USA > Indiana > Howard County > History of Howard County, Indiana, Vol I > Part 21
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"Lane approached Brohard, who, by the way, was a large, raw-boned man, and apparently much stronger than Lane. But the Lanes boasted of being of fighting stock. After applying vari- ous vile epithets to Brohard, Lane dared him to fight, and Brohard said, 'Jesse, I do not want to have any fight with you here. I am willing to acknowedge that you are a better man than I am and let us make friends.'
"When Aaron Lane, Jesse's brother, drew a ring on the ground and remarked that 'If he was not a d-d coward he would enter the ring, and his brother would whip him.' Brohard replied, 'To show you that I am no coward, I will enter the ring,' which he did in a perfectly cool manner, while Lane had his coat off and a belt fastened around his waist, foaming with rage. He sprang at Bro- hard. The first lick Brohard knocked off and dealt Lane a blow in the region of the heart. Lane fell over muttering a curse and died."
Brohard was arrested for the affray and first taken before James T. McCrary, justice of the peace, and his bond fixed at two hundred dollars. His sureties were James and Barnett Brohard. J. F. Fanchier filed the affidavit August 5, 1850. September 14. 1850, Brohard's bond was raised before Henry B. Havens, justice
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of the peace, to eight hundred dollars, and the charge raised to manslaughter. In November, the same year, Brohard was tried by jury in the circuit court and fined three dollars for the affray.
In 1856 the law authorized a jury in coroner cases. That year "Scott" Mitchell committed suicide. Thomas A. Armstrong was coroner, and the jury empaneled comprised Hiram Newlin, Len Mills, John W. Travis, J. K. Will, C. Stafford, R. H. Porter, Sam- uel T. Mills, Daniel M. Centine, R. H. Birt. O. B. Todd, H. B. Havens and Henry Ulrich. Mitchell was found dead one morning at eleven o'clock, at his home, which stood upon what is now the Congregational church corner. Mr. Mills broke through a window and opened the front door for the entrance of the citizens. Mitchell was stretched upon the floor. He had securely shut up the house, and dressing himself in his best clothes, he had laid down upon the floor, holding a shotgun against his body. He pulled the trigger with his foot. His family were all away from home. The reason of his act was never known. Strange as it may seem, he had begged earnestly of his friend Mills to go hunting with him early that morn- ing. It was supposed that he had purposed killing Mills and shoot- ing himself.
In 1860, a six-year-old daughter of Levi Sizelove, living in the eastern part of the county, was killed by a tree the father chopped down, he not knowing that she was there. The same year Joseph W. Davis, of Fairfield, killed his father by striking him over the head with a stick of wood, as the sequel of a quarrel. Davis received a sentence of two years.
HANGED BY A MOB.
John Thrall, on May 27, 1863, shot to death Nelson J. Cooper and fatally wounded the Rev. John W. Lowe, who died the next day. Thrall was a horse thief and while attempting to resist arrest
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perpetrated the crimes, for which he was hanged by a mob. Captain H. H. Stewart was deputy sheriff under N. B. Brown, and had re- ceived word to be on the lookout for horses stolen at Anderson. When Thrall and his companion, whose name has not been officially preserved, arrived at the Nelson Cooper barn on the north side of the court house square with the horses word was sent to Captain Stewart, who, with a party of friends, was dancing a quadrille, a few squares removed from the livery stable. Stewart at once left for the livery stable, where he found the men mounted upon the stolen horses. He examined the animals and was soon satisfied that they were the horses described in a letter received by the sheriff. The men started to ride away, whereupon Stewart ordered Mr. Cooper to assist in their arrest. As Mr. Cooper reached toward the bridle, Thrall whipped out his revolver and sent a bullet into his brain, which bullet entered at the side of Cooper's nose, and he was instantly dead. Then Thrall opened fire upon Stewart, who was shot in the hand. The missile peeled the flesh back, and this same bullet sped toward the Rev. Lowe, whom it struck in the side wounding him fatally. To escape the next shot Stewart threw himself beneath the horse. Fearing his further safety Thrall started from the stable on a gallop, his companion having already fled, proffering Thrall no assistance. Proceeding west on Walnut street, Thrall was about to reach the railroad tracks, when confronted by Justice of the Peace Thomas Auter, a doughty character, who, in- spired by the excitement of the moment, without knowing its cause, but hearing the cries to stop Thrall, picked up a brickbat, which he hurled with a lusty arm at Thrall's head. The horse thief, to es- cape the missile, swung to one side, whereupon the saddle turned with him. Henry B. Steward, a son of Coroner John Steward, and an expert shot, just returned from the army on a furlough, was standing upon the Dennison corner and brought Thrall down by
19
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a shot which shattered his leg. He had said upon the instant that he would not kill Thrall, but he would wound and disable him, as he did. Thrall lay wounded in the street when Coroner John Steward advanced upon him to demand his arrest. Thrall yet held in his hand the weapon which had caused Cooper's death and mortally wounded the Rev. Lowe, but he made no attempt to use it on the coroner. He submitted to arrest peacefully and for safety was taken to the third story of the old Henderson hotel. The owner, -nct the man after whom the hotel was named-appeared in a frenzy of excitement, brandishing an ax, exclaiming that he didn't propose to have any murderer in his house, and declaring that he would kill Thrall. Coroner Steward, with Thrall's weapon, com- manded the landlord to immediately go below, which he lost no time in doing. Coroner Steward then conducted his prisoner to jail.
