USA > Iowa > Harrison County > History of Harrison County, Iowa, including a condensed history of the state, the early settlement of the county together with sketches of its pioneers > Part 24
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This case occupied the attention of the court for more than an entire week, when the same was submitted to the jury, and they being in their room a half a day, brought into court a verdict of
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" we, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged in the indict- ment."
On Saturday, the 13th of September, 1879, the verdict last re- ferred to was returned into court and the day of sentence fixed on the following Tuesday. Scarcely had the sun risen on the Sabbath morning of the 14th until there was a most unusual stir in the circle of the defendant's friends, caused by the pres- ence of numerous petitions directed to the court, praying for the leniency of the court at the pronouncement of sentence. These all through the entire Sabbath were carried to nearly every nook and corner of the county and were signed by many who knew nothing of the merits of the case, and at the same time scarcely knew the defendant or either of the wives, and when the day for sentence arrived were tumbled in one conglomerate mass at the feet of the court with the hope of, as a last resort, saving the defendant.
Notwithstanding a verdict of " guilty," the court, whether in- fluenced by the petitions last named or in vindication of the majesty of the law, sentenced the defendant to pay a fine of $300 to the county for the benefit of the school fund and be imprisoned in the jail of the county for the period of six months. An appeal was taken by the defendant to the Supreme Court by his attorney, and upon hearing there the case was reversed he- cause of an erroneous instruction of the court to the jury upon the doctrine of " reasonable doubt," and remanded back for an- other trial. The prosecutrix being of infirm health and without means to further carry on the case, the same died at this period for want of prosecution.
The incidents that have taken place respecting the characters in this drama, though only nine years have intervened, are worthy of contemplation. Death has claimed a pro rata-others are scattered, and few are left of all who participated.
The State of Iowa vs. Stephen A. Broadwell. This case, though having its origin in this county, was not prosecuted
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herein to final verdict. The crime charged in the indictment, found and reported to the court by the Grand Jury of this county, in September, 1883, was that of " obtaining money under false pretenses" or "cheating by false pretenses." This man, Stephen A. Broadwell, though arriving in this village three years prior to the date of his indictment, penniless, unheralded, without friends save his cheek and pen, in the incredible short period of three years had so ingratiated himself into the confi- dence of the public that he was selected at the end of the second year as the Chairman of the Republican delegates to the State Convention, and Chairman of the Republican County Central Committee. All persons seemed anxious to do him homage; all were aware that he lived like a prince and threw his money to the public like a millionaire. The Governor of the great State of Iowa came from the very capital of the State to partake of his hospitality, honor his person and seek his advice, and not alone was His Excellency charmed by the apparent richness of mind of this adventurer, but very many other men of high standing in office and finance were captivated by the suavity of manners and purported financial worth of this " meteoric" loan agent. Money rolled into his office seeking investment, and scarcely was an investment deemed safe unless he was consulted He sought to carry the political elements of the county in his vest pocket, and dictated terms of capitulation to the " Old Hickory " Democracy. The ordinary traveling car was soon deemed be- neath his superior dignity, and a chartered car, furnished sump- tnously with the choicest and rarest of the land, in edibles and wines, were furnished at his orders.
A mansion, such as would have graced the frontage of Fifth Avenue, New York, was put up under contract for building in Logan and nearly approximated completion, when, to the utter amazement of his satellites, he took a tumble like the falling of a financial star of the first magnitude, lighting in the middle of the grand jury room in Logan, never to rise until his pride, arro-
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gance and dishonesty were somewhat curbed by a three years' discipline in the State Penitentiary at Fort Madison, Iowa.
At first, upon the finding of the indictment, he fled, but upon reflection returned and surrendered his person to the officer, and demanded a change of venue, which, conforming to the law in such cases made and provided, was by the court granted, and the cause sent to Pottawattamie county for trial. Here the case lingered on the dockets of that court until the December term, 1885, when the same was brought to trial and the defendant was convicted, found guilty of the offense charged in the indictment, and sentenced to the penitentiary for the term of three years. Then an appeal was taken by his attorneys to the Supreme Court of the State of Iowa, which laid in a hibernated status until in December, 1887, when this court of last resort affirmed the find- ing of the court below and sealed a three years' destiny for this pauper, prince and fool.
