On March 25, 1873, Herman J Eddy Jr. wrote a letter to the Pantagraph in an attempt to clear his name. Eddy had once lived in Bloomington and possibly still had family in Bloomington. It was a friend who alerted him to the fact that an Iowa newspaper and a Chicago newspaper had printed a story in which he played the villain's role.
Herman Eddy had been visiting Eddyville and was approached by a lady who had known him for some years (He was such a gentleman he didn't give her name!!). He was traveling east, as was she and she said that she would meet him at the station. At the station she was with friends, saying goodbye, when Eddy arrived and he helped her into the train carriage (as a gentleman should have). The next he knew, the newspapers were reporting his elopement -- and him a married man!
Eddy explained in his letter that it was all a case of revenge seeking. The "shyster" lawyer who had caused this unnamed lady's divorce wanted to have his revenge on Eddy (why we don't know). Eddy never had any knowledge that the lady had told her friends that she was eloping or not.
Eddy did not use the name of this lady but a little sleuthing uncovered her name: Ada Danforth.
This March 11, 1873 story in the Iowa State Register was repeated in other American papers, including the one that reached Eddy's friend. Unfortunately no further mentions of her name could be found that would lead to the name of the "shyster" lawyer Eddy alluded to. She had married Henry Hunter in August of 1870, so the marriage was not a long one. Ada Danforth returned to her home in Iowa within the month, sans Eddy of course, and life went on.
I do wonder what effect Eddy's explanation had on his Bloomington audience and why he cared so much what Bloomington thought. It was a very unconvincing explanation, in that it alluded to a revenge plot without establishing the underlying motive. He had only lived in Bloomington a very short while, possibly between 1864 and 1872 and had worked with the Wakefield medical company, which was managed by a grandson of Wakefield -- Louis O Eddy. Perhaps Herman Eddy was a cousin of the manager of Wakefield, and his cousin demanded an explanation or Herman's wife, the former Helen Stilwell of Bloomington, needed this action to be taken.
This story demonstrates that Facebook and Twitter were never the ultimate tools for character assassination by media. Herman Eddy lived in Dunkirk, New York yet the news reached him within a month of the story being published (at least this is the way Eddy tells the story). The story had appeared in an Iowa paper and a Chicago paper and Eddy was worried enough to write a letter to the Pantagraph to try to clear his name. Eddy at least was keenly aware of the efficiency of the media in spreading news and destroying reputations.
And of course there is the oddness of this all happening in a town bearing the "villain's" name -- Mr. Eddy in Eddyville.