Meantime a searching party pursued Thrall's companion, who was followed to a swamp northeast of the city, but who man- aged to escape detection by hiding under a log over which his pur- suers passed. At night he escaped, and while it has been reported that he was subsequently apprehended and sent to the penitentiary, this appears a mistake, as Captain Stewart says that he made a thorough investigation, even at the penitentiaries, and that Thrall's companion was never apprehended and convicted. Thrall was very bitter toward his companion. He said that as they had approached Kokomo they had stopped at the Washington street ford of Wild- cat creek and pledged themselves to escape or die together, as they "swigged a slug of whiskey." Instead the companion deserted Thrall the moment trouble introduced itself. Thrall was happy in the death of Mr. Cooper, but regretted that of Mr. Lowe, and was sorry that he had not hit Captain Stewart. Public excitement reached its height on the night following the Rev. Lowe's death and a mob formed to execute summary justice to Thrall. He had
JOHN STEWARD.
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expected something of the kind. His need of being in fear of the event had been shouted to him through the bars of his cell, from outside of the windows. He noted these warnings mentally, but did not condescend to answer concerning them. But that he was impressed with the fate before him was evident in his sending for Coroner Steward. To that official he made a remarkable confes- sion. He said his name was not Thrall at all. He revealed to the coroner his real name, under pledge that it never be revealed. Forty years Coroner Steward kept that secret in his breast and he carried it with him, as he had promised, to his grave. Thrall-for that must be the name by which he is to be known-confided the infor- mation that he was from the southland, and that he was a member of a prominent family, and that his situation had once been an honorable and prosperous one. To save his aged mother and family from the shame of a knowledge of the true circumstances of his death he would keep foreverer his identity a secret. He said that he had been a merchant, but a Union man in a southern state. Every attempt had been made to induce him to recant his sentiments and to impress him into the Confederate service, but without avail. His business was wrecked, he said, by a mob of southern sympathizers, and his property destroyed. Thrall saved five hundred dollars out of the wreck, bid his family "good bye," promising to return if all went well, and fled to the North. He landed in Indianapolis, Indi- ana, and worked a while in a tannery, but soon fell into dissipation and bad habits. Losing his situation as the result of a jealous quar- rel with his foreman, he become a peddler of fruits upon the streets of Indianapolis, but finally, attracted by the high prices horses were bringing, if sold for the use of the Union Army, he entered upon horse stealing upon a wholesale plan. He gave his watch to Sheriff Brown and his ring to Coroner Steward. That night the blows upon the iron doors of the jail resounded throughout the city, but no man
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was calmer through all the excitement than Thrall. No man ever faced a mob more bravely. Roughly handled, despite his wound, he hobbled to the court house yard without a murmur. He stood upon a box and faced the seekers of his life defiantly. Examining the noose which hung above his head, he found that it was too long. and with his own hand adjusted it to his neck. He whipped out a handkerchief and tied it around his body to symbolize his innocence over the guilt of the mob, which he defied to do its worst. While he was yet speaking he was swung off. Those popularly supposed to be connected with the mob never prospered afterward and suf- fered a great deal in consequence of it, leaving the locality ultimately and ever afterward expressing regret at the part they had taken in Thrall's death. His body was cut down, but refused burial in the old cemetery. He was buried beneath a tree upon the east, just outside. It was even difficult to secure burial of the remains, feel- ing ran so high. While Thrall was buried it was always the claim that his body had not a long repose, and it was the general belief that the skeleton beneath the stairway of a prominent drug store of Kokomo, which rested there for years, was that of Thrall. The body of his victim, Nelson Cooper, was removed from the old ceme- tery to Crown Point cemetery, forty years after the burial, and was laid not far from the Rev. John Lowe, the second of Thrall's victims.
