USA > Illinois > Ogle County > The history of Ogle County, Illinois, containing a history of the county, its cities, towns, etc., a biographical directory of its citizens, war record of its volunteers in the late rebellion, general and local statistics history of the Northwest, history of Illinois etc > Part 37
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To communities where courts of law are permanently established; where society is well organized, and officers of the law sustained in the execution of laws made for the protection of society and the punishment of crime and criminals, the action of the settlers in organizing themselves as Vigilantes or Regulators, and the measures they inaugurated to free them- selves from the dominion and presence of the law-defying, terror-inspiring and crime-stained combination against whom their work of extermination was directed, may seem harsh and crnel. But it should be remembered that, so numerous had the outlaws become, it was impossible to enforce the laws against them. Some of their members were justices of the peace; some were constables, and none of the early grand and petit juries were free from their presence. The first sheriff of the county was a sympathizer with, if not an actual member of the clan. Under such circumstances the honest settlers were completely at the mercy, and within their power, so far as the execution of the law against them was concerned. So bold, indeed, did they become, that Judge Ford (subsequently governor of the state), pre- vions to the organization of the settlers as Vigilantes, felt constrained to admonish them from the bench. The occasion when this language was used was on the trial of Norton B. Royce, for counterfeiting, at the March term of the circuit court, 1841. After sentence had been pronounced against Royce, Judge Ford said: " I am going away on business, and will be obliged to leave my family behind me. If the desperadoes dare to injure them while I am gone, I will come back. call my neighbors together, and follow them until I have overtaken them, when the first tree shall be their gallows; and if the injury is done while I am on the bench trying a case, I will leave the bench and follow them up until they are exterminated."
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Such language as this from a judge on the bench assured the honest peo- ple in their earnest purpose of extermination. There were some people then, however, as there have been some writers since, that sought to array the public sentiment of the country and of the courts against the subsequent action of the Regulators in their arrest, trial, conviction, sentence and execu-
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tion of the Driscolls, and to cast upon them the odium of outlaws and murderers; but the courts, to which the Regulators, to the number of one hundred and twelve men, submitted their action, under indictment, and before which they were fairly and impartially tried, acquitted them. Pros- perity and thrift have attended them ever since; they have the respect and confidence of all classes of society, at home and abroad; their honesty and obedience to law are unquestioned and undoubted, so that whatever the efforts of the sympathizers with the Driscolls as to their sudden and dis- graceful taking off, and with their two victims of the lash, Hurl and Dag- gett, the Regulators are fully and proudly vindicated.
The killing of the Driscolls was not the end. It was only the begin- ning of the work of extermination, although it was the first and last instance where such desperate measures were considered necessary to accomplish their purpose.
Among those who took exceptions to the work of the Regulators, was Mr. P. Knappen, editor of the Rockford Star. In an editorial article under date of July 1, 1841, Mr. Knappen said:
"A short time since we received through the post office a copy of the proceedings of the Ogle County Lynchers, up to the latest date, embracing the following resolution:
" Resolved, That the proceedings of the Volunteer Company be published in the Rockford newspapers once a month.
"Now, be it known to all the world that we have solemnly resolved that the proceedings of the Ogle County, or any county volunteer lynch company can not be justified or encouraged in our columns. The view we take of the subject does not permit us to approve the measures and conduct of the said company. If two or three hundred citizens are to assume the administration of lynch law in the face and eyes of the laws of the land, we shall soon have a fearful state of things, and where, we ask, will it end if mob law is to supersede the civil law? If it is tolerated, no man's life or property is safe; his neighbor, who may be more popular than himself, will possess an easy, ready way to be revenged by misrepresentation and false accusation; in short, of what avail are our legislative bodies and their enact- ments? We live in a land of laws, and to them it becomes us to resort and submit for the punishment and redress as faithful keepers of the laws, and thus extend to each other the protection and advantages of the law, and repulse every attempt to deprive a fellow citizen of the precious privilege granted in all civilized countries -- namely, the right to be tried by an impartial jury of twelve good men of his county. But, perhaps, it will be argued by some, that we have in this new country no means or proper places for securing offenders and breakers of the laws, to which we answer, then build them. The time already spent by three or four hundred mnen in this and Ogle Counties, at three or four different times, and from two to four days at a time, this season, would have built jails so strong that no inan, or dozen men on earth, deprived of implements with which to work, and con- fined in them, could ever escape, and guard them sufficiently strong by armed men outside, to prevent assistance from rescuing them from the arm of the law. Would not this course be much more patriotic and creditable to the citizens of a civilized and christianized country, than to resort to the administration of mob law by Judge Lynch? Not on us, gentlemen, but on your own heads be the responsibility; we wash our hands clear from the blood of Lynch law."
