USA > Iowa > Wapello County > The history of Wapello County, Iowa, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, &c., a biographical directory of citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics history of the Northwest, history of Iowa > Part 54
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" The rope was now adjusted around the neck of the prisoner, the black cap drawn over his face, and his hands and feet tied. The Sheriff, having shaken hands with him, at 12:30 the drop fell, and the soul of McComb was launched into eternity. He struggled some ten minutes, and then all was still. The physicians, Drs. Hinsey and Williamson, at 12:51 pronounced life extinct.
" The body was taken down, dressed, placed in a coffin, and conveyed between files of soldiers to the lower hall of the Court House, where the people were permitted to see it. The remains left that evening by express for Rock- ford, Ill.
" Thus ended this drama. McComb was a man of great fortitude, of immense physical endurance. He is the man the public have from the beginning believed to be the man who committed this awful erime. He persisted to the last in asserting his innocence; but he had a fair trial, was convicted by a jury of his countryman, and we doubt if any execution ever received the more unani- mous approval of public opinion."
THE WILLIS MURDER-LYNCHING OF KEPHART.
The most atrocious murder ever committed in the county of Wapello was that of the Willis family, mother and two children, by John Kephart. The tragedy occurred near Eddyville in June, 1860, but belongs rather to the his- tory of Jefferson County than to Wapello. The triple murder was performed on the soil of the last-named county ; but the discovery of the crime and the summary administration of justice took place within the limits of Jefferson County.
The details of the shocking affair are here briefly narrated. John Kephart formed the acquaintance of the Willis family, then consisting of William and Jane Willis, the parents, and Joseph T., a lad of 12; Maria Jane, a girl of 7, and James Harvey Willis, a lad of 10-children of the aforesaid parents-in Muscatine. He had lived in different parts of the State, and seems to have been, like his vietims. of the lower walks of life.
In the spring of 1860, Kephart agreed to move the Willis family into Mis- souri. Hle performed his work, and while they were stopping at a Widow Sny- der's, in Cass County, Mo., Willis suddenly sickened and died. There is rea- son to believe that Kephart administered poison to the man, probably for the purpose of securing to himself the woman Willis, and what little wealth the
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poor fellow possessed. Mrs. Willis, it is alleged, charged the crime on Kep- hart, but still consented to remain with him, and made no effort to avenge her husband's tragic taking-off. This fact demonstrates the character of the par- ticipants in the subsequent events.
After the death of Willis, the party lived a vagabond life, and in early June started for Kansas. The night of the tragedy they camped near the bridge at Eddyville. It was subsequently shown that the man and woman quarreled about some money affair, and in the night, the man Kephart, a hoary-headed old sinner of about 60 years of age, killed Mrs. Willis with an ax, and the two children, Joseph and Maria, with a hammer. The boy James escaped through some good fortune. Willis concealed the bodies in his wagon, and retraced his steps toward Missouri. He drove thirty miles with an ox-team before disposing of his ghastly freight, and then sunk the bodies of his victims in Cedar Creek, near Batavia, Jefferson County.
Three or four days after the hiding of the bodies, a fisherman chanced to discover the horrid deed. Search was at once instituted, and the wretch over- taken in Missouri. The crime was easily traced, because of the bungling man- ner in which it had been performed.
Kephart was taken to Fairfield, and there incarcerated in the County Jail. Public sentiment ran so high that lynching was openly advocated. July 5, the feeling crystallized into action, and an immense concourse of people assem- bled about the Jail with the intent to administer prompt judgment. Many of the leading citizens addressed the mob in vain ; and finally the guilty wretch was taken out by force, placed in a wagon, and driven to the spot where the bodies where found. There a rude gallows had already been erected, a grave dug, and all was in readiness for the victim of an indignant populace. At about half past 2 the prisoner was brought to the scaffold after a ride of nearly thirteen miles. He was, as his deeds showed, a miserable coward, and had nearly fainted from fright several times. Finally all was made ready, and the trap fell, launch- ing the murderer into eternity. The body was allowed to hang an hour or more in sight of at least one thousand five hundred persons, a third of whom were women and children, it is said. The corpse went, in all probability, into the dissecting-room of some Jefferson County surgeon.
