Mizpah: The Bobby Dunbar Kidnapping Legend

While passing through south Mississippi in the spring of 1913, "itinerant tinker" William Cantwell Walters was drawn into a maelstrom involving a missing four-year-old boy from a prominent Opelousas, Louisiana, family. The child, Bobby Dunbar, had disappeared in August of 1912 on a fishing trip in the nearby Atchafalaya swamp. When extensive searches couldn’t find the child or his body, his father claimed that he must have been kidnapped. A monumental reward was offered for his safe return, prompting an unrivaled frenzy throughout the South by fortune seekers where no man, woman, or child seemed exempt from the scrutiny. Over the ensuing months, members of the family traversed the land, exploring dozens of suspicious sightings though each led to a disappointing case of mistaken identity. The child’s mother became increasingly despondent, for her husband had sworn he could find the abducted child. Eight months later the father claimed to have found Bobby in Mississippi in the company of Cantwell Walters. The child was immediately whisked away to Opelousas, and Cantwell was arrested. What followed was a tug-of-war amid the hotbed of Mississippi and Louisiana politics and the deep prejudice toward the "lower" classes of the day. Mizpah is a compilation of personal letters, photographs, and legal documents from the private collection of Cantwell's defense attorney, Hollis C. Rawls (the author’s grandfather). It includes personal interviews from the descendants of the families involved as well as photographs and newspaper articles of the time.