USA > Iowa > Lucas County > Past and present of Lucas and Wayne counties, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 11
USA > Iowa > Wayne County > Past and present of Lucas and Wayne counties, Iowa, a record of settlement, organization, progress and achievement, Volume I > Part 11
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25
We find among the records of the Lucas County Historical Society the following partial history of the Chariton Herald :
"The Chariton Herald completes sixteen years of existence today, November 24, 1898, and will begin next week on a Vol- ume XVII, Number 1. During the sixteen years of its life the Herald has changed hands several times, so it has not had time to stagnate. The present owner, Samuel M. Green, bought the Herald of R. W. Bruce on last April 29. As nearly as we can compile a history from the records at hand, the life of the paper has been as follows:
"On September 25, 1885, it was established by J. D. Hull as a five-column quarto non-partisan paper, 'independent of any man, party, clique, or race.' Mr. Hull sold the paper on November 4, 1886, to J. Lee Brown, state auditor, who con- ducted it in a fearless manner, and enlarged it to a six-column quarto about a year later. On January 1, 1890, Mr. Brown consolidated it with the Lucas Ledger, and issued it in this way until April of the following year. It was sold to Chas. D. Brown & Co., on August 20, 1891, and on October 12, 1893, a half interest was sold to Ed. A. Brewster, of Creston, who remained with the paper only a few months. April 7, 1898, Walter Dewey, now editor of the Chariton Democrat, and Harry H. Crenshaw, of Albia, bought the paper. They thought to run an independent sheet, but it did not seem to work as well as a partisan paper, so on November 24, 1898, the partners sold to R. W. Bruce, of Leon, who edited the paper until it was bought by the present owner, four months ago today."
THE CHARITON LEADER
The Chariton Leader, a democratic paper, was first pub- lished under the name of "The Chariton Democrat," in the year 1867. John V. Faith was its editor and proprietor. He was an active enterprising newspaper man, but lacked discre- tion as an editor. About the year 1898 the name of the paper
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was changed to that of "The Leader." The following are the names of its different editors, viz .: John V. Faith, Clint Pankhurst, Best & Axlin, N. B. Branner, D. M. Baker, F. Q. Stuart. W. H. Dewey, and its present editor and proprietor, H. W. Gittinger. The Leader has been a consistent democratic paper all of its life, but it has avoided partisanship under its present management.
Henry Gittinger is a born newspaper man. He is noted for his fair treatment of friend and foe. He is kind, genial and jovial, but woe to the man, men, or party who would seek to influence his action contrary to his ideas of justice and right.
Dan Baker, a former editor of the Leader, was regarded as one of the best local editors in the state. His goodnatured, bright and witty locals, attracted attention all over the state.
The people of Lucas county are justly proud of their papers, the Leader and the Herald-Patriot, and their weekly record of current events makes them indispensable.
In this connection it may be in order to call attention to the following historical facts in reference to newspapers. The first paper published in the United States was the Colonial Press, of Boston. The first political paper was the New York Journal, 1733. The first daily paper was the Philadelphia Advertiser. The first religious paper was the Record, pub- lished at Chillicothie, Ohio, 1814. The first agricultural paper was the American Farmer, published at Baltimore, 1818. The first commercial paper, the Price Current, was published at New Orleans, 1822. The first funny paper was the Morning Post published at New York, 1833. The first independent paper, the Herald, was published at New York, 1835. The first illustrated paper, the News, was published at Boston, 1853. The first religious daily paper was the Witness, pub- lished at New York, 1870. The first illustrated religious paper, the Weekly, was published at New York in 1871. The first paper west of the Mississippi river, the Republican, was pub- lished at St. Louis, 1808. The first illustrated daily in the world, the Graphie, was published at New York, 1873. The first woman's rights paper, the Lilly, was published at Seneca Falls, N. Y., in 1847. The Lilly was founded by Mrs. Ame- lia Bloomer, afterwards a resident of Council Bluffs, Iowa, and it flourished for six years.
