USA > Iowa > Linn County > The history of Linn county, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &t., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics history of the Northwest etc > Part 44
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HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
Switzer from the officers. And, maddened as the pioneers were over the repeated outrages of Switzer and his accomplices, there is no reason to doubt that short work would have been made of Burns and his co-workers in iniquity.
The punishment visited upon Conlogue, Case, Goodrich, McBroom and others by the vigilantes, by whipping, and the arrest of Switzer and his subse- quent flight from the country, did not entirely free the settlers from the pres- ence of outlaws and plunderers. The snake was not killed-only scotched. If the vigilantes did not follow up their scourging of suspected parties. they kept a close watch upon their movements. Knowing they were under the espion- age of a community they had repeatedly outraged, they were very cautious and guarded in their movements. From 1841 to 1855, the settlers in the county were left comparatively free from the operations of horse thieves, although good horses were not considered the safest kind of property.
CHARLES CLUTE.
Among the settlers of this county in the Spring of 1855 was Charles Clute, a carpenter, who located in the Denson House neighborhood, about nine miles northeast of Tipton. He was first employed to build a house for William Cessford, and afterward to build a house for Mrs. Denson, who had been engaged in keeping public house since the date of her settlement there, with her husband, Joseph D. Denson, in 1839. During his occupation on Mrs. Denson's house, Clute paid court to Anna C. Denson, the acquaintance dating from June, 1855, and resulting in the marriage of the parties shortly there- after. Mr. Denson was one of the first California gold-seekers, going to the Pacific coast in 1850, and dying there in February, 1851. Clute became, by virtue of his marriage, practically the manager of the Widow Denson's farm, taking supervision of the tavern in the event of the absence of the proprietress. By this means, Clute became widely known throughout this section, the Den- son House ranking among the favorably regarded places of entertainment. He prepared, in the Winter of 1855-6, to improve the prairie farm owned by Mrs. Denson. One day, in the season above mentioned, while Clute and Mrs. Denson were in Davenport on business, a stranger named Johnson, ostensibly a peddler, arrived at the tavern with a one-horse peddling wagon, and engaged accommodations. He was compelled to remain for several days, because of a severe snow storm which blocked the roads. As soon as he was able to travel, he took his departure, riding a gray mare, and leaving his wagon on the Den- son premises. After an absence of ten days or two weeks, Johnson returned to the Denson House, this time bringing a team of horses, and engaging as a teamster and day laborer in the neighborhood. He remained until February, when he proposed to Clute to enter jointly into the work of breaking land. He claimed to have a farm in a northern county which required his attention at this time, and proceeded northward, remaining away until March, when he again returned to the Denson House, bringing with him but one of the horses which he had driven away in February. Soon after this, Clute, J. A. Warner (now Mrs. Denson's husband) and Johnson went to Davenport with a load of wheat, intending to carry back with them necessary household goods and pro- visions. Johnson did not return with the party, but when he next put in a"? appearance at Densons, he brought with him a pair of brown mares.
In a day or two after this, Johnson went away on foot, leaving the mares in Clute's possession, with instructions to sell them for $225, and to apply the proceeds on the purchase of a breaking team. A day or two after Johnson's departure, Clute took the mares and started to Tipton to find a purchaser.
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Warner accompanied him, driving a team belonging to Mrs. Denson, to bring some family supplies and to afford Clute a conveyance home in case he sold the mares. The needed purchases were made, and Warner returned home, leaving Clute in Tipton. He remained away over night and returned home the next day, bringing with him two yokes of cattle, and reported that he had sold one of the mares to Peter W. Neiman for ready money, and that he had traded the other to Jacob Davis for the cattle, paying the difference in money received from Neiman. Soon after this, Warner went over to Scott County to work at his trade-that of a carpenter-and remained away until harvest, when he came home to help Clute take care of the grain growing on the Denson place.
