USA > Iowa > Polk County > The history of Polk County, Iowa : containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., biographical sketches of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics, portraits of early settlers and prominent men > Part 64
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" May 9th, 1880.
" R. L. TIDRICK, Secretary.
" Obituary-The old settlers of our city, like the old oaks of the forest, are one after another dropping away from us. Each month nearly, a per- son is called hence who came to our city when it was but a small village, and lived to look into a cloud of new and strange faces. Yesterday after- noon, at 2 o'clock, Mrs. Celia Smith died at her residence on High street. She was born in Virginia in 1802, married at Parkersburg in early life and removed to Des Moines in 1850. She has been the mother of seven chil- dren, five of whom still live in this city, and who ministered most kindly to her- in her long and painful sickness. About a year ago she became afflicted with a. cancer, and since last autumn she has been in almost constant distress and agony. No one ever endured affliction with greater patience and Christian resignation. While she greatly longed for death, and was constantly pre- pared for death, she expressed a desire to have God's will done. For over sixty years she has been a constistent and exemplary member of the M. E. Church. Her funeral will take place at her residence, on High street, Monday afternoon, at half past two o'clock."
CHAPTER IX.
INCIDENTS, ACCIDENTS AND CRIMES.
THERE were certain incidents in the early history of Polk county, which, although neither humorous nor pathetic, still are sufficiently interesting to be narrated in this work. Several of such incidents have already been nar- rated in connection with other subjects under consideration. There are others which deserve to be transmitted which have no real or apparent con- nection with anything else. It is, therefore, deemed not altogether out of place to mention such in connection with an account of certain accidents and crimes which have occurred in the county. This we shall do without any reference to logical or chronological order.
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HISTORY OF POLK COUNTY.
THE FOUTS CASE.
The first murder in Polk county was that of Ruth Fouts, who was mur- dered by her husband, Pleasant Fouts. Fouts and his wife had had some trouble, and after consultation together they concluded to separate and that he should go to the extreme West, where large numbers of people were then emigrating. He went, and remained some time, but finally becoming dissatisfied he returned to Polk county and begged his wife to again live with him. She consented. Before going West he had rented his house, and it was some time before he could again secure possession of it, and in the meantime he and his wife were encamped near by and close to the house. Fouts returned one evening shortly after dark, and stealthily ap- proaching his wife who was engaged in performing her domestic duties, seized and stabbed her. The wound was not necessarily fatal, and she broke away from Fouts and ran to the house, rushed against the door with the full force of her whole weight, and bursting the door open, fell into the room. In a few moments Fouts appeared, attracted hither, he said, by the cries of his wife, and professing to come to her defense, and upon these representations was admitted to the house. He was covered with her blood and held the knife in his hand. No sooner had he gained ad- mission than he renewed the attack upon her, then cutting her throat and completing his murderous work. Mrs. Fouts died soon after in the arms of the woman of the house. Fouts fled, but was soon arrested and placed in the custody of the Sheriff, who was at that time Wm. H. McHenry, the present Judge of the Fifth Judicial District. He was placed by the Sheriff in the county jail, and closely guarded. He was indicted by the Grand Jury and placed on trial. The indictment alleged that Pleasant Fouts
" Did willfully, feloniously, unlawfully and with malice aforethought, with force and arms, and with a certain knife made of iron and steel, in his right hand then and there held, which knife has been withheld or destroyed by the said Fouts and cannot be found, make an assault upon Ruth Fouts, then and there living in the peace of the State, and then and there willfully, feloniously and unlawfully, and with malice aforethought, with the knife in his right hand, then and there held, did strike and thrust, cut and stab her, the said Ruth Fouts, upon the neck and throat; and the said Pleasant Fouts, with the knife aforesaid, by striking, thrusting, cutting and stab- bing aforesaid upon the neck of her, the said Ruth Fouts, did then and there give unto her, the said Ruth Fouts, several wounds, to-wit: two mor- tal wounds, one the length of two inches and the depth of two inches upon the neck and throat of her, the said Ruth Fouts, of which mortal wounds she, the said Ruth Fouts, then and there of the county of Polk aforesaid, and in the township of Jefferson, in said county, on the 9th day of August, in the year of our Lord 1854, did immediately die. And so the Grand Jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the said Pleasant Fouts, did her, the said Ruth Fouts, at the time and place aforesaid, in the manner, and by the means aforesaid, willfully, feloniously, unlawfully and with malice aforethought, kill and murder against the peace and dig- nity of the State of Iowa, contrary to the statute in such case made and provided."