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THE CRIMINAL HISTORY OF THE COUNTY
While the criminal history of Lucas county is brief, it includes a few cases of homicide, which at the time shocked the community, and created great excitement. During the '80's there were a good many cases of horse stealing, and if there is anything that will exasperate farmers, it is the stealing of their horses. One case that very much shocked the people of Chariton was the shooting of Gaylord Lyman, sheriff of the county. Lyman had served one term as sheriff of the county and was a candidate for a second term. His competitor claimed that on account of Lyman's good nature and his easy way of getting along with criminals, he was unfitted for the position of sheriff, and that perhaps he did not have the cour- age to handle horse thieves and desperadoes which at that time infested the country. This was a mistake; no more courageous man lived than Gaylord Lyman. While he was quiet and avoided all difficulties with every person, yet very few men possessed greater courage than he did.
A few days prior to his death, he received a letter from some place in northern Missouri, containing an account of the stealing of a very fine horse. This letter particularly de- scribed the horse, and the supposed thief, and requested Mr. Lyman to keep watch for him.
A few days after receiving this letter he noticed a stranger riding a horse along the streets of Chariton, and the horse at- tracted his attention, as it seemed to fill the description of the stolen horse. He followed this fellow until he came to a black- smith's shop, where he alighted and asked the blacksmith to shoe his horse. While the blacksmith was preparing to shoe the horse, Lyman got into a conversation with the thief and asked him several questions, inquiring where he was from and where he got the horse. The fellow soon became satisfied that Lyman was an officer, and he avoided his questions in such manner as to convince Lyman that he had stolen the horse, and that he was the very man described in the letter he had received. Lyman then frankly told him about the receipt of the letter, and informed him that it was his duty to arrest him, and he was going to do so. The thief then drew a revolver and told Lyman that he would shoot him if he attempted to arrest him. Lyman then approached him saying, "I guess you would not shoot," but the thief, after retreating a few steps, shot Vol. I-8
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Lyman, the ball entering his left breast, and he died from the effects of this wound about 8 o'clock the same evening.
As soon as he shot Lyman the thief ran out of the black- smith's shop and turned down an alley, going east towards the timber, which was about half a mile from town. As he ran down the alley the fellow drew a knife and cut the harness from a horse that was hitched to a wagon and tied in the alley. Getting on this horse he rode east until he came to the timber. He there jumped off the horse and was soon hid in the timber and brush. Two or three parties reached him about the time that he was releasing the horse, but drawing his revolver he compelled them to retreat. A large number of men and boys followed the thief to the timber, and after searching through the brush and timber for him, from one until four o'clock, they were about to give up the chase, as they concluded that he had escaped, and they turned and started towards town, when a young man named Martin discovered the thief lying down in the hazel brush. Martin proceeded to arrest him. The fellow tried to shoot Martin, but being a large stout man. Martin at once caught his arm and hand in which he held the revolver and threw him down. Others came to Martin's relief and the thief was overpowered, handcuffed and brought to town.
When he arrived in town a large crowd, wild with excite- ment, gathered around him and insisted on hanging him. Someone procured a rope and the cry, "Hang him, hang him," was taken up by a hundred men. However, several citizens, chief among them being O. L. Palmer, a merchant of Chariton, protested against this proposition to hang the thief. He talked earnestly to this crowd of mad men. He called the attention of the crowd to the fact that this man was then in their power and could not escape. He would be tried and con- victed, and to hang him under the circumstances would be a cowardly criminal act, and a disgrace to our town and county. To make such a speech under the circumstances to that body of mad men was a courageous act.
The crowd for the time seemed to abandon the idea of hanging the thief. However they made no promises. but sul- lenly moved around in such manner as to leave the impression that it was only a question of time when they would carry out their threats to hang him.
