USA > Ohio > Coshocton County > Historical collections of Coshocton County, Ohio : > Part 15
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SHOCKING MURDERS IN COSHOCTON COUNTY.
It is perhaps not best to keep fresh the recollection of those sad manifestations of the weakness and wickedness of human nature which have come out in great crimes. Of course Coshocton county has not been without its share of these things. Some of them committed under the influ- ence of drink, and others growing out of family difficulties based upon jealousy, or unexpectedly arising out of some broil, to the after grief of those having part in them, we may well pass by. And yet they all may be useful to teach
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a community that extravagant and unregulated passion of any kind is a root full of cost and curse of every kind. One thing is noticeable, and that is this, that although nu- merous persons have been indicted for murder in the first degree, there has never yet been a case of capital punish- ment.
George Arnold and John Markley having previously had one or more altercations, the former, on an election day in 1816, in Coshocton, approached stealthily and plunged a knife into the latter, causing his death in a little while. Arnold's reputation as a "rough " was so great, and the confused amazement of the bystanders so great, that he was allowed to escape, never more to be heard of in " these parts." This having been the first shocking murder com- mitted in the county, made an impression not yet effaced nor overshadowed by occurrences of later date.
In the estimate among horrors, perhaps no case has gone beyond that of the Mrs. Wade murder.
At the March (1849) term of the Court of Common Pleas John Gearhart was tried for murder in the killing of one Matilda Wade on the 28th day of September, 1848. Rich- ard Stillwell, president judge, and B. R. Shaw, Sam'l Elliott, and James Le Retilley, associate judges, were on the bench. Thomas Campbell was prosecuting attorney, and William Sample, Esq., assisted in the prosecution. The defendant's attorneys were David Spangler, J. C. Tidball, and James Matthews. The grand jury at the October (1848) term had indicted him for murder in the first degree, James Moore, of Jefferson township, being the foreman. The petit jury were Joel Glover, D. W. Burt, Samuel Winklepleck, John Carnahan, Abraham T. Jones, Thomas Boggs, Daniel Forker, S. C. Crichfield, Joshua Clark, James Whittaker, Stephen Donley, and Andrew Ferguson.
The proof showed that Mrs. Wade, the wife of a drug- gist in Roscoe, was doing some washing for herself in the basement or cellar of the hotel where she was boarding. In a little time she was missed, and blood was found where she had been at work. Her husband was sent for, and, as there was an unused cistern near where she had been wash-
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ing, and traces of blood to it, he was let down into it, and found his wife at the bottom. She was drawn up, and it was found that her head had been nearly severed from the body. The defendant had been employed to tend the sta- bles and chop wood, etc., and was seen, a few minutes be- fore the woman was found, whetting his axe. Upon this axe and upon the defendant's clothing blood was found. The plea on the trial was " not guilty "-the line of defense " insanity." The jury convicted of murder in the second degree. Gearhart was sentenced to the penitentiary for life. He died with cholera about three months after being placed in the penitentiary.
The killing of Abraham Wertheimer, and the trial and conviction of Frank Ept therefor, are still fresh in the minds of our citizens.
On the morning of November 21 (Sabbath), 1875, Isaac Wertheimer, a clothing merchant in Coshocton, was called on at his house by a friend, who stated that he had failed to secure some needed articles of wearing apparel the night before, and would like to have him go with him to the store. W. asked him why he himself had not gone to the store, observing that his son Abraham was sleeping there, and could have attended to the matter. The reply was he had been there, but could get no response. Impressed with the idea that something might be amiss, the father speedily accompanied the man, and, upon entering the store, the body of young Wertheimer (twenty years of age), welter- ing in gore, and evidently dead some hours, was discovered on the couch he was accustomed to sleep on. Alarm was given, and in a little time the excited crowd became firm in the conviction that the murder had been committed by a journeyman tailor named Frank Ept, who was missing. It was learned that a fast train, which usually went east about two o'clock in the morning, had been behind time that morning, not being in Coshocton until eight, and chances of escape by railroad had probably failed the culprit. Patrols were sent out in every direction, and the whole country aroused. Late in the afternoon, word came of the capture of the supposed murderer near Port Washington,
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in Tuscarawas county, twenty-two miles east of Coshocton, near the line of the railroad ; and about dusk, amid the in- tensest excitement of an immense crowd gathered about the doors of the jail, Ept was lodged in it.
