A Man Who Couldn't Walk Vanished From a Chair Outside His Front Door in Minutes

On a summer evening in June 1768, in a small town in the southwest of England, a woman carried her brother outside and set him in a chair by the front door, so he could enjoy the evening air.

Her brother was in his fifties. Years earlier, something, most accounts say a stroke, had left him partly paralyzed. He could not walk without help. He could barely move on his own.

She went back inside to do some chores.

When she came out a short time later, the chair was empty. His coat was still lying on it.

Farm workers were in the fields nearby. They had a clear view of the cottage. Nobody saw anything.

His name was Owen Parfitt. And he was never seen again.

Shepton Mallet

Shepton Mallet is a small market town in Somerset, in the southwest of England. In the 1760s, it was a busy place, known for its wool and cloth trade. Narrow streets, stone houses, a market cross, and green fields and farms all around.

It was the kind of town where everyone knew everyone. Where news traveled fast. And where a story like this one would be told, and retold, for generations.

Who was Owen Parfitt?

Owen Parfitt was born around 1713, which would have made him about fifty-five in 1768.

We know very little about him for certain. Later accounts describe a rough and adventurous early life. They say he went to sea as a sailor, traveled widely, and made enemies along the way. Some retellings say much more than that, including stories that he had been a soldier, or even a pirate.

But it is important to say clearly: those details are not confirmed. They come from later retellings of the story, not from records made at the time. The truth is that we do not know much about who Owen Parfitt was before that June evening.

What the accounts agree on is that by 1768, he was an old man in poor health. Something had left him partly paralyzed. He could not walk unaided. He depended on others to look after him.

And the person who looked after him was his sister, Susannah.

The evening

Here is the story as it has traditionally been told.

It was a warm summer evening in June 1768. Susannah decided to bring her brother outside for some fresh air. She and perhaps someone helping her carried him out of the cottage and set him in a chair near the front door. He had his coat with him, to keep off the evening chill.

Then Susannah went back inside to see to some chores. In some versions of the story, she was making up his bed.

It did not take long. A short time later, she came back out.

The chair was there. Owen was not.

His coat was on the chair, folded, or lying where he had been sitting.

There were no signs of a struggle. Nothing knocked over. No marks on the ground.

And the area was not empty. Farm laborers were working in nearby fields, and, according to the accounts, they had a clear view of the cottage the whole time. None of them saw anything unusual. Nobody saw anyone come or go. Nobody saw Owen.

The search

The alarm was raised. People searched the countryside around Shepton Mallet. Fields. Hedgerows. Ditches. Ponds. Wells.

Inquiries were made in town and beyond.

They found nothing. No body. No clothing. No trace of Owen Parfitt at all.

He had been sitting in a chair, unable to walk, on a summer evening, in view of men working in the fields. And then he was gone.

How do we know this?

This is where the story gets complicated, in a way that is important to understand.

Very few documents from 1768 survive about this case. Most of the details people repeat today come from later retellings, written down years or even generations after the event. One of the early sources cited is a history of the county of Somerset published in 1791, more than twenty years later. Other versions appeared in local history books and newspaper articles in the 1800s, and in collections of English folklore in the 1900s.

That does not mean the story is false. Owen Parfitt was a real person, and he really did disappear. But it does mean that some of the details may have been added, changed or exaggerated as the story was told and retold over two hundred and fifty years.

The folded coat. The clear view from the fields. The exact length of time Susannah was inside. Any of these could be true. Any of them could have grown in the telling.

The theories

So what happened to Owen Parfitt?

The first theory is that someone took him. People from his past, perhaps. If the stories about his rough early life are true, and he made enemies at sea, someone may have come looking for him. A man who could not walk would have been easy to carry away, especially if they had a cart or a horse nearby. The problem is that, according to the accounts, nobody saw anything, even with workers in the fields.

The second is that he left on his own. That his condition was not as severe as people believed, or that he was able to move enough to get away, perhaps with help from someone. Why he would do that, and where he would go, is a mystery. And again, nobody saw him.

The third is that the story itself was changed over time. Perhaps Susannah was inside much longer than the story says. Perhaps there were not really workers watching the whole time. Perhaps there were simpler explanations that got lost as the tale was retold. Many historians who look at cases like this one suspect this is at least part of the answer.

And then there are the explanations people gave at the time, and still give today. That the devil came to collect him for the sins of his youth. That he was taken by something supernatural. There is, of course, no evidence for that. But it is easy to understand why, in an English country town in the 1760s, people reached for it.

What we still don't know

Owen Parfitt has never been found. More than two and a half centuries later, his disappearance is still one of the strangest stories in English folklore.

The heart of it is simple. A man who could not walk was left in a chair outside his front door on a summer evening. A short time later, he was gone. Only his coat remained.

Whether every detail of the story is exactly true, we will probably never know. But the one fact everyone agrees on is the one that matters most. Owen Parfitt was there. And then he wasn't.

What do you think happened to him? Was he taken? Did he leave? Or has the story simply grown in the telling?