JEALOUSY LEADS TO A CRIME.
Inflamed with jealousy, Dr. Henry C. Cole shot dead, October. 1866, Chambers Allen, as Allen was leaving the postoffice, then on Buckeye street, near Walnut street. Dr. Cole and his first wife. Nellie Cole, a beautiful woman, had many domestic disagreements. Upon one occasion, returning to Kokomo after an extended absence. Dr. Cole found a sale of his household goods in progress, which he
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declared unauthorized, and to which procedure he put an abrupt end. Despite their disagreements, he was greatly in love with her. He did everything in his power to maintain the harmony of their domestic relations and did not divorce her until after he had shot Allen. Dr. Cole, in the shooting, acted upon the belief that Allen had invaded his home. He had warned Allen to keep away from Koko- mo; it is said he even wrote Allen a letter, warning him to remain away from Kokomo, plainly informing him that he would meet death if he ventured a return. It was generally known in Kokomo, in that day, that Cole had threatened Allen's life. The first sight of Allen was enough to inspire Cole with a frenzy, and he fired three shots into Allen. Cole was arrested and at first denied bail, being confined within the Washington street jail, but later was re- leased upon ten thousand dollars bond. He took a change of venue December, 1866, to Tipton county, where he was tried for murder and acquitted upon a plea of emotional insanity, his defense in chief being conducted by Senator D. W. Voorhees. Dr. Cole was one of Kokomo's most picturesque personalities, and himself was the victim of a violent death. Dr. Cole was of a tall and graceful build, with lustrous eyes, and had a magnificent beard, which was with him a matter of great pride. He always dressed faultlessly in his day, the best tailor-made clothes gracing his figure. He wore an appropriate ornamentation of jewelry, and had delicate, small hands and feet, and was a man of fascination among women. His father, Jesse Cole, a Kentuckian, moving to Ripley county, where Dr. Cole was born, was noted through life as impulsive, self-willed, and a thoroughly determined man, and such was his son, Dr. Cole. who was a determined and admittedly desperate man. He would shoot, if he so decided, and this trait known, he was greatly feared. He inspired the most devoted, loyal and undying friendships, and enmities as bitter as could be imagined. He had been an army
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surgeon and had gained a wide reputation in his day as a physician of great skill and a surgeon of rare ability. For a friend, especially a poor man, he would drive any distance, and upon the most inclem- ent night, with the certain knowledge that he would not receive a cent's pay. He has been known to threaten to throw downstairs a poor patient offering to pay him a bill, remarking that he "would charge the amount up to some rich patient." He inspired the love of children. But an enemy he hated with all the hatred of his soul. Dr. Cole's name has been connected with many daring and elaborate schemes of revenge, and with unlawful things, but no proof against him ever appeared. Guilty or innocent, no man's name was ever more freely used in connection with transactions, proof of his di- rect connection with which would have landed him behind the bars, if not sentenced him to the gallows. Yet proof of such connections were never even attempted. He vehemently denounced his enemies as the authors of "these vile slanders" one and all. He had enemies, and scores of them, and they hated him as cordially as he hated them. Yet in private life he was as kind and mild-mannered as a man could be. A candidate for mayor, Dr. Cole's enmities grew to white heat. He gave no compromise and expected none. It was while holding this office that he met death, breathing his last upon the same night that Garfield died. The roar of shot guns was plainly heard throughout the city before midnight. The people rushed toward the spring mills, hearing the report that Dr. Cole had been shot, and his body lay upon the commons to the west of the mill, cold in death. The explanation was that Dr. Cole had planned the burning of the mill, and that he had purposed its robbery with the intention of secreting the flour upon the premises of an enemy, but, anticipated by a sheriff's posse, was shot to death while attempting to flee the place. He was said to have been betrayed by an accomplice in his purposed act. A post mortem of the body
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was held. His nose was broken, which was said to have been caused by his running against a wood pile in the attempt to escape. He was also shot in the knee, the claim being that this was the first wound, received as he ventured up to the mill window to enter, to join his confederate in carrying out flour. In his heart was found a small bird shot, pronounced the cause of death, and received, it was said, while in flight, and refusing to submit to arrest. A coroner's in- vestigation before Dr. J. C. Wright, of Russiaville, was held. The state of facts presented were testified to by those participating in the capture and death of Cole. His friends refused to believe that he had attempted a theft and claimed that his death was consum- mated elsewhere, but no such proof was ever adduced and the ex- planations of the posse stands unimpeached until this day. In the . removal of Dr. Cole, Kokomo lost a picturesque and forceful per- sonality, of whom friends speak in kindness and of whom those who disliked him speak in harshest terms, economizing no word to his disparagement.