Having secured a team, Clute began the work of breaking prairie. In the meanwhile, Johnson had been arrested at Massillon on a charge of stealing horses from Wisconsin. At a preliminary examination, sufficient evidence was found against him to remand him to the Wisconsin authorities, and he was taken back to that State (Grant County) and lodged in jail. At the examination, he made some allusions to his business connection with Clute. Whatever that ref- erence was, it was enough to direct suspicion against Clute; and while he was at work breaking prairie for H. C. Piatt, he was arrested on a charge of harbor- ing horse thieves and taken before Justice Finch for examination. No evidence was found against him, and he was discharged. The result of the examination before Esquire Finch did not prove satisfactory to some of the citizens of the county, and one night, toward the last of June, Clute was visited at his house by parties who pretended to have a warrant for his arrest. Against the earnest protestations of his wife, he surrendered to the pretended officers, and was taken some distance from his house, tied to a tree and severely whipped. After the whipping, he was untied and permitted to return home.
About the beginning of harvest, as already stated, Warner returned home from Scott County to help Clute through harvest. The next day after he came back to the Denson place, Clute and Warner went to Tipton to buy a grain cradle. As they neared Tipton, they were met by the Sheriff of Cedar County, who was accompanied by the Sheriff of Grant County, Wisconsin. Clute was addressed by these officers, who told him they desired to see him. He answered them by inviting them to go back to town with him. where he would hear any- thing they had to say. When they arrived in Tipton, they went to Piatt's law office, where Clute was taken into custody as an accessory to stealing horses from Wisconsin. A preliminary examination was had before Justice Robert Long, and Clute was held to answer. Alonzo Shaw became his bondsman, and Clute was released from custody. At the suggestion of his counsel, Clute soon after (if not immediately) went away to avoid the unpleasant conduct of neigh- boring citizens, and under the belief that, in his absence, the excitement and feeling against him would die out. He secured employment at Rock Island, but returned to Cedar County to attend the Fall Term of the court, when he expected to be tried. In coming home to attend this term of court, Clute made a mistake as to the time, and came home some ten days too early. On learning his mistake, he immediately returned to Rock Island. Learning of his presence at home, Charles Williams and eighteen other men visited the Denson House and demanded Clute. Mrs. Denson was up stairs, spinning, at the time, and she was invited down, a request with which she declined to comply, stating that if they wanted to see her they must come up stairs. Williams and another man went up, and, in reply to Mrs. Denson's interrogatory as to what they wanted with Clute, Williams said they wanted to "run him out of the country and put an end to his harboring horse thieves." Mrs. D. then asked the fur-
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ther question, " Do you know anything wrong of me or any of my family ?" Williams made answer that he did not, except as to Clute; that he was a horse thief before he came to the country, and that she knew it. This was more than Mrs. Denson's Kentucky blood could stand; and, already at fever heat, she made a spring at Williams, and seizing him by the coat collar, kept a piece of it as a trophy. Williams "got" down stairs on the double quick and, with his posse, soon after quit the premises. Clute had previously gone back to Rock Island and thus avoided a second "unpleasantness."
At the proper time, Clute returned; but his case was not reached, and he went back to Rock Island. At the second term of the court after Clute's exam- ination before Esquire Long, the case was again continued, and Shaw asked to be released from his obligation as bondsman, which request was granted, and Robert Barnes was accepted in his place. At the third term of the court, the case was called three times, and, the complainants failing to answer, the case was dismissed.
Mrs. Denson married Jacob A. Warner on the 29th of January, 1857, and Clute decided to remove to Rock Island. After his dismissal from arrest, he repaired to Rock Island to perfect arrangements for removal.
When he had come over to attend the term of court at which his case was dismissed, he left his wife at the residence of her uncle, Robert Barnes, in Scott County, and when he went to take her home, he was suddenly taken sick and remained there some weeks, under the care of Dr. Neimeise. When he was able to be removed, he was taken back to the Denson House by Mr. Warner. At this time, Mr. Warner was engaged in building a house and barn for a man named Dunn, in Scott County ; and when Clute got able to work he was given employment by Warner, as a journeyman carpenter.