At the February (1876) term of the Court of Common Pleas, a grand jury, composed of the following persons, viz. : John McFarland, New Castle township; Benton Clark, Jackson township; William Biggs, of same town- ship; Daniel McConnell, of Washington; Henry Schmneser, of Franklin; Henry N. Shaw, of Tuscarawas ; Oliver Crawford, of Crawford ; Thomas Martin, of Franklin ; E. C. Haight, of Jackson ; John Seitzer, of Oxford ; Thomas Smailes, of Virginia; John Mulligan, of Tuscarawas ; James B. Heslip, of Linton ; L. J. Bonnell, of Tusca- rawas; and Waldo Adams, of same township (Henry Schmueser being the foreman), indicted Ept for murder in the first degree, the return being made February 11, 1876. On the 22nd of February, the judge (Wm. Reed) appointed Wm. Sample and R. M. Voorhees, Esquires, to act as attor- neys for the accused, who was arraigned on the 26th, and plead not guilty. The case was continued until the May term. A special jury, consisting of Geo. Stringfellow, of Tiverton township; Abraham Weatherwax, of Clark ; John Johnson, of Bedford; Daniel Fair, of Clark ; R. W. Thompson, of Keene ; Laban Headington, of Clark ; High- land Wright, of Virginia; Moses Finley, of Virginia ; F. W. Powell, of Adams ; James Workman, of Tiverton ; Wil- lard Nichols, of White Eyes; and Robert Doak, of Craw- . ford, were sworn May 5, 1876. The court-room was crowded during the whole trial, ending with a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree, on Sabbath morning, May 14, 1876, at nine o'clock. W. S. Crowell, Esq., pros- ecuting attorney, was assisted by John D. Nicholas, Esq.
The testimony showed Ept (native of Bavaria, born in 1842, having been some three years in this country, having father and mother and other relatives in Columbus, Ohio) to have been working for some time with Isaac Werth- eimer ; to have gained access to the store on the fatal night by a plea of being sick ; to have killed young Wertheimer
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with a dull hatchet and tailor's goose; to have tried to break open the safe; to have packed up a good supply of fine clothing in a new satchel, along with the bloody tailor's goose ; to have taken the watch and revolver, etc., of young . Wertheimer; to have left the store and gone up to the railroad about the time the fast train was due, and to have stealthily pursued his way along and near the railroad track until his capture, which was effected by John Bolton, James Reed, and Isaac Mulatt, all of Cosh- octon. The defence set up was insanity-" homicidal mania."
Sentence was pronounced by Judge Reed, on May 24th, fixing the 29th of September, 1876, as the day for execution by the gallows.
COLORED PEOPLE IN COSHOCTON COUNTY.
Pryor Foster was the first colored man of note in Cosh- octon county. He was the reputed agent of the " Under- ground Railroad." About 1839, several "fugitives" stopped with him on their way to Canada. The United States offi- cers were in hot pursuit, but Foster and those in sympathy with him, or so far respecting him individually that they would not involve him in trouble, fixed matters, so that for a time they were safe, lodging the fugitives among some rocks up the Walhonding. They were, however, ultimately recaptured and taken south.
Several of the old families from Virginia were followed to their new homes, in the north-western territory, by some of their servants. The Robinsons had two or three ; the Darlings brought one; and " Aunt Letty Thomas " came with the Simmons family. The latter was for many years at service, and afterward kept a boarding-house. She started an eating-house in 1855, for the railroad at Coshoc- ton (then the principal eating station), and made it a favor- ite place for the hands and passengers. The business proved profitable, and she enlarged and extended the building until it was substantially the " Hackinson House " of to- day. She removed to Oberlin, and later to Washington City. The Waring family came in at an early day from
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near Richmond, Virginia, settled on Killbuck, and, by their becoming conduct, long enjoyed the esteem of the whole community. One of the young men studied at Wilberforce University at Xenia, and became quite a successful teacher in Ohio and among the freedmen in Tennessee. In 1855, the only colored people in the county were the Warings and Aunt Letty Thomas' family. In 1876, there were about thirty. Old Mr. Darling set up, on a farm in Knox county, the colored man who came in with him, but he did not do well. An effort was made to " abduct " those who had come in with the Robinsons, and place them in bondage in Kentucky. But in some unaccountable way (their captors claimed not by them), they were shot at Chillicothe. This was not long after they had first come to the county. C. Dorsey was the first of his race to do jury duty-served in a corporation case, 1875.
FIRES IN ROSCOE ; AN INCIDENT AND A JOKE TOUCHING IT.