The prosecution of Jonathan Binns for the murder of his wife, Rachel Binns, January 31, 1870, was one of the most notable in the criminal annals of Howard county. At the time the killing took place there was a suit pending in the Cass circuit court by Mrs. Binns against her husband for a divorce, in which she charged Binns with various things, among them consorting with bad women. Mrs. Binns was shot while at her home at Russiaville, at night, between 8 and 10 o'clock, through a window. When dying she stated that her husband had shot her. She stated that he had said that he could and would shoot her if she did not sign certain papers con- cerning some money. Binns attempted to prove that he was at Ko- komo, ten or twelve miles distant, at the time the crime was com- mitted. Twice convicted. Binns secured a reversal of the case in the supreme court, first upon the ground that he had been wrong-
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fully deprived of a continuance of his case, for which he had asked, and to which he was entitled under the law. He succeeded in his second appeal upon the ground that his wife's declarations of his guilt of her death were wrongfully admitted in evidence, in that she had not seen him before receiving the fatal shot, but had merely ex- pressed the opinion that it was he because of their past differences and his threats against her. The state was able to show the presence of Binns near the residence of his wife a short time before her death.
In August, 1877. Michael Gillooley killed Thomas W. Lannon at the junction and was prosecuted for murder in the first degree. Lannon was a policeman and had once arrested Gillooley for fre- quenting a house of ill fame. The state showed that Gillooley had threatened to kill Lannon in consequence. Gillooley was convicted of murder in the first degree. The leading witness against him was Rev. Father Francis Lordeman, who had admonished Gillooley against carrying out his threats. Gillooley took an appeal to the su- preme court, claiming that the testimony of Father Lordeman was violating the confidence of the church, but this plea was overruled and the conviction affirmed in November, 1877, by the supreme court. As the death penalty had been imposed, the gallows were building when a public agitation for the prisoner was started. The matter was carried to "Blue Jeans" Williams, then governor, who commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life. Gillooley was par- doned a short time before his death. He had threatened the death of the trial judge, but ended his days quietly.
HANGED FROM A BRIDGE.
Richard Long was hanged by a mob upon the Main street bridge Monday night, April 3. 1882. The iron structure then stand- ing had a support above. Long was accused of having outraged
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the little daughter of Ed Pritchard. He was arrested and placed in the Washington street jail. The Sunday preceding his execution an excited throng faced the jail, throwing a rope over the fence at frequent intervals and breathing threats. But this was not the agency of Long's death. The unorganized throng was merely the froth of public feeling. Later a mob was deliberately organized in the Haskett grove, and it chose a leader, who was such in name and in fact. Monday night the mob tore Long from the jail. He was conducted along High street in his stocking feet, pale with ex- citement, but not yet seriously impressed with the belief that he was actually to be hanged. He made no appeals, but walked bravely for- ward. Arrived at the bridge, Long was lifted upon a box and the rope put around his neck. It was found too short to reach over the girder above and one of the mob climbed to the height and fastened it to a beam above the box. At this juncture the Rev. Robert Mc- Cune, pastor of the First Congregational church, and Hon. J. Fred Vaile, later of western and national fame as a lawyer, arrived and pleaded in vain with the mob for the life of Long. Vaile even called upon the men to aid him in rescuing the condemned man. but to no purpose. No one responded. Long was asked if he had anything to say. He requested the privilege of singing "See That My Grave Is Kept Green," and the strain was interrupted with the exclamation, "Shove a hot potato in his mouth." When the last words faded from Long's lips the box was kicked from beneath him and he swung to his death. The body was cut down next morning and exhibited in the north corridor of the court house. His body was supposed to have been buried in the old cemetery, and for a season his grave was covered with a bunch of flowers, planted by unknown hands, which attention ceased finally altogether. Some said his body was never buried, but be that as it may. a coffin was at least. Long denied to the last his guilt of outrage, and it seems
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that the proof of that point has never been clearly established and remains to this day a matter of grave doubt. Long confessed to horse stealing, and admitted that he had served in the Michigan City penitentiary, but denied the rape, evidences of which it was asserted were established by the condition of his clothing.