The authorities and law-abiding portion of the people of Jefferson County bitterly condemned the hanging, since the law at that time provided for the death penalty, and there was no danger of the prisoner's being allowed to escape. Upon the question of the righteousness of the deed, there naturally is a diversified opinion ; but there can be no difference of opinion as to the just deserts of the man. The manner, and not the infliction of the punishment, alone furnishes food for adverse criticism.
THE SHOOTING OF ALBERT M. LOGAN, AND THE LYNCHING OF HIS MURDERER, JOHN SMITH.
The most tragic event which has ever occurred in Ottumwa, was the cold- blooded murder of Officer Albert M. Logan, at the hands of John Smith, or John Scott Smith, as he was also called. The scene was intensified by the subsequent lynching of the murderer, and his execution, in broad daylight, in front of the City Hall, in Ottumwa. The circumstances of the terrible affair are as follows :
About 9 o'clock on the evening of the 28th of June, 1875, Officer Logan was performing police duty near the depot building, in Ottumwa, in conjunc- tion with Officer John H. McGee, who had been sent there by Marshal Vannaman
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on the report of some petty disturbance. The two policemen discovered nothing to demand their services, and proceeded to patrol the neighborhood. As they approached the depot platform, they detected a company of three men lounging there, and overheard one of them remark that he " was gettingd-d drunk." Logan stepped up to the speaker and said, " Come with me." The fellow demanded the officer's authority, when Logan displayed his badge of Assistant Marshal. The man recognized the insignia of office, and quietly proceeded to accompany Logan up the track toward the business part of town. McGee noticed that one of the men who was first seen with the prisoner got up and followed Logan, and immediately started in the same direction to prevent interference with the arrest. When Logan had reached a point on the railroad track midway between College and Union streets, Officer McGee saw a flash of light in front of Logan and heard the sharp report of a pistol. He saw Logan jump to the right, when he beheld the prisoner fire a second shot. McGee drew his own revolver and ran forward to Logan's assistance. Meanwhile, Logan had fallen to the ground, pierced through the chest, and expired. McGee did not wait to attend the victim, but pursued the murderer, who fled down Union street to the alley, thence along the alley, and jumped a fence into an adjoining garden. A crowd of men had assembled by this time, and the bloody wretch, who had escaped a shower of bullets in his flight, was dragged into the alley and there secured.
At the foot of College street lay the corpse of one of the bravest and most highly esteemed officers ever on the police force of Ottumwa. Young in years, but full of courage; prompt to perform duty, no matter how dangerous or involved, the officer had come to his untimely end at the hands of a desperate character, who was unworthy to receive even passing recognition from his victim when alive.
It is not strange that the people of Ottumwa were thrown into a whirl of excitement, and that the news flew like wildfire throughout the city. Soon the streets were filled with an angered crowd, and speculations as to where that lawlessness would end were generally indulged in.
What added to the feeling of indignation was the recollection that, although the known murderer was then in the hands of the law, that very law prevented the meting-out to him a just reward for his brutal crime. The State laws, at that time, did not permit of the carrying-out of that vigorous old Mosaic man- date-a life for a life. Talk of lynching was freely indulged in that night, but no effort to carry out the threats so frequently made was put in definite form.
The following day, an inquest was held on the body of Logan, and the crime of willful murder fixed on Smith. The hardened sinner admitted that he did the killing, but supposed that he was shooting Marshal Vannaman instead of Logan.
All the morning of the day following the murder, while the inquest was in progress, a silent determination to rid the world of a plague grew in the public mind. Where it was originated, or by whom, no one knew; still, everybody was impressed with the opinion that the tragedy was not yet ended.
At about 2 P. M., the prisoner was taken to the City Hall for preliminary examination. Marshal Vannaman had charge of him. The street in front of the Hall was filled with an orderly but ominously quiet crowd of people, while every foot of room was occupied within the building. Esquire Fetzer presided over the examination, which was merely formal, since Smith waived full exam- ination, and was bound over to trial at the District Court, without bonds. The prisoner was not in the court-room many minutes.