On being arraigned for trial in October, 1854, when his attorneys, Messrs. Parish, Bates and Finch, introduced the plea of "Not guilty," it was moved for a change of venue which was granted, and the case sent to
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Jasper county for trial. When the case came up in Jasper county, the at- torneys for the defendant asked for another change of venue, which was granted, and the case sent to Warren county for trial. At the next term of court in Warren county, Fouts was again arraigned for trial. Barlow Granger, then Prosecuting Attorney, assisted by Lewis Todhunter, ap- peared for the State. After an exhaustive and somewhat tedious trial Fouts was found guilty of murder in the first degree.
The sentence was pronounced by Judge Townsend after he had overruled the motion for a new trial, and it was to the effect that "the said defend- ant, Pleasant Fouts, be hung by the neck till he is dead, and that the exe- cution of the said defendant take place at some public and convenient place within one mile of the town of Indianola, within the county of Warren, on the fifteenth day of December, A. D. 1854, at one o'clock P. M., of said day."
The condemned man was then remanded to the care of Sheriff McHenry, and his case in the meantime brought before the Supreme Court on a writ of error, and the court decided that under the indictment the defendant could not be convicted of murder in the first degree. The decision of the court below was reversed as to several points, but the court pronounced his offense murder in the second degree, and the sentence imprisonment for life. Sheriff McHenry had charge of Fouts almost constantly from the time of his arrest until his final incarceration in the penitentiary at Fort Madison. He took him, he says, by coach from Des Moines to Iowa City, and in all that distance, in no kind of discussion, at no pleasantry indulged in by the passengers did he so much as smile or relax from his solemnity. He was then in doubt as to his fate, and in fact expected to suffer death for his crime. But when the Supreme Court had reversed the verdict of the court below and had commuted his sentence to imprisonment for life, he was from that time forth the jolliest man in the coach from Iowa City to Fort Madison.
Fouts remained in the penitentiary until a year or two ago, when death relieved him of his punishment after an incarceration of twenty-three years. His two daughters were living in Kansas, and after the death of their father they applied to Judge McHenry, as their attorney, to have the es- tate settled. The estate had been, during all this time, in the hands of William Ashworth of Warren county, and that gentleman, upon order of court, made a final settlement and sent the proceeds of the estate to the daughters.
MURDER AND SUICIDE.
On a beautiful summer evening, just after sundown, in the spring of 1858, a young lady by the name of King was walking near the north limits of Des Moines in company with a young man by the name of Chandler. 'An Englishman by the name of Rosseter had been paying some attention to the young lady a short time previous but his suit had not been encour- aged. Driven to desperation by jealously and bad whisky, Rosseter, who had seen the couple start out for a promenade, secured a pistol and secreted himself in the hazel brush near the road, along which Chandler and Miss King would be likely to return.
Just after the couple passed the thicket where Rosseter was concealed, the latter stealthily left his place of concealment and going up behind the un- suspecting party placed the muzzle of the pistol almost in contact with the
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back of Mr. Chandler's head, and fired. The bullet perforated the hat which the victim wore, passed through his skull and into the brain causing in - stant death. The assassin then made an attempt on the life of Miss King, firing upon her and wounding her in the hand, from the effects. of which · the lady fainted. Rosseter supposed that Miss King was mortally wounded and, satisfied with the completion of that part of the work, turned his atten- tion to the work of self-destruction; he turned the muzzle of his pistol to- ward his own head and fired. Rosseter did not die immediately from the effects of the wound, and managed to crawl to an old untenanted building where he died the next day. Miss King recovered, and at last accounts was still living in the county.
THE REEVES MOB.