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Mr. Lyman having expressed the desire that the thief should come to see him, he was taken down to the house where Lyman was lying. Lyman asked him why he shot him. He replied that he had been drinking, and that he was drunk when he shot. He asked Lyman to forgive him, and Lyman did so, in such a manner as to convince every one who heard him of his sincerity, and actual sorrow for the thief. Some members of the Vigilant Committee had told Lyman that the thief would be hung that night.
The thief was then taken back to the court house and placed in a small room, which was carefully guarded until about nine o'clock, when the bell announcing the death of Lyman rang out, and the moh gathered together and went to the courthouse, broke down the doors of the room in which the thief was kept, and after placing a rope around his neck, took him to an upper room in the courthouse, and after fastening the end of the rope to some object there, they pushed the thief out of an upper window, where he hung until an undertaker ent him down.
The question may be asked, Why did this thief shoot Lyman ? While he may have been drinking, he was not so drunk but that he knew just what he was doing when he fired the fatal shot. He must also have known that he would cer- tainly be caught and punished for murder when he fired that shot. Why then, we repeat, would he do it? The answer is found in the fact that such characters regard an officer who undertakes to arrest them, as a personal enemy, seeking to deprive them of their liberty. If he reasoned at all at the moment that he fired this shot, he reasoned in this way: "This man is trying to place me in prison for life, he will laugh about his success in causing me to languish in a dungeon for perhaps all of my life," and with this thought came the mali- cious impulse to kill. that is, kill the man who was doing him this great wrong. In this momentary wave of malice, he lost sight of the wrong he was doing, and the punishment that would surely follow his act.
THE ARCHIBALD CASE
Another case, interesting in the legal question involved therein, was that of the State of Iowa vs. Thomas Kelley and his wife. They were indicted for the murder of an old Irish-
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man named Archibald. Archibald was an old bachelor, who lived by himself in Chariton. He was the owner of the little property on which he lived, and he also had about $1,000 in money, which he kept secreted on his person. He was quite a miser and would frequently beg a meal of victuals, secreting the fact, as much as he could, that he had money. He would frequently ask an acquaintance for money to buy his dinner. Just across the street from where he lived, there lived an Irish family named Kelley.
Thomas Kelley and his wife. Margaret Kelley, constituted the family. Thomas Kelley was a great drunkard, and it was said that his wife could drink about as much whiskey as he could. The Kelleys knew that Archibald had this money and that he kept it secreted on his person. Archibald was frequently at their house, and they were frequently at his house. Mrs. Kelley desired to visit her people in Washing- ton city, but she did not have the money necessary to make this trip, and it was believed by the people of Chariton who were best acquainted with her that she induced her husband to murder Archibald to get this money that she might take this trip to Washington. About eight o'clock that night they induced the old man, Archibald, to visit them. While he was sitting in a chair in the sitting room of their house, near a trap door which led to a cellar below, Kelley struck him with a large soldering iron, crushing his skull and instantly killing him. They then placed him in the cellar.
Mrs. Kelley went out to invite a few friends to come in and play cards. They came, and the Kelleys having a large supply of whiskey, the game of cards continued quite late at night. When the two friends afterward learned that old man Archibald's body was in the cellar, while they were play- ing cards above him, they were greatly shocked.
Tom Kelley was thoroughly drunk the next morning when he was seen by a neighbor at Archibald's house, rapping at the door and window, and hallooing to Archibald to get up. He was drunk enough to believe that this circumstance would tend to show innocence on his part when it was discovered, as he knew it surely would be discovered that Archibald had been murdered.
In the morning Mrs. Kelley was seen sweeping the yard in front of her house, especially the path leading to the outside gate. and some person in passing along the street noticed that
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there was distinct evidence of something having been dragged in the dust across the street from the Kelley house towards Archibald's home. Someone having occasion to call on Archi- bald, went to his house and on opening the door found him lying on his bed, dead. Quite a crowd of neighbors immediately gathered at the Archibald house and the evidences that a mur- der had been committed were so plain that they began search- ing for his money. Having searched Kelley's house and fail- ing to find the money there, some boys entered a small coal house on Kelley's lot, and there they found the money, $1,000 in bills, it having been placed in a tin can and covered over with fine coal.