During the administration of J. F. Elliott, prosecutor of Howard and Tipton counties, occurred one of the celebrated trials of this locality. William Dougherty was tried for homicide in the alleged felonious killing of Joseph VanHorn, in the saloon of the Howard House. The shooting grew out of alleged offensive re- marks made by VanHorn imputed against the chastity of Dough- erty's sister. Dougherty was tried at Tipton and acquitted.
During the administration of A. B. Kirkpatrick as prosecutor William Malosh received a sentence of nine years in the peniten- tiary for burning the Union block. The trial was had in 1887.
In the same year Ollie Hawkins was convicted of the killing of Richard Hacse through jealousy and was defended by Senator D. W. Voorhees. Hawkins received a seven-year sentence, but was pardoned.
December. 1888, John E. Fleming, an escape from the Marion, Indiana. jail, shot Robert L. Jones, sheriff of Grant county, in a house in Jerome, Indiana, where the sheriff was trying to effect Fleming's arrest. Fleming was captured and convicted, but es- caped even from the penitentiary, but was apprehended. His sen- tence was for life.
In 1891 George Tykle received a sentence of two years in the penitentiary for criminal negligence in boiling a man named Clark to death. Tykle conducted a bathing establishment and it was shown that Clark was a helpless paralytic and, placed in a bath tub, was left alone. and while in this situation the natural gas in the burner either came up or was turned up by third parties, with the
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result that Clark was literally boiled alive, the flesh from his bones floating about the tub when his body was discovered and removed. The fact is that Tykle, who was a well-read and well-educated man, but had his own theories about things, was grieved to death over the misfortune, as Clark was his best friend and a sincere believer in the water cure theories of Tykle.
THE MOLIHAN GANG.
During the seventies the Molihan gang flourished in the Junc- tion district. All manner of crimes were laid at the doors of this reputed gang, but if guilty its members were never ascertained, ap- prehended and brought to justice. It was claimed that its ramifi- cations extended so far that justice was nullified and detection ren- dered out of the case, and that it perpetrated crime with impunity and after a studied plan. A wholesale robbery of farm houses and city residences of silverware was one plan supposed to be backed by the gang, and several bodies cut to pieces upon the railroad tracks at the junction were said to have been men murdered and then placed there by this gang, the booty of which, it was claimed, was sold in Chicago by those whose names, if revealed, would have caused surprise. At any rate the terror of the gang caused deep apprehension in the minds and hearts of the Kokomo public, and when the Molihan saloon passed away and the reputed gang melted away the public breathed a sigh of relief.
September 4, 1901, Jacob Dotterer was killed at his home in Howard township, near Vermont. The aged man was attacked by four men, two of whom were masked, this fact leading the au- thorities to believe that they were Howard county men, while the unmasked men were strangers. The report seems to have got abroad that Mr. Dotterer was to receive, on the night that he was
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fatally shot, the purchase price of his farm, and his assailants planned to rob him of his money. Two of the men were seen to cross the fields from Vermont station and lie in wait for the appear- ance of the purchaser of the farm, who, later, came to the Dotterer home, where he remained about half an hour. Scon a knock was heard at the front door of Mr. Dotterer's home, which summons he answered in person, lamp in hand. He was confronted by the two masked men, who commanded him to surrender. He hastily set the lamp upon a stand and gave battle to the strangers, knock- ing both down and worsting the rest of the party as they advanced upon him. Although a man of sixty-five years of age, he proved a "genuine surprise party" for his assailants. He was worsting them all, when one cried out. "Well. I guess we will have to kill the old man." With that a shot rang out and a bullet plowed through the old man's stomach, entering from the side. Dotterer fell and with a dying strength reached into his pocket, and drawing out two hundred and forty-two dollars he had there, hurled it up a stair- way, where it fell unnoticed into a recess in which it was not dis- covered by the robbers. The old man being shot, the robbers com- pelled Mrs. Dotterer to open the safe, after she had fought one of the number and torn his shirt off, while they held Mrs. Roll Dot- terer at bay. In the safe was found sixty-five cents. A search of the house discovered fifteen dollars more, which the robbers took away, but this was all they secured. For while the deeds to the farm had been made the money was not turned over on the tragic night. The amount would have been several thousand dollars, and the robbers expected a large haul. When they left the Dotterer home they told the women that if they gave the alarm to the neigh- bors they would shoot them upon sight. It was some time therefore before the alarm was given. The authorities had parties under sus- picion, but as they were about to get evidence to warrant arrests the suspects left the city.
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