A family by the name of Reeves, living at Linn Grove near North river, were, at an early day, suspected, and at length openly accused with being connected with a gang of horse thieves. Perhaps their guilt could not have been legally established, but to the minds of the settlers there was very strong circumstantial evidence, amounting to almost positive certainty. What this evidence was is not positively known, but acting upon it, the set- tlers assembled, and proceeding to Reeves' house commanded the whole fam- ily to depart from the county in a certain time unless they preferred to bear the consequences of remaining, which were declared to them in terms far from agreeable.
Intimidated by these threats the Reeves family, the male portion of which consisted of two old men and several sons, removed to Fort Des Moines, not at all to the joy of the citizens there.
Soon after their arrival one of the sons became engaged in a fight and shot a man by the name of James Phipps, dangerously wounding him. Reeves was arrested, examined and sent to Oskaloosa jail, there being no suitable prison in Polk county at that time.
Subsequently the settlers on North river collected to the number of sixty or more, and advanced on horseback to Fort Des Moines, determined to make some other effort to rid the county from these murderers and insure safety to their own property.
A report of their preparations was carried to Fort Des Moines, but be- fore it arrived there it was exaggerated into the alarming intelligence that the town itself was to be destroyed and all the citizens carried into captivity. It was said that some of the residents of the Fort, being in the vicinity of North river, were taken prisoners and killed, and that the settlers along the stream, still thirsting for blood, had marshalled all their forces for the pur- pose of waging a war of extermination upon the people of Fort Des Moines. These reports wrought a great excitement among the more credulous in- habitants of Fort Des Moines, similar to the then recent Indian stories.
Col. Baker, with a small band of the most patriotic, marched through the streets, accompanied by the music of a drum and fife, beating up for volunteers and imploring the people by every noble sentiment to rush to arms and defend their homes and property from the army of invading ruf- fians, who would soon be upon them with all the ferocity of hungry lions, and utterly blot out their lovely town from the face of the earth.
The more sensible among the people looked upon the matter as a farce, but Col. Baker and his command were determined that Fort Des Moines must and should be preserved and that they would save the lives of the
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people in spite of themselves. They were content to bear the raillery of to-day-to-morrow would show who was right. So they sent out their scouts to see how near the enemy had advanced, instructing them to be careful that they were not captured and hanged to the nearest tree. These scouts not returning immediately, others were dispatched to learn if possi- ble their untimely fate. Finally, after several days spent in enlisting men, procuring arms and ammunition, dispatching spies and waiting for the enemy to appear, the whole affair turning out to be a hoax just as did the Indian attack on Fort Dodge. Fort Des Moines was not to be assailed, its houses dismantled, its stores pillaged, men shot, women and children car- ried into hopeless captivity. Nothing of the kind. It was only the Reeves, and who cared for the Reeves after such an escape.
In about one week the North River men came. The Raccoon river was low and easily forded near the mouth. When they arrived at the river two of the men crossed over for the purpose of ascertaining where the Reeves lived; the remainder of the crowd sheltered themselves in the thick timber of the opposite bank. They evidently expected some opposition to their summary proceedings from the citizens of Des Moines, and therefore wished to take them by surprise. In this expectation they were mistaken. The residents of the Fort were not disposed to interfere with the removal of such characters as the Reeves. The two scouts soon returned having readily acquired the desired information, and the whole force immediately crossed the river and galloped through the town, raising a cloud of dust and great excitement. They rode single file, each man swinging a rifle in his right hand, while with his left he urged his horse to greater speed. The parties they sought lived in the outskirts of the town; thither the horsemen rode. Before reaching the house the road forked, one branch leading to the right and the other to the left. By preconcerted arrange- ment the foremost horseman took to the right the second to the left and so on alternately in order that they might surround the house. Presley Reeves, seeing the horsemen and thinking his time had come, took to his heels and endeavored to escape across the fields. His efforts were in vain and the North River Rangers soon secured him. They then told the fam- ily that they must leave immediately, not only the town but the country; that they had the force to oblige them to leave and intended to do it. Their team was soon harnessed to the wagon and driven to the door, the members of the family and their effects packed in and when all was ready the cavalcade marched back as they came, no one of all the bystanders offering any opposition whatever. The Reeves were escorted by a guard some twenty miles south; they were then told not to stop till they reached Missouri, and then the horsemen quietly dispersed to their homes.