Kelley and his wife were both indicted and the evidence was so strong and clear to the jury that it did not hesitate to find them guilty of murder in the first degree, and they were both sentenced to imprisonment in the penitentiary for life. But their counsel, Mitchell & Penick, interposed the plea for Mrs. Kelley that all that she had to do in the killing of Archi- bald was done in the presence of her husband, and the pre- sumption of law was, that she acted under compulsion of her husband, and hence could not be convicted of the crime. This being a well-established rule of common law, the supreme court of Iowa, on her appeal, released her, and the last heard of her she was going on her contemplated visit to her relation at Washington city.
This was the first and only case in the State of Iowa that the supreme court has been called to pass on the question, and while her defense seems to be founded on a well-established rule of law, yet quite a number of people of Chariton, who knew the Kelleys best, fully believe that she was a greater criminal than her drunken husband, Tom Kelley.
THE GOLDWATER CASE
The next homicide committed in the county was the killing of a tramp who was traveling around the country engaged in sharpening scissors or shears for a living.
He visited the restaurant of a party named Goldwater, and upon having some trouble with Goldwater, he went out- side the building and threw a brick against the window, badly breaking the same, whereupon Goldwater became angry, and rushing out of his restaurant shot him two or three times, and
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he died the next day from the effect of such shots. Of course this was homicide committed in the heat of passion, and Gold- water was promptly convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to the penitentiary. While this was not a deliberate homicide, it showed that Goldwater, like too many men, strike or shoot in the heat of passion, regardless of the consequences. The idea of killing a man for breaking a window shows an utter disregard for human life.
THE DERBY STATE BANK ROBBERY
The next crime of any magnitude was the recent case of the robbery of the State Bank of Derby, which occurred in 1912, on the night of November 24th. Some person or per- sons entered the State Bank of Derby, and by the aid of explosives of some kind, blew open the safe and took from it the sum of about $4,000 in currency and gold, leaving a few hundred dollars of silver money scattered around over the floor. Strange to say, no one heard the explosion, and no one had any idea that the bank had been robbed until the cashier of the bank opened its door about seven o'clock the next morn- ing. The parties committing this crime were evidently experts in the use of explosives. What they did to drown the noise, no one knows, but parties in houses not far from the bank did not hear the explosion at all. The fact that the bank had been robbed was immediately spread over the country by telegrams, and about one week after the robbery three parties were arrested in Omaha, charged with this crime. They were brought to Chariton, indicted and convicted. Although the jury did not hesitate to find them guilty on circumstantial evidence alone, yet a great many people who heard the trial claim that the evidence was insufficient to convict them, and their attorneys have appealed the case to the supreme court.
The evidence showed that these parties had been staying around at Chariton and Derby and other towns in that locality for five or six months preceding the crime, but it was further shown that quite a large number of idle men were in that local- ity a good part of the summer, seeking employment on the new Rock Island railroad, which was being built through Chariton. It was shown that these defendants had boarded at a boarding house near the Burlington depot for several weeks preceding the crime, that is, they would stay there a
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few days at a time, and one of them was engaged in traveling over the country selling threads and needles at private houses. He was seen at Derby the day before the robbery occurred. He was going over the town selling needles at private houses. When he was arrested at Omaha, about one week after the crime was committed, he had in his possession two or three hundred dollars. He bought a suit of clothes at a clothing store there, and the clerk who waited on him testified that he paid for the same in new bank bills, being the bills of some national bank in Iowa. It was also shown by the state that about five hundred dollars of the money taken from the bank was in new bills of the Chariton National Bank; but the state failed to identify any of the bills found upon the person of one of the defendants as the bills of the Chariton National Bank.
As before stated the person who sold him the articles of clothing could not testify that the bills he used in paying for such clothing were the bills of any particular bank. All he could say was that they were new bills of some national bank in Iowa.