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In the same number of the Star, from which the above is quoted, there appeared two communications-one signed Vox Populi, taking strong grounds against the action of the Regulators, pronouncing them a " Ban- ditti," etc. This writer says: "Banditti like, after organization, these fiends in human shape, commenced traversing the country for plunder-not, per- haps, valuable goods, but the LIBERTY and LIVES of their fellow citizens! Every one who happened to fall under the suspicion of one or more of this gang was at once brought before their self-constituted tribunal, where there was no difficulty in procuring testimony for convicting him of any crime named, when he was sentenced, and men appointed to inflict the adjudged punishment, which, in the embryo existence of the 'Clan,' generally con- sisted in giving the culprit from twenty to three hundred lashes well laid on. CK No one pretends that John and William Driscoll had committed murder, nor can they say that they merited the punishment they received, even had they been found guilty by an impartial jury of their country of the crime alleged by the mob. No; had unimpeachable testi- mony been brought to prove them guilty of that for which circumstantial evidence was horribly distorted to convict them, the penalty would have
been but three to five years imprisonment in the penitentiary."
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And has it come to this, that in a land of civilization and Christianity, blessed with as wholesome a code of laws as man's ingenuity ever invented, a few desperadoes shall rise up and inflict all manner of punishment, even DEATH, upon whomsoever they please ? Shall all Civil Law be sacrificed and trampled in the dust at the shrine of Mobocracy ? Shall the life and prop- erty of no one receive any protection from the civil law, but both be subject to the nod of an inconsiderate and uncontrollable mob ? Shall these things be so ? Or will the people rise en masse, and assert the laws of the land, and enforce the same against the murderers and lynchers? The latter course is certainly pointed out by JUSTICE, and I trust in God that justice will be meted out to all who have had a hand in this bloody business."
The second communication to which reference is made above, was signed "B," bore date July 1, 1841, and sustained the action of the Regu- lators. It was generally credited to Mr. Latimer, the attorney, who made such a violent address on the occasion of the killing of the Driscolls. He subsequently removed to Lancaster, Grant County, Wisconsin, where he was killed in a street fight with a gambler.
The Star editorial already quoted, and the communication of Vox Populi, only maddened the Regulators the more, and a few nights after the paper containing these articles was issned, the office was entered by unknown parties and the type in forms and cases "pied "-that is, turned out on the floor promiscuously, and the entire office reduced to a pile of ruins. Knap- pen's hopes were blasted, and he shortly sold the wreck to John A. Brown, who rescued the material from confusion, and the publication of a paper called the Pilot was commenced.
Murders, and robberies and kindred crimes, did not stop with the kill- ing of the Driscolls and the sacking of the Star office. Outrages continned, and the people came to live in almost uninterrupted fear and alarm. With- out entering into a detailed specification of the repeated outrages, rob- beries, etc., we will enumerate a few of the boldest in the order of their occurrence:
On the night of the 18th of September, 1843, the store of William McKinney, in Rockford, was entered and plundered of a trunk containing
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between $700 and $800. A brother of Mckinney was sleeping in the store. He was awakened by the noise made by the midnight prowlers, and attempting to oppose the robber, who called him by name, he was awed into silence and non-resistance by a knife that was placed against his breast, the thief remarking that he "must have the trunk containing the money, as he could not afford to run suchi risks for nothing." He got the trunk ard escaped, and eluded capture.
