importance of self-forgiveness in moving through hard times.
“This is a sad hour, when I think of that boy as I last saw him in his casket. I would as soon have given my husband poison as to give it to Charles Pippin. Our sorrow is just beginning, and my only consolation is that none of us is infallible.”
The state’s attorney made some noises about lingering doubts, but he and Detective Pohler couldn’t come up with anything approaching a motive. They concluded that the Pippins had told little lies and half-truths not to try and get away with murder, but out of a sense of shame and in fear of being falsely tarred as killers. So it was an accident.
Still, put yourself in the shoes of the dead man’s family, trying to come to terms with the carelessness Maude Pippin had exhibited in tossing the wrong bottle down the well. Imagine how you might feel about someone who tried to cover up a mistake that led to the death of your son. What the Pippins did is akin to a driver’s deadly moment of inattention on our modern highways, followed by a clumsy, less than truthful attempt to avoid taking responsibility.
Righteous anger seems a reasonable reaction, doesn’t it? Even a more generous soul might make a little wish that the inadvertent killer would long live in an emotional sea of guilt and regret.
But here’s the amazing thing about this story: Maude Pippin was wrong in her tearful prediction that the “only consolation” ahead for her and her husband would come through self-forgiveness and accepting that fallibility is an inevitable part of the human condition. She and Samuel received consolation aplenty from neighbors in their small town. Investigators were probably helped on the road to deciding their innocence by the way people in Marydel reacted to news of the Pippins’ confession. One newspaper quoted Rev. E.H. Derrickson of the town’s Methodist church:
“If you knew the Pippins as I and the better class do here, you would not dare utter a syllable indicating suspicion. There is not a man or woman in Caroline [C]ounty more innocent of murdering Charles Pippin in our belief than Brother S.H. Pippin and his wife.”
The third bit of forgiveness is the most extraordinary of the bunch. Ironically, the one party in this drama that never fell for any rumor-mill ugliness was the family of the late Charles Pippin. The day after his brother died, H.W. Pippin of Elkton was quoted predicting that it would turn out to be a case of “unintentional poisoning.”
Maude and Samuel Pippin made a public pilgrimage to seek forgiveness from the family of the victim. Newspaper reporters gathered to watch the scene unfold.
“There was no hesitation on the part of the victim’s family to assure Mrs. Maude Pippin that they realized the young man’s death was an accident.”
So, with tears streaming down their cheeks and embracing each other, two women [Maude and the victim’s mother] tried to console each other.
“For a time it seemed that one or both of the women might collapse, but finally, they became comparatively composed.
Another heart-wrenching scene unfolded when Samuel Pippin stepped forward to greet the father of the dead man.
“The old father fell on [Samuel Pippin’s] neck, and both cried.”
And then, slowly but surely, life in little Marydel returned to normal.
“There has been a great deal of excitement for several weeks in our usually quiet little town. There have been a number of newspaper writers here from the cities of Baltimore and Philadelphia and many lengthy press messages, amounting to thousands of words, have been telegraphed from our railroad office. Now the place is resuming its wonted serenity, but the deep and settled sorrow for the sad accident remains and will be felt for many a day hereabout.”
In her song “Under the Water,” the modern-day pop singer Jewel has a lyrical couplet that seems an appropriate conclusion here:
“And there’s a tiny light, a flicker within / Forgiveness is the needle that knows how to mend.”
–Thank you for spending time with the story. This excerpt from the book Ordinary Heroes of Old Delmarva: Inspiring True Tales of Courage, Kindness, and Community was posted by Jim Duffy for Whimbrel Creations LLC/Secrets of the Eastern Shore in January 2026. All rights reserved.
Postscript: Time Marches On
Samuel and Maude Pippin moved out of Marydel a few years after this incident, relocating to Wilmington, Del. But they retained strong ties to their old hometown. In the decades that followed the society pages of Caroline County newspapers had frequent little reports about how the Pippins returned to visit friends and relations. In 1939 the Wilmington News Journal did a story about a big party that marked their 50th wedding anniversary.
The victim’s fiancée, Maud Hummer, never married. Those society pages reported on her activities often through the years, mentioning trips she took and guests who called at her Marydel home. She was a schoolteacher at the time of Charles Pippin’s death, and that’s what she remained. She had a 52-year career in the Caroline County schools. She died in 1955 at age 72. Her obituary made no mention of the man to whom she had once been betrothed.