The State of Iowa vs. Alex Smith, tried in the August term of 1886, being one in which the defendant was indicted for the crime of assault with the intent to commit rape, unquestionably elicited as much merriment during the hearing as any case ever tried in the county.
The defendant was a young man with the animal propensities much more developed than the moral or intellectual, and as gleaned from the evidence introduced in the case the fact was divulged that as soon as he had approached the bedside of the assaulted party, she gave the alarm by crying out vigorously, when the defendant ran out through an adjoining door, upon the commons, and the time of the occurrence being the 1st of July and the crime being committed in the Missouri bottom, took place at a season of the year when the mosquitos were very bad.
At the time the defendant fled from the presence of the prose- cutrix, he was scantily clad, being only robed in a night shirt of very brief dimensions and when exposing his person to the
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tender mercies of the cruel and ever attracking mosquito, the punishment then was like the punshment of Cain, "greater than he could bear;" when he sought protection by again entering the house which he so recently had abandoned.
Upon re-entering the house, he crawled stealthily to bed and on the following morning the husband of the prosecutrix having come to the house, was informed by the wife of the treatment she had received at the hands of the defendant, which so angered the husband that he selected a nice club from the wood-box and on entering the room of the defendant found him under the bed in a semi-naked condition, and dragging him therefrom proceeded to administer a chastisement such as he deemed equal to the insult offered. At the next term of the District Court he was indicted for the crime above named, and when on trial his coun- sel, after the above facts had been elicited, attempted to show that in that neigborhood it was the custom of the country for young men at that season of the year, when the mosquitos were so very bad, to run out of their rooms, deshabille, in order to free themselves from the attacking insects, and that more especially on the Sabbath morning all young men in that neighborhood were in the habit of crawling under the bed and taking a morn- ing nap in order to restore the lost energies caused by the rest- lessness of the preceding night. However, as ingenious as was the defense, the jury could not see the point in that light, and the defendant was convicted of a simple assault and sentenced to the county jail for thirty days and to be fed on bread and water. From that day to the present the defendant has been more circumspect and is wholly free from somnam bulistic attacks.
THE MOST NOTORIOUS CIVIL CASES
Tried in the county are headed by the case of Cornelius Dunham vs. T. A. Dennis. This cause had its origin in the " hard " win- ter of 1856 and 1857, and arose out of the following circum- stances: During this winter the plaintiff had three or four hun-
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dred head of cattle wintering on the rushes along the Missouri River bottoms, and when the great snow storm, lasting three days in succession, had come, and the fall of snow had aggregated the depth of four feet, placed Dunham's cattle at the mercy of the storm, wolves and Indians. The snow was so deep that the cattle could not pass beyond their paths occasioned by the great depth of snow and the crust thereon, and were in fact dying by starvation when rescued by the defendant. The condition of the roads was such that it was impossible for any person for two or three weeks to accomplish any travel whatever, and the defendant taking pity on the perishing brutes, broke paths for them to his home, and in order to keep them from dying, fed them liberally on corn, which at that time was worth one dollar per bushel.
Dunham, when able to pass from his home to the place where they had been left, found them as before stated in the custody of Dennis, and when so found by him refused to pay for the care they had received and grain they had eaten, and brought replevin for the cattle. The case was tried in this county once and the jury disagreeing, the case was transferred to Cass county and tried there, when Dunham was cast in the case and appealed to the Supreme Court, and on trial there of errors, was affirmed, giving to the defendant the full amount claimed by him at the time of the demand. The loss to the plaintiff in this case was quite considerable, but there was no other man in the county at that time more able to pay an honest debt than he.
