Until 1827, limestone quarrying was under the Motala Canal Station, which appointed an official to oversee the work there. Until 1818, J J Pohl was in charge. After that, Per Ludwig Ekwall took over. He leased the limestone quarry until 1842 on excellent terms and made a fortune from its production and sale. With his profits, he bought the Attarp manor house near Jönköping, where he moved Ekwall and his family in the autumn of 1844. The family was well-liked in the neighbourhood, so it came as a complete shock when the master of the house and a maid in the household were brutally murdered in June 1845. A terrible story soon unfolded that reverberated throughout the kingdom, as the great journalists of the time, led by Carl Johan Love Almqvist, reported on the trials.
Ekwall was employed as a supervisor at the limestone quarry in Borghamn, where he made his fortune. He was married and had six children. According to interviews with his wife after his death, the marriage was good and the father had a good relationship with his children. As the story unfolded, it emerged that Ekwall had mental health problems, that he had terrorised his wife and on several occasions had come close to killing her. Ekwall had an incestuous relationship with his daughters; it is clear from the court hearings that the daughters were ‘ordered to spend the nights in their father's bed’ and that the eldest daughter still spent her nights there at the age of 18.
In the end, it was Sophie who had had enough and put arsenic in her father's spinach, as becomes clear after countless twists and turns in which family members accuse each other and their servants of being guilty of the terrible deed. In addition to the unnatural conditions that prevailed within the family, the reason for the deed seemed to be that Sophie had been courted by another man, which her father sought to prevent.
Sophie was ultimately sentenced to death, but was pardoned in 1847 and served her life sentence at the prison and workhouse in Norrköping. Before that, she had to atone for her crime by spending 28 days in prison on bread and water and attending church, which in practice meant that she had to sit at the front of Bankeryd Church during the service, visible to the entire congregation, and after the service she had to repent for her crime. However, the story had t arnished the reputation of the entire family.
Mrs Ekwall lived for a time with her youngest children at her brother's farm in Östergötland, but spent her final days in Motala, where she died in 1869. Due to the family's dark secret, no one wanted anything to do with them, and the other children never married. Sophie was eventually pardoned and died in 1871, then registered as a seamstress. The Ekwall family's house no longer exists, but it was located here. The harbour and limestone quarry are still in operation.
Text: C. Westling
[Source: "Attarpsmorden" by Yngve Lyttkens]
A greeting from Borghamn: Guest rooms and harbour, 1912
After the Crown Work Corps left Borghamn, the Borghamn Tourist Hotel (“Ombergspensionatet”) was established in the facility. The former officers' mess became an inn with a kitchen and restaurant. Guest rooms were created in the “new barracks” by the harbour. The building was later named “Stora Annexet” (the Large Annex) and is now called “Baltzar.”
Drottning Omma's hillfort and Borgs Udde can be seen in the background.
Note the wooden pier on the right. It was replaced in the 1940s by a stone pier using the same technique as the other piers.
Photo: Collection Beckmann
More picture postcards from Borghamn can be found on the page Greetings from Borghamn.
Borghamn on the map of Wästerlösa, 1874
Borghamn's Turisthotel (Annex) with "Svea", built in Västerås
Borghamn's limestone quarry
Inner harbour in Borghamn