The strongest evidence against the defendants was the circumstance of finding upon the person of one of these defendants two or three hundred dollars a few days after the robbery, it having been shown that this defendant was begging money to buy his dinner a few days before he was arrested. The fact that these fellows were tramps, and that they were in the neighborhood of Derby selling needles the day before the bank was robbed. was sufficient to con- vict them in the minds of the jury. The crime being a new one in the community, created considerable interest and feeling, and a great many persons who heard the trial seemed satisfied that the evidence to convict them was not suffi- cient, and that they will be acquitted by the supreme court.
But the case is interesting in showing the ease and safety with which experts can blow open safes by the use of some explosive. It is not known just how such fellows can drown or hide the noise necessarily attending such an explosion, or just how they can protect themselves from the results thereof.
This explosion was followed by a fire, in which some papers in the bank were burned, and some of the books were seriously injured by the fire. It seems that the robbers
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did not stop to put out the fire and it continued to burn for some time after they left.
If such fellows have discovered some method of drowning or preventing the occurrence of any noise attending such explosions, then they may safely operate or open safes in the most public places at night, without being detected.
This bank was insured against burglary or robbery and the bank did not lose anything.
WATERWORKS AND ELECTRIC LIGHT
For years the people of Chariton have discussed the question of municipal ownership of waterworks and electric light plants. Quite a large majority of the people seem to favor municipal ownership of these utilities. The arguments on each side are, at least, plausible. It is stren- uously claimed on one side that the private owner of these plants can and would operate them at a much less cost than can be done by the city. Perhaps this is true, but if such plants can be operated at a profit, or in such a way as to reduce the cost of water and light to citizens, it would seem that experience by the city in the operation of such plants would enable it to operate the same as cheap as individuals or companies could operate them.
One thing is sure, the city is learning something about such plants and the operation thereof all the time. One impor- tant thing we have learned is that we can operate both plants together much cheaper than to operate them separately. We can and do pump the water for the waterworks with the same engine and by the same power used to generate electric light.
About thirty years ago a council was elected especially to secure electric lights. It was composed chiefly of young men, who never had any experience in such matters, and, of course, it made mistakes. In the first place it made a material mistake in locating the plant some distance from the railroad, where the coal hauling became, and has been, an important item in the cost of operating the plant. Again, the engine proved to be too small and after a few years the city was required to change it for one of larger capacity. And during the last fifteen years other changes have been made, increasing the cost of the plant. But notwithstand-
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ing these mistakes, which are nothing more than might have been expected of men attempting to install such plants with- out experience, the electric light plant has grown better and more valuable all the time ; and in fact, there are no complaints about the service.
Five or six years ago the city undertook to install water- works. It obtained a bid from a Kansas City firm, which proved to be very reasonable. In fact, this firm did not expect to and did not make any money on this contract. They had quite a number of expert employees, and they de- sired to keep them to be ready for such work when it opened up in the spring, hence they did not expect to make money on this job, but were satisfied if they could make enough to come out whole. They did so and the result was that Chariton secured waterworks for about twenty thousand dollars less money than if it had waited until spring to let the contract.
Water was secured by sinking wells in the Chariton river bottom, near the city, and, as before stated, it is pumped from such wells into a large steel tank located near the city hall by the same power that operates the electric plant.
It is claimed by some that the water source is insufficient or will be insufficient for a growing town, but on the other hand it is claimed that if one well or two wells is insuffi- cient to furnish the water required there is no reason why the city could not install a system of wells so arranged as to convey all the water in all of them to some central well; how- ever, if this is not feasible the railroad company have dem- onstrated the fact that an abundance of good water can be obtained by the building of a dam or reservoir across some deep ravine near the city. Thus far one or two wells have been sufficient to furnish all water required.
The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company have provided a dam or reservoir whereby they have se- cured all the water they can use, and experts claim that this company will use two or three times as much water as will the city of Chariton.
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