Dunham was a great cattle man, and withal one of the most eccentric men in the entire State, for at and during the pendency of this case he, while his men were in his hay field, laboring at the price of $1.25 per day, would organize them into a petit jury, then relate to them all the evidence which he anticipated pro- ducing, then argue the case on his own behalf, as his own at- torney, give them instructions, and when the case was submitted, order them to proceed to the shady side of a great haystack to
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deliberate on their verdict. I may say of these moot trials, Dun- ham invariably won his case, irrespective of the foolish finding of the Cass county jury, whom he used to say did not possess sufficient brains to serve the purpose of his lead steers.
The first case to be taken to the Supreme Court of this State, from this county, was that of Robert Hall vs. John Mathers. This involved the title to an eighty acre tract of land on Allen Creek valley. Hall having obtained a decree quieting the title thereto in him, gave the defendant the thought that the court had erred in judgment, and therefore the case found a tempo- rary home in the Supreme Court only until trial there which re- sulted in an affirmance of the decree below.
J. R. Zuver vs. Mary I. Zuver. This case obtained as much notoriety as any cause that ever had place on the docket, from the fact that the citizens of Missouri Valley seemed to take sides with the defendant, and express opinions that she was greatly wronged by the conduct of the plaintiff, perhaps looking to the separation of the husband and wife, and the disintegration of the entire family.
" Cruel and inhuman treatment, such as to endanger the life of the husband," was the grounds of the application, which being referred to a referee of Missouri Valley, who, after taking the testimony and reporting his finding of fact to the Court, the same was affirmed and the divorce granted, in which there was a division of the property and a semi-annual payment provided for, to be paid the defendant for the support of the three children yet so small as to be deemed by the Circuit Court unfit to pass from the mother's care. This separation tinged of the barbar- isms of the dark ages, for it being grounded on a few thought- less words, spoken on strong provocation, was adjudged to be sufficient to sever the family ties and send the members adrift on the cold charities of a heartless and unfriendly world. Soon after
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decree of divorce, application was made by plaintiff for the custody of the children; one of the causes being that the mother was not sufficiently educated, so as to be capable of taking charge of their education; and by way of illustration, charged that in writing to him, made use of the little "i" instead of using the capital. If such was the case, there was but little difference in the educa- tional attainments of the parties, and he who would set up such preposterous cause, should have been left in the condition in which found, for if the defendant was the embodiment of per- fection at the marriage altar, there certainly was but little change since.
John A. Forgeus vs. Henry Herring. Damages for personal injuries. This was an action having its origin in Little Sioux, and had existence from the following cause, viz .:
The defendant is a man of very considerable property, and the plaintiff was a tenth rate scrub justice court pettifogger, who, having hectored defendant by instituting numerous petty cases against him in these inferior courts, was about to bring another, which so angered defendant that when he met plaintiff, and plaintiff, having emptied on him a car load of the vilest language he could command, Herring adjourned to a little thicket near at hand, and cut an ironwood " gad " equal to a fishing rod in size, and proceeded to find the plaintiff, which, when found, he administered to plaintiff such a " licking " as would offset the trouble formerly endured, as well as leaving a balance for future use. The place of meeting was on the streets of Little Sioux, near a box-alder tree; the time, the heat of a summer's day; and it is said that Forgeus ran around this tree with Herring after him, during such period of time that the soil was worn into a circle, such as that made by circus steeds at the country shows, and that when Herring had exhausted all his energy in plying the " gad " to the person of Forgens, the latter was suffering not only the bitterness of a defeat, but his shirt was glued to his person by blood which had exuded from great incisions made in
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his person by the ironwood fish-pole, while held in the hand of Herring. Both these parties were cripples, the former using crutches, while the latter could scarcely get beyond a respectable walk: Forgeus at once cast his crutches to the dogs and ran as for life, while Herring out-generaled his foe by starting around the alder-bush so that his (defendant's) short leg was nearest the center of the circle, for, had Forgeus ran the circle in the opposite direction, Herring's long leg would have been on the inside, which, under the powerful speed he was making, would have caused his body to have tipped over or started off in a tan- gent, and could not have stopped until he had reached the bluffs of the Missouri river.