Scarcely had the excitement created by this bold robbery died away, when the community was again startled by the perpetration of a bolder one still. This robbery was committed on one of Frink, Walker & Co.'s four- horse mail coaches, about four miles ont from Rockford towards Chicago, while, as it is stated, the coach was actually in motion and full of passen- gers, but was not discovered until the coach arrived at Newburgh. The following morning the trunks and baggage were found a few rods from the road, broken open and rifled of all their valuables. A newspaper published at Rockford at the time, in speaking of this robbery, said: " What renders these transactions still more exciting, is the fact that they are committed by those who are perfect scholars in the business movements of the town." No immediate clue to this last bold robbery was obtained.
This stage robbery was followed a few weeks later by another one fully as daring. In this instance, the house of William Mulford, in Guilford Township, was entered in the night time, and while a party of the gang stood guard over Mr. and Mrs. Mulford, who had gone to bed, the others ransacked the house, and found about $400, which they carried away. It had been rumored that Mulford had received some $15,000 from New York a short time before, and this rumor had reached the ears of the gang. But luckily, if such sum had been received, it was so carefully secreted as to be beyond discovery by the robbers. The alarm was given next morning, and although the country was hunted over for miles, no track of the desperadoes could be found, and in a short time this robbery was almost forgotten in the series of depredations that followed-all so perfectly planned and car- ried out, that detection and discovery seemed impossible. But argus-eyed Nemesis was on their track.
The killing of the Driscolls was one step towards freeing the country from desperadoes. But many other steps were necessary before the work would be fully completed. In the early part of the Summer of 1845, Charles West, of the firm of "Bliss, Dewey, West & Co.," of whom mention has here- tofore been made, became offended at the gang. Taking advantage of this circumstance, certain respectable people in the immediate neighborhood of the Bliss and Dewey rendezvous, succeeded in prevailing upon West to reveal the names of the gang, and a number of them were soon afterwards arrested. Among some of the most prominent and active members of the gang were Charles Oliver, Jr., and Win. McDowell, of Rockford; Sutton, alias Fox, Birch, the "boss" thief of the gang, and who was known from one end of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers to the other by the several aliases of Harris, Haynes and Brown; Bridge, Davis, Thomas Aiken, and Baker. Besides, there were a number of others whose names are forgotten. Among other revelations made by West, was the plan, as well as the names of the parties, who robbed Mckinney's store in Rockford.
To complete the history of the chain of circumstances that led to the arrest, trial, conviction and sentence of a number of the gang, it is neces- sary, to refer to the following circumstance, an important one in this connection :
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A member of the gang, whose name has been forgotten, had fallen under suspicion of his confederates as not being of the "right stripe," and, to relieve the organization of his membership, some of the fraternity in Bureau County, the home of the suspected member, preferred a charge of horse stealing against him, and secured his arrest and imprisonment in the jail at Princeton. During his incarceration, he revealed sundry and divers secrets of the gang to the sheriff of Burean County. Among these secrets was a full account of the Mulford robbery, and the names of the parties engaged in its perpetration, which had been reported to him by another member of the confederacy, named Irving A. Stearns. Shortly after that affair Stearns went up into Michigan, where he soon got himself into the penitentiary for horse-stealing. These revelations were communicated to the Winnebago authorities, and they made arrangements to secure the presence of the informer before the grand jury of that county for the Spring term, 1845, of the circuit court. For this purpose, a night session of the grand jury was held, and, upon the evidence of this man, indictments were found against Charles Oliver and William McDowell, of Winnebago County, and William K. Bridge, of Ogle County, for committing the Mul- ford robbery. The same night arrangements were made for the arrest of Oliver and McDowell. At that particular time, the sheriff of Winnebago County was absent from home. There was no deputy, and the coroner, next in authority to the sheriff, was the father-in-law of McDowell, which fact rendered him an unsafe person to be entrusted with the arrest of Oliver and McDowell. Under the law, in those days, two justices of the peace could appoint an officer to act in cases of emergency, where there was no sheriff, or in the absence of that officer. Acting under this law, Channcy Burton and Willard Wheeler, justices of the peace, were called up out of bed, and Mr. Goodyear A. Sauford, the last preceding sheriff, was appointed to make the arrest. By this time the night was well-nigh gone, and as the affair had been kept perfectly quiet, their arrest was deferred till the next day, when Mr. Sanford took them into custody without difficulty. Soon after, Bridge was also arrested at his home in Ogle County, and taken up to Rockford. The news of these important arrests, and of the finding of the indictments under which they were made, rekindled the old embers of excitement, and it was determined that no bail ought to be offered or accepted for the release of these parties, but that they should be held in close custody until they could be tried in the circuit court. The murder of Col. Davenport, a month later, July 4, 1845, added fresh fury to the indig- nation of the people, and it is a matter of wonder that the same fate was not visited upon them, that had been meted out to the Driscolls.