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The mittimus was made ont, and Marshal Vannaman proceeded to return his charge to the Jail. The crowd in the Hall and on the stairway rushed down into the street in advance of the culprit. As the officers in charge of Smith reached the doorway on the street. a cry of "Hang him!" was raised. Imme- diately, with remarkable unity of action and without noise, the Marshal and his men were violently pushed away from Smith. They fought like tigers for their charge, but were overpowered almost instantly. In the melee Smith had been carried some little distance up the street. When the crowd captured him, and forced Vannaman away, he was taken on a quick walk to the lamp-post just in front of the City Hall, on the outer edge of the walk. There he stood, with sullen and dogged look, viewing the crowd. He realized at that moment what violent death meant. He had sent a human being out of life but a few hours before, and now an avenging people were to perform a deed which would end his own reckless existence. What his thoughts were, no man can tell. He was of too low an intelligence to suffer much more than a brutal agony of fear, like the coward he was; but it is certain that he did experience all the torments capable of realization in such a mind as his.
A moment of awful inaction, but merely a moment. From somewhere. no one knows where, a rope appeared. A noose was formed and placed about the murderer's neck. A dozen hands swung the rope, as though a child were playing at skipping-the-rope. The first efforts to reach the arm of the lamp-post failed. At last it lodged across the slender beam, and stout hands hauled upon the farther end. They pulled the fellow from his feet, and the rope caught in the post. Some one reached down and lifted the man up. Another pull at the rope and Smith's body hung between heaven and earth. The end of the rope was fastened about the post, and the victim left to sway slowly in the air. The body hung for about ten minutes, when life was pronounced totally extinct, and the corpse was lowered.
There are several very remarkable facts connected with this hanging. In the first place, although several hundred persons witnessed the tragedy, not one in all that crowd can swear as to who furnished the rope, who placed it around Smith's neck, who pulled him up, or who fastened the end of the rope about the lamp-post. Second, it is said by those who have beheld several executions, that Smith died more easily than most men do from such causes. He was dead before the crowd pulled him up ! Fright deprived him of life. He made but one slight convulsion of the neck and shoulders, and was dead. His hands were cuffed, but his arms and legs were free ; still he moved not a single muscle.
As to the merits of this case, we have no right to speak. Had Logan been spared, that his life would have been a useful one, there is no doubt. Now that Smith is dead, probably the world is not much the poorer.
Albert M. Logan was born in Decatur County, Ind., and at the time of his death was twenty-three years of age. He had been a resident of Ottumwa for four years, first as an employe of the Johnston Ruffler Company, and then in various clerical capacities, until he finally obtained a place on the police force of the city, only a few weeks prior to his death. He was a warm-hearted, open-countenanced young man, who had hosts of friends. He was a nephew of Sheriff Spillman, then aeting in that official character; and a touching coinci- dence is the fact that the murdered man and the murderer were taken to the same building, the County Jail, where Sheriff Spillman then lived.
The man Smith came of bad stock, and declared himself to be a " bad one." His father lived at Batavia. At the time of his execution he was about thirty years of age.
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THE COUNTY AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
On the 24th of January, 1852, the Wapello County Agricultural Society was organized. The meeting of citizens convened at the Court House in Ottum- wa, for that purpose, and the officers elected were as follows: President, John W. Hedrick ; Vice President, G. D. Hackworth; Treasurer, Bela White ; Secretary, J. W. Norris. The Board of Managers was made up of one from each township, as follows : Center, Uriah Biggs ; Dahlonega, William Rowell; Agency, Jesse Brookshire ; Pleasant. James Hill ; Washington, Franklin Newell; Richland, J. D. Bevans ; Highland, B. B. Stephens ; Competine, Andrew Majors ; Columbia, Levi Jenkins ; Cass, William A. Nye; Polk, Edward Pedigo ; Adams, Joseph Wood ; Greene, D. H. Michael ; Keokuk, W. C. MeIntire. This meeting passed off very harmoniously, and a good many persons became members of the society. Though a fair was planned for the first year, it did not come off, owing to the fact that the farmers throughout the county had hardly become waked up enough in interest for such an event. But on the 14th of October, 1853, the first fair took place, and very successfully, too. There were at least two thousand persons present, and a very commend- able show of stock and articles for competition. The number and variety of cattle on exhibition was a source of pride to all interested in the quality of farming stock. After the fair was over, an election of officers took place, when Mr. J. W. Hedrick was again chosen President, E. Washburn, Treasurer, and R. H. Warden, Secretary. The second list of township Directors was as fol- lows : Columbia, J. W. Norris ; Cass, John Johnson ; Richland, J. H: Devol ; Highland, M. W. McChesney ; Competine, H. Risley ; Pleasant, A. B. Per- sons ; Washington, T. Foster ; Agency, Charles Dudley ; Keokuk, Joseph Mc- Intire : Greene, M. Tullis ; Adams, J. P. Brock ; Dahlonega, Jonathan Thomp- son ; Center, U. Biggs. As there was no member of the society at that time from Polk Township, that was not represented in the Board.