Just at daylight on the morning of the third day after Clute had gone to work there, the house was alarmed by the appearance of a number of men, the leader of whom said they had a warrant for the arrest of Warner and Clute, which purported warrant commanded them to appear forthwith before Justice Gates, at Big Rock. The men were taken in custody and started, as they sup- posed, for the office of Justice Gates. But there was no Justice Gates at Big Rock, and the party kept on in the direction of Clinton County, crossing the Wapsipinicon River at Clam Shell Ford. No halt was made until the party reached the residence of old man Warren, in Clinton County, who was un ler the ban of suspicion. Warren was also arrested, and, after some sort of a trial, was hanged till he was dead. A jury of twelve men were selected from the band, and Warner was tried. No evidence was found against him, and he was acquitted on the condition that he would not bring suit in the courts against them, but warned to leave the country within ninety days. Clute was next arraigned and tried in like manner, and almost unanimously acquitted-eleven of the jury voting for acquittal and one for conviction. Clute was given thirty days to quit the country.
After these proceedings, the "court " returned to Big Rock, where Clute and Warner were kept over night at Goddard's tavern. The next morning, they were allowed to depart unmolested, and returned to Dunn's, where Warner threw up the contract on which he was engaged. Clute had decided that it was unsafe for him to remain in the country, and determined to leave and find a home in some other locality. Warner gave him a set of bench tools to help start him in the world, and the two men separated, Warner to return to the Denson place, and Clute to go out somewhere in the world to commence anew life's battle. Since that separation, the wife and family of Clute have never
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7
had any tidings from him. The tools that Warner gave him when they parted were found in Van Tyle's store in Davenport, but how they came there is not explained. It is the belief of Clute's relatives that he never got out of the country alive-that he was followed and murdered, and his body consigned to the Wapsipinicon River, or concealed in some other undiscoverable place. Others, and among them the best citizens of the county, believe that Clute's intended departure from the country was not hindered in any way, but that wherever he went he assumed a new name, and that purposely he has concealed his where- abouts from wife, kindred and friends. It was said that after his departure from Dunn's, he was seen in Keithsburg, Mercer County, Illinois, and that he told parties there he was going South. There is a deep mystery, however, about the total disappearance of Clute, which naturally excites comment. Whether he voluntarily abandoned his family, or was murdered and his body concealed, will probably never be known until the last day. The jury which tried him gave him thirty days' time in which to leave the country, and the speedy acceptance of the terms by him favors the supposition that he was not foully dealt with ; but his silence and his neglect of his family, to whom he appeared to be strongly attached, puts an additional tinge to the darker colorings of the story.
To complete the story, and present some explanations offered by Clute's friends : After the harvest following the whipping administered to Clute in June, Mrs. Denson, Jacob A. Warner and Robert Barnes, of Scott County, went up to Grant County, Wisconsin, to visit Johnson, who was there in jail on a charge of stealing the brown mares heretofore mentioned, to learn from him, if possible, if Clute had any connection with him in horse stealing. He assured his visitors that Clute was innocent of all complicity with him; that he alone had stolen them and taken them to Clute, and left them with him, and gave him instructions to sell them, and that Clute did not even know they were stolen. Clute's friends say, also, that the same night he was taken out and whipped, the peddler's wagon that Johnson had brought and left at the Den- son place was hauled away by Clute's captors, and that they saw and identified it in Wisconsin, when they visited Johnson in the Grant County jail. The mare that Clute sold to Nieman was claimed and taken by Wisconsin parties. Nieman came back on Clute to recover the money he had paid for her. Clute did not have the money, but turned over to him, in settlement of the demand, one yoke of the cattle obtained from Davis in exchange for the other mare.
When Johnson first came to the Denson place with his peddling wagon, he asked the privilege of taking what few goods were left, into the house, which request was granted. It was only a remnant stock, and did not exceed $15 in value, and consisted of pins, needles, thread, tobacco, cigars, matches, etc., which accounts for the finding of the "peddler's " goods in the Denson House.
Mr. Warner did not obey the commands of the vigilantes who arrested him and Clute, at Dunn's, to leave the county within ninety days, but removed his family to Tipton. They remained there over one year, and then returned to the Denson place, to which, by his industry, Mr. Warner has added several hundred acres, and where he still remains, bearing a name for honesty and fair dealing that is above reproach.
GLEASON AND SOPER.