A BLOODY MURDER AND MAN HUNT.
Sometime in the summer of 1848 there was great excitement in the east part of the county over a supposed murder. A man named Knisely, living near Indian Creek just across the line in Jasper county, was missing from his cabin. Mr. Knisely was a German, and as he was not in the habit of mingling much with his neighbors, not much was thought of his absence for the time being.
There were two brothers by the name of Hamlin living not far from Knisely's cabin who bore a bad reputation. They were questioned as to
,
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HISTORY OF POLK COUNTY.
Knisely's whereabouts and gave what were considered evasive answers; add- ing rather insolently that folks had better mind their own business. Peo- ple talked the matter over till finally everybody in the neighborhood firmly believed that the missing man had been murdered by the Hamlins for the purpose of plunder.
Skunk river was dragged with all sorts of appliances, but no corpse was found. The excitement grew in intensity from day to day, and finally a mob gathered and proceeded to torture the suspected murderers till they would confess. They were hanged by the thumbs and then by the neck till under the influence of terrible suffering, the wretches confessed the deed, but could not tell where they had hidden the corpse, and begged for mercy. There were quite a number in the mob who were in favor of per- mitting the law to have its course and their counsels prevailed. The jail at Fort Des Moines was not considered safe enough for such great crimi- nals, and the Hamlins were taken to the Oskaloosa jail. Governor East- man, now living at Eldora, was the attorney for the Hamlins when arraigned for trial, and a trial which promised to be very exciting and pro- tracted had begun, when it was suddenly terminated by the return of Knisely's brother from Missouri, who said the missing man had passed through on his way to California.
Another person had in the meantime been arrested on suspicion of being an accomplice; on his preliminary examination he proved an alibi and was released.
The parties connected with the lynching of the Hamlins still think Knisely was murdered.
WM. H. MEACHAM AND THE HORSE THIEVES.
Polk county, in common with most other counties in their early settle- ment, was infested with horse thieves. At length after the people had borne with this grievance till forbearance seemed no longer to be a virtue a vigilance committee was formed, and a number of suspected persons mysteriously disappeared. Certain persons from Tama county having been discovered in the county under suspicious circumstances, the vigilance committee got after them and one of the suspected persons was afterward found hanging to a tree between Des Moines and Tama county. A certain person suspected of having a part in the hanging was arrested in Polk county, but a few years since, and taken to Tama county, where he was tried and acquitted. These matters are doubtless all fresh in the minds of the readers, as they were fully discussed in the press of the county less than a year ago. Although nothing certain was ever known implicating him in these summary measures for the suppression of thieves, yet from some cause or other Wm. H. Meacham was regarded with a feeling of great dread by the evil-doers. A circumstance related by Mr. Turrell in his- little book, published in 1857, showed how matters stood at that time:
"In the winter of 1856-57 a horrible murder was committed in Powe- shiek county, and some persons living in the south part of Polk county were suspected of being accessory, if not principals, to the murder. A heavy reward having been offered for the apprehension of the murderers, every one upon whom the slightest suspicion rested was vigilantly watched and every circumstance betraying the guilty parties was carefully noted.
" At length Wm. H. Meacham, of this city, whose name, in the days of
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yore, was a terror to the horse thieves of this region, and who has grown old and even distinguished in the profession, if such it be of capturing felons, determined upon their arrest. Accompanied by several persons he made a descent upon the suspected parties, and by dint of curses and threats, and brandishing of deadly weapons succeeded in capturing a man by the name of Van Schoick, whom he fastened with a chain and forcibly took to Poweshiek county. In Poweshiek county Van Schoick was pronounced not to be the man whom circumstances had identified as the murderer. Mr. Meacham had, therefore, kidnapped an innocent man and after he had been detained in illegal custody for nearly a week he was released and told to go home.