The records of this society have been so fully preserved in the books, as well as in the county newspapers, that we feel it unnecessary to elaborate the proceedings here. From the first, the society has prospered, and has been as complete a success as might naturally be expected in so good a county. Annual meetings are kept up, and reference to the Secretary's books is made, if our readers desire a detailed account of them at any time. A transcript of them here would occupy too much space.
SPECULATIVE AND PROPHETIC.
The man who cannot find something to love and applaud in the land he has chosen for a home is devoid of the elements of patriotismn-that devotion which cements these States and preserves the Union in indissoluble bonds. But where one finds a region so abundant in natural advantages, so enchanting in landscape, and so salubrious in climate as this in which we write these lines, the lack of patriotic enthusiasm falls little below a crime in magnitude and character.
That such a deficiency does not exist in the hearts of Wapello County men and women we have learned by personal investigation. The residents are proud of their homes and ambitious that the world should know of it. Naturesmiled when these broad acres were perfected. The gradual action of the elements resulted in artistic forms of hillock, plain and valley, as though the creative
Whis, For Blake
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force had endowed the agents of transformation with esthetic attributes. The crude touches of the landscape are found where the water-courses still push their way through gorge and marsh, and offer a protest against criticism, as though to impress one with the idea that their work is but half performed. As an artist might turn in angry warning upon one who was bold enough to speak harshly of his sketch when but half completed, so do the smaller streams speak volumes to the thoughtful mind which is prepared by culture to commune with Nature. The graceful sweep of field, which now gladdens the heart of the expectant husbandman, was once the bed of such a stream as this. Ages ago, the process of evolution began, and countless years have passed since first the impeding twigs or pebbles changed the direction of the waters. The results of Nature's ceaseless workings are now beheld in the lovely range of prairies, dotted with homesteads and beautified by waving grain.
There is a township in the county known as Richland. The traveler may well pause to admire the scene and speculate upon the comparative beauties of the original and modern region. It is almost impossible for man to conceive of a more delightful combination of hill and dell than that which uprolls itself before his eye, in grateful succession, as he journeys slowly through it. The popular Eastern idea of Iowa is that the monotony of landscape is wearisome to eye and brain ; that the prairie reaches away like some limitless sea, which is unruffled by a breeze until the horizon swallows it up in very desperation. The truth is, that no Eastern field presents the variety of conformation that these fertile ranges do. From some elevation one may see far away, but from a carriage one's vision is intercepted before the eye is fairly satisfied with the glimpse obtained. The waves of land are not in mathematical regularity, like some humanly planned creation, but are as broken in outline as the face of some great mountain. The characteristic difference between mountain and prairie is that the former is crude, from upheaval of rock and from the action of mighty tempests, while here, the gradual mounds have been shaped by the constant deposit of sediment from the stream that lapped the base. The sinuous course of rivers is traceable as distinctly as when the northern waters rushed through their winding beds. Here a gentle ascent widens and lifts itself into a ridge which bends with graceful sweep, but increasing proportions, far out of sight behind the mound yonder. Two rivers met here, one day, and ever after sep- arated, to unite again where the ridge descends to the level of the plain. The mound was once an island, caused by the eddy that swirled just beyond the force of the river stream.
Thus has the prairie land been made, as is explained in the article upon the geological formation of the county.
How marked have been the transformations in the social world since the organization of Wapello County ! The slow-moving ox-cart has given place to the stately family carriage; the patient beast to the spirited, blooded horse. Those who made pilgrimages to primitive altars for the worship of God now bow their heads in costly piles of stone and brick, and offer devotional sacri- fices in the scores of church edifices which stand so thickly in every portion of the land.