Alonzo Gleason and Edward Soper were the next victims of a long-suffering and wonderfully outraged people. Soper lived three miles southeast of Tipton, on the Muscatine road. Gleason stayed wherever it suited his convenience.
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HISTORY OF LINN COUNTY.
One night in the early Spring of 1857, Edward Soper, Alonzo Gleason and three other equally bad characters invaded the premises of Charles Pennygrot, a German, who lived two and a half miles southeast of Louden, on a horse- stealing mission. Pennygrot was the owner of only two horses of serviceable age, one of which was a superb animal, and which the thieves had previously " spotted " as "suited to their fancy." The five unrighteous wretches had gone out in the neighborhood in a two-horse wagon, and, as night came on, they drove out in the rear of Pennygrot's fields to await a suitable hour to perfect their plans. Sometime about midnight, three of them went to the stable and house to complete the programme. The old man had been sleeping in the barn, but the night being cold, he was forced to go to the house to warm. While he was in the house, one of the thieves approached and stood by the door with a club in his hand to knock the old man down in case he came out before the work was completed. Pennygrot also owned a fierce and almost unmanageable dog, and to secure themselves against his alarm and attack, the thieves resorted to an expedient that showed conclusively their cunning and aptitude in artifice. Somewhere on their route they found and secured a slut in estuation and carried her with them to the near vicinity of the barn. This artifice had the effect to divert the watch dog's attention from them and prevent his alarming his owner, thus enabling them to finish their work without molestation from that quarter.
After the coveted horse was secured, a signal was given to the sentinel at the door, and the trio started to join their companions in crime at the wagon. Previous to starting out on this mission, these night raiders had stolen a horse from a Bohemian, living near Solon, Johnson County, but had managed to keep themselves so concealed as to escape detection.
In their hurry to get away from Pennygrot's barn, the thieves forgot to fasten in the stable the old horse, mate of the stolen one, and he followed after them. As soon as they arrived at the wagon, they started toward the Missis- sippi River. When day began to light the eastern horizon, they sought shelter and concealment in the timber along the Wapsipinicon River. Just as they entered the timber, they discovered the old horse close in the rear, and to prevent him from following them any further, one of the malignant fiends went to the affectionate brute and severed his hamstrings, thus rendering him completely helpless. During the day, the mutilated beast commenced to neigh as if in hunger and distress, and, fearing that the calling after his mate would attract the attention of some one passing along the road, Gleason, demon and devil that he was, left his hiding place long enough to go out where the helpless old horse was lying and cut his throat, thus ending his agony and their apprehensions together. While the act may have been a humane one, in one sense of the word, the motives that prompted it were as far removed from pity as the sun is from the earth.
When darkness came on, the villains again took up their journey, and by night stages and unfrequented by-roads, reached and crossed the Mississippi into Illinois, and finally sold the stolen animals somewhere on the Illinois River, in the vicinity of Peru or Peoria, where they were subsequently found, identi- fied and recovered by their respective owners.
After they had disposed of the stolen horses, the thieves returned to Cedar County, and, emboldened by their late success, attempted to carry on their nefarious business on an enlarged scale; but success seems to have deserted them. They made several attempts to steal valuable animals belonging to Henry Fulwider, James Gay and others, but were always defeated.
At last, their maneuvers became so bold as to attract attention and suspicion. and the people-the vigilantes-on the 2d day of July, 1857, aided the authori-
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ties in placing them under arrest. Ed. Soper was arrested at a house on the farm now owned by Martin Busier, and Gleason was found concealed in a hazel copse bordering on a slough a short distance from the house. After their arrest, Sheriff John Birely placed them in the court room-occupying the entire ground floor of the old frame court house-under a guard of about twenty men. About midnight, the vigilantes, to the number of about forty men, overpow- ered(!) the guards-a large number of whom, as was more than suspected, needed very little compulsion-seized the prisoners and carried them to a grove on the farm of Martin Henry, about one and a half miles south of Louden, and prepared to try them according to the rules and regulations of the Protective Association. The crowd continued to augment in numbers, until fully two hundred men were present. (Boys were carefully and rigidly excluded and guarded away from the ground.)