"But other evidence, or at least what was supposed to be evidence, hav- ing been obtained, again this bevy of men, who were officers ad libitum, burst upon the unsuspecting Van Schoick, and captured him with his father-in-law, Mr. Ridgway, and barely allowing them time to get their coats, they were put into a sleigh and threatened with death if they at- tempted to resist, and borne away to Montezuma. But from the intense cold, and the difficulty of reaching Montezuma on account of the state of the roads, after reaching Jasper county, Mr. Meacham brought his prison- ers to Des Moines, where he surrendered them to the Sheriff and filed in- formation against them for murder. A trial followed, but the proof against them was of the most trifling nature, and they were speedily ac- quitted.
" Fear of again falling into the hands of the merciless Meacham, induced Ridgway and Van Schoick to commence an action against their late illegal custodian for kidnapping, but it appearing to the court that Mr. Meacham was a monomaniac on the subject of taking horse thieves, and various other felonious characters, he was on this and similar facts acquitted."
CORONER PHILLIPS.
James Phillips was one of the early coroners of Polk county, and it is said he had very peculiar ideas of the duties of the office. Two Indians once visited Fort Des Moines, got drunk, quarreled and one killed the other. The body of the murdered man was found and Coroner Phillips sent for. He came, turned him over, examined him closely and pronounced him dead. Some one suggested that it was usual to summon a jury to in- vestigate the matter.
" What do we want a jury for? He's dead-dead as a stone. I know he's dead, you know he's dead, and Miss Hayes knows he's dead. What in the name of common sense do we want a jury to set on him for, that's what I should like to know? They couldn't bring him to life."
"What shall we do with him, then?" inquired a bystander.
" Why bury him of course, and then go home about your business," said the Coroner, whose ire had risen at the suggestion of a jury. " Bury him and let that be the last of it, for if I ever saw a dead man he's one. Why he's stabbed in a dozen places, any of them enough to kill him."
THE SOUL OF JOHN BROWN.
On the 10th of June, 1856, a public meeting was held in Iowa City for the purpose of firing the public heart on the subject of the Kansas diffi-
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culty. Several spirited speeches were made, and after the public meeting, which was held for general purposes, a private meeting was held for the purpose of devising definite measures in aid of those who were making their way to the contested ground in the interests of free soil. At this meeting the following address was prepared and placed in the hands of George D. Woodin, Esq., who was to visit all the counties to the south and west for the purpose of opening up a line of communication:
" To the friends of the Kansas Free State cause in Iowa-The under- signed have been appointed a committee to act in connection with similar committees appointed in Chicago and other States, and with committees of like character to be appointed in various counties of the State, and espe- cially in those counties lying west and southwest of us.
"The plan of operations is the establishment of a direct route and speedy communication for eastern emigrants into Kansas. The committee have appointed Messrs. George D. Woodin, Esq., William Sanders and Capt. S. N. Hartwell to visit your place for the purpose of having a com- mittee appointed there to facilitate the general plan of operations and carry out the details. They will explain to you the minutiæe of this plan, at greater length than we are able to do in this communication.
Capt. Hartwell is a member of the State Legislature in Kansas, and is recently from the scene of the ruffian atrocities, which have been com- mitted in that embryo State.
" We have here pledged our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honors to make Kansas a free State, and we shall expect our friends from this place westward will give us their hearty co-operation.
" Yours in the cause of freedom,
" W. P. CLARK, Chairman. " C. W. HOBART, Secretary. " H. D. DOWNEY, Treasurer. " I. N. JEROME. " LYMAN ALLEN. " J. TEESDALE. " M. L. MORRIS.
"Iowa City, June 10, 1856."
As before remarked, Mr. Woodin in particular was active and diligent in transacting the business delegated to him. He made a complete tour of the counties lying in the proposed route of the " emigrants " and estab- lished committees. He succeeded in enlisting in this enterprise the most active and reliable men in the various towns which he visited who were in sympathy with the movement. Most of the men are still living and many of them have since achieved a national reputation. The following are the names of the individuals composing the committees at the various points along the route:
Wassonville-Isaac Farley, Myron Frisbee, N. G. Field.
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