NY Times Published: June 14, 1900 Word was received yesterday morning from the police in Queens Borough that Charles Hinsman, six years old, of 219 East Ninety-sixth Street, had been found drowned in an old unused cistern in Ahren’s Mariondale Park, at Maspeth, L.I.
On last Sunday the boy, with his father and mother, went to a picnic at Ahren’s Park, and while there the boy disappeared. The next day the police were notified and sent out a general alarm. At that time and until the news of the recovery of the body was received, the parents and even some of the police have been led to think that the boy was kidnapped.
The parents of the child were notified. George Clark and Edward Sinner, who found the body, say the cistern was closed when they first thought of looking into it. No explanation is made as to how it became closed after the child fell in.
The child’s father will not relinquish the theory of foul play. He said he had been to the picnic ground and had looked into the cistern as late as 10 o’clock yesterday morning, and he says the body was certainly not then in the cistern. It was found there two hours later, and he insists that it must have been place there by interested persons.