After two years of visiting of courts, the plaintiff recovered a judgment against the defendant for the sum of one dollar and costs-say $100. This occurred in 1874, and trial was had during Centennial year at Council Bluffs.
" Subsequent to this event, Forgeus was treated to a gratuitous coat of tar and feathers, while on his way from River Sioux to Little Sioux, at a place midway between these points, but by whom it is not known to this day; however, it has been stated that while this veneering was being removed from his person by case knives, that Forgeus loudly objected to the reckless and careless manner in which these instruments were used on certain parts of his person.
This was the second and last person tarred and feathered in the county; the first being one Samuel Cokely; time, 1860, place, Woodbine. In the latter, the forces were under the com- mand of Michael Rogers, who in February, 1868, burglarized the county safe and fled the county.
H. C. Gillingham vs. Maud Gillingham was an action filed for divorce, in the office of the Clerk of the Court preceding the January term. 1887, by the plaintiff, based on the ground of "cruel and inhuman treatment by the defendant, upon the per- son of plaintiff, to such a degree as to endanger his life." This
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was by the defendant denied, and in addition thereto set up a cross bill, alleging cruel and inhuman treatment by the plaintiff to the defendant; and this in turn was denied by plaintiff in reply. There is not time or space herein to set forth the par- ticular acts minutely set forth in the pleadings in the case, nor do I think that if the same were so incorporated herein the book would be fit for reading in a moderately respectable family. This case came to trial at the August term of the District Court, and the Court after exhibiting a degree of patience worthy of a martyr, refused the plaintiff's prayer, and granted a divorce to the defendant for cruel and inhuman treatment, occasioned by the false, scandalous and scurrilous matter set up in the plaint- iff's reply.
This cause being wholly grounded upon the acts and conduct of the respective parties during their short marital life, which had not exceeded five months, brought to the surface those secrets which but few, for shame, would have even lisped to the truest bosom friend.
The plaintiff seemed to glory in dealing out slanders against the young wife, whom, not a half year last past, he had promised at the marriage altar to love, cherish and maintain, both in and out of court, wherever he could secure an audience, whether aged men or boys, elders of churches or hostlers of livery barns, would tell in glowing speeches the imagined defects in the qualities of his girl wife. The defendant, on the contrary, who was the em- bodiment of that which constitutes the lady, acted with a degree of circumspection worthy of one of much riper years and experi- ence, and during all the time of this terrible ordeal bore her part with a fortitude and wisdom scarcely equalled.
The plaintiff at the time of instituting this action was the pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Logan, had graduated in an eastern college with honors, passed the usual course of study in theology, and so far as a knowledge of the books were con- cerned, was possessed of an excellent education. In the pulpit
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he was brilliant, persuasive, convincing, terse, logical and force- ful, but upon the street was of bad example, boorish, scarcely truthful and semi-idiotic.
Notwithstanding that last said as to the plaintiff, much should be permitted in the way of mitigation, for in the bringing of the action, he was the dupe of two designing men who so thoroughly poisoned his mind that where there was formerly naught but a love bordering on adoration, and service not less than idolatry for the young wife, these were, by these persons, out of desire to crush a family whose good will they had forfeited, transformed into a hate strong as the former were forceful and intense.
The plaintiff should have been indulgent, loving, persuasive, generous, honest and affectionate, but instead thereof was over- bearing, vengeful, profane and hypocritical. The defendant soon discovered the transparency of plaintiff's pretensions and crystal- ized for him a hatred, such that she could not possibly endure his presence nor take him to her bosom. Hence the separation, for which the morals of a community were damaged, the cause of religion made to blush and the profession which had been selected by plaintiff disgraced.
Sarah A. Pate vs. Rudolph Pate, was an action for divorce, and was brought by the plaintiff through the agency of her attorney, J. R. Zuver (subsequently a Judge of the Circuit Court), and based on the first subdivision of section 2534 of the Revision of 1860, which provided that a divorce should be granted when it was made to appear to the Court that the defendant at the time of the marriage was "impotent."