From the time of the Mulford robbery Jason Marsh, of Rockford, had been actively and industriously engaged in working up the case, and attempting to ferret out the robbers. Taking his cue from the sworn evi- dence upon which the indictments against Oliver, McDowell and Bridge were founded, coupled with the statements previously made by Charles West, of " Bliss, Dewey, West & Co.," he visited the Michigan penitentiary, where he found the man Stearns, who corroborated all, and more than all, stated by West, and sworn to by his old confederate in crime. Marsh made arrangements to secure the pardon of Stearns, in order to use him as as a witness against Oliver, McDowell and Bridge, and then returned to Rockford to complete preparations for the trial.
The trial of this case commenced August 26, 1845, before Judge
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Thomas C. Browne, presiding, and excited an interest and an attendance that was never equalled in the history of the Rock River country. Even the trial of Alfred Countryman, in February, 1857, for the murder, by shooting, of Sheriff John Taylor, of Winnebago County, on the 11th day of November, 1856, failed to attract the attention or to create the excite- ment consequent npon the trial of Charles Oliver, probably for the reason of the large number of crimes that had been committed and the belief that the prisoner was a ruling spirit, if not the "head centre," of the notorious confederacy of thieves that infested the country.
From the time of his arrest, Oliver assumed and maintained an air of boldness and manifest indifference. He assured his friends of his ability to establish his innocence of the charges preferred in the indictment. As the time for the trial came on, Mr. Marsh had gone back to Michigan, completed arrangements for the pardon of Stearns, and returned with him to Rockford, where he was kept in close concealment until the court was ready to receive his testimony, his presence in Rockford, and the means taken to secure his presence there, being entirely unknown and unsuspected by both Oliver and McDowell. The Mulford robbery had been so carefully planned and secretly managed that Oliver felt sure of acquittal. The only witness whom he had occasion to fear was Stearns, whom he supposed to be in the Michigan prison, little suspecting that the sworn testimony of one of his former subordinates and slaves was at hand to convict and sen- tence him to an imprisonment from which the latter had just been par- doned.
When the court was ready to receive the testimony of Stearns, that witness was smuggled in to the court room in the midst of a number of other men, and so seated as to be concealed from the prisoner when he was brought in, which followed soon after. Oliver came in chatting and laugh- ing with his attendants as if he were only an ordinary spectator, instead of a prisoner on trial for high crimes and misdemeanors. When court was opened and the names of witnesses for the prosecution were called, the name of " Irving A. Stearns " fell with startling distinctness upon the ears of the hitherto defiant Oliver. His face turned deathly pale, and he sat trembling and crestfallen by the side of his counsel. Courage and hope fled together.
Stearns testified that the secrets of the Mulford robbery had been im- parted to him by Oliver, and that Oliver had offered him some of the stolen money in exchange for a horse, telling him at the same time where and how the money was obtained. His evidence was direct and unequivocal, and a rigid cross-examination failed to weaken it in any degree.