After all necessary preliminary arrangements were made, a jury of twelve good and true men were selected, and the trial was commenced. The prisoners were told they were allowed to challenge any one on the jury, and to reject any one of them they might believe to be unduly prejudiced against them. They were given every reasonable latitude, and allowed every privilege that would have been accorded them in an organized court of law. The people, to the number of two hundred or more, in the midst of whom the trembling wretches stood in awed subjection, were cool, calm and deliberate, yet resolute and determined. The captives saw and appreciated the situation and the conse- quences, and made full confession of all their crimes, giving full particulars of the stealing of the Bohemian's horse, near Solon, the stealing of Pennygrot's horse, the artifice they used to quiet his dog, how William Denny, Jr., had stood at his door, club in hand, ready to kill the "old Dutchman" if he came out of the house before they got away with his mare, the killing of the old horse, where the stolen mares were sold, and where they could be found, together with many other things not necessary to mention in these pages.
After the "evidence was all in," the jury were asked for their verdict. "GUILTY" was the response.
A motion was then made and submitted to the assembled two hundred that the trembling wretches-self-confessed horse thieves-should be hanged to death at once. Only four of that number voted against the motion. Ropes were procured and adjusted to the necks of the condemned men. A wagon was drawn up under a projecting limb of a white oak tree under which they had been tried and condemned, and the men were made to get up on it. The loose end of the rope was thrown over the limb and securely fastened, the wagon was pulled out from under them, and about 3 o'clock on the afternoon of July 3, A. D. 1857, the bodies of Edward Soper and Alonzo Gleason were hung between the heavens and the earth, upon their own confession.
When life was extinct, their bodies were cut down, and a rude grave dug beneath their gallows, and, unwashed and uncoffined, their remains were rolled into the hole and covered with mother earth.
When the rope was placed around their necks, Gleason said to his execu- tioner's : "Boys, I hope I'll meet you all in hell !" and making a leap, jumped from the wagon and landed in eternity. It is said by some that Gleason told Soper to stand up and die like a man-" to jump off the wagon, and not allow himself to be strangled to death like a dog.'
In a day or two after the tragical affair, the friends of Soper exhumed his remains and prepared to give them a decent, if not a truly Christian, burial. The following Sunday, his corpse was brought to the Court House yard in
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Tipton. The coffin was opened and his face exposed to view. It was a sicken- ing and repulsive sight-all blackened with the advanced stages of decomposi- tion and putrefaction. After the coffin was closed, a few friends formed in procession and followed all that remained of Edward Soper to the old grave yard at Tipton, where he was re-buried.
It would be strange, indeed, if there were not some people who censured and condemned the manner of his sudden and disgraceful taking off, or a sympathy awakened for him and his relatives and friends, even if the punishment of death was justly merited. Such a sympathy was awakened and found expression in more voices than one. The action of the vigilantes was seriously and earnestly condemned, and at one time it was feared that the sympathy and condemnation would overleap the bounds of reason and prudence, and take the form of retribu- tive action not altogether creditable to law-abiding people. But happily and fortunately for the peace, welfare and good name of the community, the ruffled element of public sentiment settled down into a peaceful calm, and other than an attempt to get the matter before the grand jury, no action has ever been taken. At the first session of the court after the hanging, Judge Tuthill, presiding, said, in his charge to the grand jury, that "where a number of per- sons are assembled together to do an unlawful act, all who are present when the offense is committed are, in presumption of law, participants ; for it is a well known principle of criminal jurisprudence that all who openly aid and abet the commission of a felony participate in the crime; and in riotous and tumultuous assemblies all who are present and do not endeavor in some manner to prevent,
restrain or discountenance the breach of the peace are prima facie participants therein." While the grand jury was in session, a large number of those who were engaged in the Soper-Gleason tragedy were in town, and when witnesses were seen approaching the grand jury room, the vigilantes or their friends used means to either persuade or frighten them away, so that no indictments were ever lodged against them. Witnesses who had been summoned subsequently reported that when they were nearing Tipton to go before the grand jury to testify, they were met by men whom they did not know and told to go back home and attend to their own business ; that if they went before the grand jury, they were only inviting their own deaths. Whether this is true or not, only those who were interested have the means of knowing.
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