The defendant was represented by his attorney, P. D. Mickel, who misconceived the proper legal interpretation of the word "impotent," and construed tbe verbiage of the section to be "impudent," for no sooner had the plaintiff given her testimony and been turned over to him for cross-examination, than he interrogated her, " When and where did you first discover that this defendant was impudent? What did he do and say that led
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you to believe he was impudent? Is it not a fact that Rudolph Pate is not 'impudent' now and never was? What did the defendant do or say to you that led you to form the conclusion that he was 'impudent? '"
The attorney, after a somewhat more careful research, came to the conclusion that a simple denial that the defendant was "impudent " did not correspond with the true meaning and intent of the statute, and permitted the plaintiff to take a decree, because the statements in the petition of plaintiff were true, the defendant having been, when young, unfortunate.
Five or ten years last past, the vicinity of Dunlap was cursed, or blessed (the reader can take either opinion), with the presence and ability of an attorney by the name of George Washington Makepeace (or piece), who for originality could be scarcely excelled in Philadelphia. This man's early education had been sadly neglected, and the sequence was that in his professional life he perpetrated many murders in the manner in which he slaughtered the English language. Illustrative of this, I call to mind an instance or two which I deem worthy of notice, viz .: In drawing a petition or answer in a certain cause, then being brought or pending in the Circuit Court of the county, he was necessitated to use the word " also," but ye gods! the orthogra- phy! for upon an inspection of the pleading, the sentence read as follows: "And the said defendant did 'awl sow' then and there," etc., etc.
On another occasion he was consulted by a client who was a young married man, who having some domestic trouble, the wife, either as a matter of protection or to free herself of the pres- ence of the man she hated, took their only child and went to her mother's, abandoning home and husband. How can I recover my child? was the inquiry of the much-injured husband, of this limb of the law. "Just you wait and I'll bring that woman and child of yours to the front," was the response of the attorney. "How?" was the excited question of the client.
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"Come with me to the office of the Justice of the Peace, and I'll show you," replied the would-be lawyer. When these per- sons had arrived at the office of the Justice, Mr. M. sat down and prepared and had filed in the office of this court a petition in replevin, and had a writ of replevin issued commanding the constable to take and deliver the aforesaid child to the client. " But," says the Court, "how about the bond? The law requires you to file with me a bond not less than double the value of the property sought to be replevined. What is the value of this child ?" Here was an insuperable barrier. "For," says the Court, "sir, since the days of universal freedom, it would be hard for either you or me or the client to approximate to the value of a child two years old, nor can I find any quotations in any of the market reports for such commodity; my impression is that they often cost more than they are worth, and as often could not be purchased at any price."
Shortly after this occurrence, a farmer living in the vicinity of Dunlap called on this attorney and stated a case to him and wished legal advice, the burden of the client's wrongs being that one of his neighbors and he had a dispute over the identity of a three-year-old colt, the property being in the possession of the absent party. The attorney prepared a petition such as is usu- ally used in cases where prayer is made for issuance of a writ of habeas corpus, and when issued orders the party who holds another in his custody illegally to bring up the body of the individual, in order that the illegal detention may be inquired of, and if the party is illegally restrained of his liberty to order his discharge. This attorney contended that the colt was ille- gally restrained of his liberty, and that the statute in such cases applied to horses as well as human beings, provided they were illegally restrained.
An attorney near Missouri Valley, on a certain occasion, after having defended a youth of fifteen summers for breaking into
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the shop of an old gentleman by the name of Carver, of Logan, and extracting from a safe therein the sum of forty-five dollars, and after a verdict of a jury of guilty as charged, drew an affida- vit setting forth the following facts, for the purpose of having the court send the prisoner to the Reform School, viz .: That the defendant was "a poor orphan boy, under the age of sixteen, and had only one father, who resided in Dakota." The court caught the phraseology of the affidavit, and quietly queried in his own mind this thought: If the prisoner at the bar had only one father in Dakota, where in the name of kind Providence were the remainder of his fathers? Notwithstanding this slip of the brain, the boy was regularly marked and shipped to the Reform School at Eldora.
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