West, who was also present as a witness for the people, testified that Oliver planned the robbery, and that, although he (Oliver) was not present when the robbery was committed, he admitted to witness that he received a share of the stolen money. As in the evidence of Stearns, a sharp cross- examination failed to bring out any contradictory statements, and Oliver was found guilty and sentenced to the penitentiary at Alton for a term of eight years. At the end of five years he was pardoned out, and rejoined his wife and family in New York. A few years later he visited Rockford and . mingled quite freely with the people among whom he had once been so popular, and to some of whom he explained why the gang had not robbed more of them. To Goodyear A. Sanford he said: "The boys often wanted to go for you (as county treasurer), but I wouldn't let them, because you was such a clever fellow."
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HISTORY OF OGLE COUNTY.
McDowell was convicted a little later in the course of time, and was also sentenced for eight years, but, like his old leader in crime, was pardoned at the end of five years and went to work as a carpenter at Alton, where he so conducted himself as to win the respect of the people, and where he was still living at last accounts.
Bridge took a change of venue to Ogle County, pleaded guilty, and where he was sentenced to the penitentiary. After his release, he went to Iowa, where, reports say, he fell into his old vices, and was finally killed.
Three of the Aikens boys, Charles, Richard and Thomas, who were named in the course of this chapter, went "to the bad," but escaped the penitentiary. Charles died at his home at Washington Grove in 1841, from (as it was reported from two sources) the effects of a terrible whipping administered by the people of Fort Madison, Iowa, against whom he had offended. The rumor came from there that, after he was whipped he was tied to a log of wood and thrown into the Mississippi River. How he escaped from drowning was never known, but he managed to reach home more dead than alive, lingered there a few days, suffering the most agoniz- ing tortures of mind and body, and then went down to a disgraceful and dishonorable grave. It was said bv some of those who were present to offer the last humane duty of preparing his remains for burial, that his body was literally cut into gashes from his shoulders to his heels.
Richard Aikens died the same year from sickness contracted from exposure while hiding by day and by night from the regulators and law officers.
After the killing of the Driscolls, Thomas Aikens, who had become fully identified with the prairie pirates, was not seen much in the country. His movements were governed by the gang with whom he had cast his fortunes. In 1843 Aikens, Burch, Fox and one or two others, stole some horses in Warren County and fled northward. The people of Warren County got on their track and followed their trail to the home of Aikens at Lafayette Grove, where the thieves had stopped for rest and refreshments, and where they were captured. They were taken back to Warren County, where they were arraigned before a justice of the peace on the charge of stealing horses, and were held to answer. In the absence of bail they were committed to jail, but managed to escape in a short time and left the country. Rumor says that Thomas Aikens went out on the frontier and located far up on the Missouri River, where he settled down to industrious pursuits, becoming the owner of a good farm, and to all appearances was leading an honest life. These last statements, however, regarding his where- abouts and his pursuits, are founded altogether upon rumor, as no direct and positive knowledge of him was ever had after his escape from the Warren County jail.
The father, Samuel Aikens, died at Washington Grove in 1847. No charge of dishonesty was ever laid at the old man's door, but the unlawful and disgraceful lives into which his three eldest sons were drawn, brought a taint upon the family name, and to a certain extent they were proscribed in society. His youngest son, Samuel, died of consumption about 1854.
In the Fall of 1839 the Brodie family removed to Linn County, Iowa, where most of them continued to reside at last direct accounts.
Adolphus Bliss, Corydon Dewey and another man named Sawyer (the last named not mentioned before), were all sentenced from the Lee Circuit Court, about 1845 or 1846, to the penitentiary for the robbery of an old
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man of the Inlet Grove neighborhood, by the name of Haskel. Their terms of sentence ranged from three to five years. Bliss died in the penitentiary. Dewey outlived his term, and returned to his home and settled down on his old farm. Sawyer also served out his time, and like- wise returned home, re-engaged in farming, and is supposed to be still living in that neighborhood.
Pierce Driscoll, who was arrested but acquitted the same day his father and brother were killed, subsequently removed to Cook County, Illinois, where he is said to have settled down to an honest, industrious life, acquiring a very handsome competency. The remainder of the family scattered to different parts of the country -- some to California, some to Minnesota, and some to unknown localities.
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