Rahway County Jane Doe (Attempt to Match) - Was Her Name Annie Primroe?

By: Shane Lambert

Original Time of Writing: December 19th, 2021

I researched the case of the Rahway County Jane Doe almost five years ago, as of the original time of writing this article. If you are not familiar with the case, then, in a nutshell, in March 1887, a woman was found murdered in the town of Rahway, New Jersey. The details of her case became a bit of a media circus. Perhaps this is just like more modern murder mysteries, like the case of JonBenet Ramsey.

The Rahway County Jane Doe was thought to have been a passenger who had recently alighted a train before being murdered. That she was supposed to be a traveler made the case difficult to solve back in the late 1800s because it suggested that the woman was not a local. Accordingly, missing persons from anywhere in the world were -- and still are -- actually in play with this case.

Searching the Classifieds to Research the Case

Back in February 2017, I attempted to find a classified advertisement where someone was looking for a missing woman who was last seen in 1887. It used to be that if you lost touch with someone, then you might take to the newspaper classifieds to find the person.

Newspaper classifieds have been featured in other missing person cases that I have worked on. The case of Beverly Sharpman, last seen in Philadelphia, comes to mind as does the case of The Lady in the Well who was discovered in Saskatoon in modern times but thought to have been dead since the 1920s.

When I originally looked for someone back in early 2017 who might have been searching for the Rahway County Jane Doe, I failed in that effort. It could have been that the exact newspaper I needed was not in the databases I used at the time. I made a second attempt in December 2021, one that was successful in finding a lead that I can only call tenuous at this time.

Please read the classified advertisement below, which appeared in a Buffalo-area publication in 1902.

20 Jun 1902, Fri Buffalo Evening News (Buffalo, New York) Newspapers.com

Could Annie Primroe be the Rahway County Jane Doe?

Is Annie Primroe the Rahway County Jane Doe? This is something I want to prove or disprove.

Firstly, the year of disappearance matches up to the year that the Rahway County Jane Doe was murdered. The person who placed the classified advertisement, one "J.J.T.", says Annie had been "missing since 1887."

Secondly, there is a question as to whether Annie Primroe may have changed locations: in the final statement, J.J.T. seems to acknowledge that Annie may no longer be in the Buffalo area, the city where this classified advertisement was placed.

Furthermore, I do know that the train line that served Rahway, New Jersey, served New York state. I read a story in The Morning Call newspaper from February 26th, 1886, that attested to this (Page 8). The first clues, in this case, are very tenuous, but there's nothing to contradict a match between Annie Primroe and the Rahway County Jane Doe.

To better understand the potential connection, the following table cross-references key details between Annie Primroe and the Rahway County Jane Doe:

Attribute	Annie Primroe	Rahway County Jane Doe	Notes/Observations
Year of Disappearance	Missing since 1887 (per 1902 classified ad by J.J.T.)	Murdered in March 1887	Timelines match exactly, supporting a potential connection.
Location Connection	From Buffalo, New York; last known location per ad.	Found in Rahway, New Jersey; believed to be a traveler, possibly via train.	Train lines connected Buffalo and Rahway in 1887, making travel between them plausible.
Marital Status	Likely unmarried in 1887 (ad suggests her name might have changed later, possibly due to marriage).	Presumed unmarried; autopsy indicated she was a virgin, ruling out prostitution.	Both appear to be unmarried in 1887, a point of corroboration.
Travel Context	J.J.T. acknowledges Annie may have left Buffalo, suggesting she traveled.	Believed to have alighted a train shortly before her murder.	Both cases involve potential travel, aligning with the transient nature of the Jane Doe.

The family tree information can't be discounted. Annie is the cousin of J.J.T., she is the sister of Hattie Lesher, and, very importantly, Primroe appears to be a maiden name. This is actually a small clue that corroborates with the Rahway County Jane Doe.

J.J.T., in the classified advertisement, says "Her name was...Annie Primroe," in 1887, but the statement tacitly acknowledges that her name may have changed in the 15 years after that time. The most likely reason for a woman's name to change is through marriage. Thus, we can assume that Annie Primroe was not married at the time of her last contact with J.J.T. in 1887. The Rahway County Jane Doe, coincidentally enough, was actually thought to not be married.

On that matter, there was some discussion in a newspaper article I read that the Jane Doe, in some circles of gossip, was thought to have been a prostitute. However, during her post-mortem, I inferred they inspected her vagina and concluded that the Rahway County Jane Doe was a virgin. This discounted the notion that the Rahway County Jane Doe was a prostitute, and it strongly implies that she was not married. There seems to be some corroboration with Annie Primroe that is, admittedly, tenuous, but I felt intrigued enough to look at this lead deeper.

Research Angles and Challenges - Find a Record for Annie Primroe

For me, this is a work in progress that I invite others to look at. If you are interested in researching whether Annie Primroe might have been the Rahway County Jane Doe, then remember one important point: the primary goal is to try and disprove it. If you can't do that, then you can look at proving it.

One way to disprove that Annie Primroe was the Rahway County Jane Doe is to find her death record that proves she lived past 1887. She can't be declared dead in absentia or anything like that: in fact, dead in absentia might mean she was the Jane Doe. However, if you can prove that Annie Primroe lived past 1887, then it would mean she wasn't the Rahway County Jane Doe.

I have done some introductory work on this subject with Ancestry records. However, the name Primroe is not very common. I've wondered if it is meant to be "Primrose," however, as soon as you start working on angles like that, you are often going on futile tangents.