Schoolhouses have been erected at almost all the crossings of section-line roads, and educational advantages are offered the children of the pioneers. Nor is the system of instruction as of old, but a slow, inadequate exercise of the mental powers. The methods then were like the ox-cart itself in movement and result ; all was plodding, heavy, ungraceful, unskilled. But now the youthful brain is stimulated by the most carefully arranged gradations. The child, from
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the first, has just the point of intelligence appealed to that is necessary for his swiftest growth. And with the mental stimulus the physical is roused as well ; the whole nature is included in the training. By rapid and certain stages, the pupil is brought to the desired knowledge, and the result is a quick and well- balanced development that shames the cumbrous growth of earlier years. There need no longer be any proportion of illiterate persons in the census return's. The avenues to education are as open as the highways, and he who will not walk at least a little way in them must be indeed a blind and unworthy creat- ure. That which a large proportion of our fathers and forefathers lacked was opportunity. With capacities equal to those of the present, circumstances often dwarfed and misdirected them. But this cannot be urged now. In all direc- tions the scope has widened ; male and female alike have the range of all fields of learning. But a few years ago, the question of the equal education of the sexes was one that agitated the enlightened world; to-day it is practically set- tled ; and what then seemed to involve momentous resolution, and possibly large social destruction, is now one of the smoothest-running wheels in the whole machinery of life. Thus rapid have been the steps toward enlighten- ment-thus long and grand the strides toward universal freedom.
A prophet who should in this day attempt to forecast the future could scarcely dip his wand in too bright colors. He would be safe in exaggeration, safe in seeming to exceed even the bounds of possibility. From the near past, what may we not hope and expect in the near future ? We are growing to look upon miracles as commonplace. The bump of wonder is likely to be wholly obliterated from the phrenological chart. And the West, young and vigorous as it is, is not a whit behind older civilization, but leads off already in many ways, and is likely yet to distance all by the strength of its sinews and the courage of its health.
These reflections come up naturally from the contemplation of a portion of country like this county of Wapello, which we have been studying in all its phases, with a view to a thorough understanding of its present status and of its future possibilities. It would be too much like flattery to apply them strictly to Wapello; but it is simply truth to apply them to the West as a whole, and surely no one will deny that Wapello is a typical Western region.
One sure sign of continued progress is that progress no longer startles people. With what sang froid even the wonders of the telephone are accepted ; for within the year of the application of that wonderful principle, we find that business men here, as in older places, make nothing of connecting their houses and offices with the bewitched wire on which speech travels audibly. It is not a matter of wonder; it is accepted as the most natural and commonplace thing in the world. No one's equinimity is disturbed, no one's pulse quickened.
The tendency is to universalize. Regions no longer produce types-all are cosmopolitan. The West, which was for a long time the synonym of the New, the Crude, the Out-of-reach, is to-day just as accessible, just as central, has just as many advantages as the East, and it is a little younger and spryer, and more eager and more daring, and, for that reason, rather leads in the march. We have said that the West wonders at nothing, and yet the world wonders at the West.
It is by comparison that we best mark progress. It will be interesting, and no doubt even amusing, a quarter of a century hence, to take, for example, the pages of this history, and, reading of Wapello County as it was, to note how old-fashioned and moderate were our estimates of its possibilities ; from the height of its achievement to look back to the level of its aspirations. Some may then
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speak of its early days with perhaps the half-pitying, half-charitable affection with which men speak of their youth. Yet there never will be a day when Wapello will not be proud of its youth-of that youth's mighty brawn, of its equal courage, of its efforts that would not be stinted, of its determination that would not be balked. There never will be a day when the men who began the struc- ture, and laid its foundations so strong and broad, will not be gratefully remem- bered by those who are at work on its towers and pinnacles, and adding the fin- ishing beauty to its vastness. Had the pioneer been shiftless and idle and uncivil- ized, the generations that followed him would have been the same. But we are. safe in hoping what we do when we remember from what seed the present has sprung. It is not arrogating all the greatness to To-day, but it is giving honor to Yesterday, when we boast of what is being done, and augur for the future still more remarkable achievements. It is because the root was sound that the plant has thriven and flowered so beautifully. Honor to the pioneer ! Honor to the good right arm that turned the fruitful furrow ! Honor to the patient ones who helped him to toil and build and endure !
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