But finding Annie Primroe in Ancestry would be a great first step. The challenge is that her first name is the kind that has a lot of derivations, like Anne, Ann, or Anna. If you find someone who might be her, then keep in mind the family tree connections in trying to identify her. She has a sister named Hattie Lesher, with Lesher probably being a married name. "Hattie" can stand alone or it can mean Henrietta or Harriette. Hattie Lesher should be dead by June 18th, 1902. Also, Annie should have a cousin with the initials "J.J.T" who should be alive as of June 18th, 1902.

Any connections to Buffalo and Rahway County, New Jersey, would be very interesting, of course. If you build off of this article, please just be sure to properly cite me and link back.

Summary: Annie Primroe vs Rahway County Jane Doe

• Annie Primroe went missing 1887, the year that the Rahway County Jane Doe was found deceased.
• Primroe was from Buffalo, which has train connections to Rahway
• Primroe was not married and the Rahway County Jane Doe was not married, presumptively, because she was a virgin

Unrelated Content

3 Decades Old Cold Cases That Perplex Me

By: Shane Lambert
Original time of writing: August 30th, 2021

While working on this website, I have generally gravitated toward cases that are forty years old or less believing that they are the ones that are still most likely to be solved. However, from time to time I have not been able to help but look at older and colder cases. These are three old and cold cases that stand out in my memory.

Paula Jean Welden Missing for Nearly 80 Years

Something happened to Paula Jean Welden on December 1st, 1946 that, at the time of writing, has not yet been traced. The then 18-year old student at Bennington College in Vermont left her home after telling her roommate, a young woman named Elizabeth Johnson, that she was going to hike a trail known as The Long Trail. Many others besides Elizabeth would see Welden that day but no one has seen her since December 1st, 1946. At the original time of writing, the 75th anniversary of her disappearance was on the horizon. As of January 2025, she has now been missing closer to 80 years.

My guess on what happened to Paul Jean Welden is that got lost while hiking. A plausible enough competing guess might hold that she was abducted. After all, she was known to have been hitchhiking that day, although she was spotted after exiting her driver's vehicle. There is a question as to whether she hitchhiked on her return route.

But Paula Jean Welden, according to my research, was lost from the get-go. According to witnesses that saw her on December 1st, 1946, she was reliant on directions just to find the trail that was interested in. 

When I examined this case in 2020, I found that she was still receiving directions to The Long Trail even as dusk quickly approached. My thoughts on her disappearance are that she got lost and in the resulting panic that night, she only went further and further into the forest due to disorientation. I think she would have tried to find a spot that felt safe, even off-trail, and that she then perished in the cold December night in what would have been a little bit of a hiding spot from the cold wind. It's this, her desire to escape the cold (which may have resulted in going off trail) and the fact that it snowed soon after she went missing, that made her hard to find after she died, in my opinion.

Beverly Sharpman Missing for More Than 85 Years

Beverly Sharpman's case is one that has grabbed my attention on plenty of nights. This high school student disappeared and was last seen in Philadelphia on September 11th, 1947. The 74th anniversary of her disappearance, at the original time of writing, was nearing.

Sharpman's case details included a telegram that was sent from a train station. It read "Got married. Leaving town. Will not be back." If you don't question the authenticity of that telegram, then it seems like she meant business with the last sentence.

Questions with this case are aplenty. Firstly, why did Beverly Sharpman register for her senior year of high school the morning of September 11th, 1947 if she was running away that night? My suggestion is that she didn't want anything to seem amiss but that's just speculation.

Another question is what did she want to tell her mother the evening before she disappeared? Beverly appeared to have something to say to her mother, perhaps something difficult, but Beverly decided to keep quiet about what she had to say. You would think that would have to do with pregnancy or maybe just a relationship with someone who might be inappropriate from her mother's perspective.

The question of the ages with this case is one that could crack it wide open. The telegram said she "Got married." Assuming she was telling the truth, then where is Beverly Sharpman's marriage certificate? I know I've spent hours combing through the records that you find at Ancestry looking for it but it has been to no avail.

My efforts lead me to believe that it was not straightforward for a 17-year old (ie. a minor) to get married in Pennsylvania in 1947. I remember seeing other married records involving minors where parental consent was required.

This, in itself, brings a lot of questions into play. What options were there for a 17-year old to get married in 1947 without parental consent? How easy was it to assume a false identity? Did she not really get married?

With Sharpman's case, I've always thought that she really did leave town on her own volition. I think she married into a new name and was then able to live a life under a different identity. Under this new identity, no one ever connected her to the Beverly Sharpman missing person case precisely because she married into a new name -- somehow. There were a lot of classified ads placed by the mother asking for information on where Beverly Sharpman was but no one in her new circles would know her maiden name, from this perspective.

The Rahway County Jane Doe Unnamed Since 1887

Picture this scenario. Late one evening in March 1887, a young woman alights a train in Rahway, New Jersey. A short time later, she is murdered, a dog nearby in the darkness of night seems to be aware of the drama, and then four brothers find her the next morning. The resulting 'whodunit' and "Who is she?" stories are a coast-to-coast media hit and the details of the Rahway County Jane Doe story gets plenty of coverage. However, to this day she remains unnamed.

I looked at this case back in 2017. One angle I took that I hoped would lead to her identity was to search newspaper classifieds for someone that was looking for a missing person. Newspapers used to have a section where you could post information on someone you were trying to reconnect with. In fact, Beverly Sharpman's mother used such classfieds. 

What I hoped with the Rahway County Jane Doe was to find a classified advertisement where someone was looking for their friend, daughter, or wife who was last known to be traveling via train to New Jersey in March 1887 and has not been heard from since. I failed at that but this is a process that could be done over and over again as time goes by. That's because newspaper databases are constantly expanding.

I've always felt that the best chance for this case to be solved is just for a television network to take an interest in her case for nothing more than TV ratings. It would be a captivating hour-long television program to name a Jane Doe from the late 1800s using modern forensics, I think.