Roscoe has had a noticeable experience in the matter of fires. The store of D. L. Triplett, the brick hotel adjoin- ing, the " Union Flouring Mill " in the lower part of the town, the M. E. church, the brick hotel (standing where the Hutchins House now is), and other buildings in the cen- tral part, the Roscoe Flouring Mill, two woolen factories, and the distillery in the upper part of the town, are readily recalled as among the chief conflagrations. By the way, it is said that when the distillery burned, one of the most prominent temperance men in all the region was most vig- orously at work, with coat off, to stay the ravages of the fire. Some one twitting him afterward about this, he claimed that after all he had been thoroughly consistent, for his main efforts had been directed to saving the water wheel !
A BUNDLE OF FIRST THINGS.
The first marriage in Coshocton county was that of John Hershman and Elizabeth Baker, by William Whitten, J. P., in Coshocton, May 1, 1812.
The first white child born on the territory now in Cosh-
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octon county, or, at all events, among the white settlers, was Joseph Evans, a son of Isaac Evans, born October 3, 1801. He grew up to manhood, and spent most of his life in the county as a farmer and a canal-boat captain. He removed to Illinois in 1853, and died August 23, 1867. His son, Isaac Evans, lives in Peoria, Ill., having as his wife the great-grand-daughter of an old neighbor of his grand- father, Phebe Wagoner.
The first brick house built in Coshocton was that at the northeast corner of Second and Chestnut streets. The first in Roscoe was built by Theophilus Phillips, and used as a hotel, as was also the one in Coshocton. These houses were both as good in their day as the "Price House," in Coshoc- ton, of to-day, with its three stories and handsome one hun- dred feet front .*
The first bell in the county was the one now on the court- house, bought in 1834. When the canal-boat bringing it got within the county the captain commenced to ring it, and continued to do so at intervals until Roscoe was reached, where a vast and pleased crowd greeted it. The bell was bought for the commissioners in Troy, N. Y., by W. K. Johnson, and cost $131.
The first coal-burning cooking-stove used in the county was set up by William Tidball in 1856, when opening what is now the " City Hotel," in Coshocton. By the way, Mr. Tidball himself is almost old enough to find a place among " first things," being now ninety-five years of age. He was born in Alleghany county, Pa., and spent the active years of his life in Holmes county. He had a good deal of enter- prise for an old man when he set up that stove.
* Erected in 1875 by the Coshocton Planing Mill Company, corner of Sixth and Walnut streets, at a cost of $20,000.
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RELICS AND CURIOSITIES IN PERSONAL POSSESSION.
John Burt, of Coshocton, has a watch (tortoise-shell, bound with gold case) belonging to his grand-father (Foght). It was carried by the elder gentleman through the Revo- lutionary war.
"Aunty " Hay, near Coshocton, has a bible brought from Ireland, more than a hundred years old.
J. W. Rue, of Coshocton, has two books-saved from his father's library when it was burned-one a hundred and fifty and the other two hundred years old.
F. W. Thornhill has a doctor's lance, with which a sur- geon in the Revolutionary war used to bleed the patriots and the Hessian prisoners.
M. L. Norris, near Coshocton, has a padlock-key, picked up in Chicago, which he avers is the one that locked the door of the stable in which Mrs. O'Leary was milking the cow that kicked over the lamp that started " the great fire."
T. C. Ricketts has the set of books kept in his father's store from 1819 on for some years. John Smeltzer is un- derstood to have been the book-keeper. The penmanship is admirable; the ink was good. The accounts show that somebody used a good deal of whisky in the days of the forefathers. Some of the customers came all the way from near Millersburg, in what now is Holmes county, after a quart, paying only twelve and one-half cents for it. The election and muster days can be readily discerned by the increased sales of " the juice."
James M. Burt, of Lafayette township, has a silver to- bacco-box bearing the imprint of a bullet, received while it was in the pocket of his grand-father (Foght) at the battle of Monmouth, in the Revolutionary war.
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Joab Agnew, of Roscoe, has a whale-bone cane, with gold head, presented to his father by Commodore Stockton, of the United States navy.
THE TREASURY ROBBERY, AND THE TRIALS.
Brief mention of the robbery of the Coshocton county treasury has been made in another place in this volume, but additional details are here given.
On the night of January 21, 1859, about one o'clock, the attention of Hiram Taylor, who was passing through the public square at the time, was arrested by sounds of some one, as if in distress, coming from the county treasurer's office, that being in the up-stairs room on the north side of the building, just north of the court-house.
He gave the alarm, and soon the sheriff and some other parties were assembled, and proceeded to the office of the treasurer. Bursting open the door, they found Mr. Ketchum, the treasurer, tightly bound, and with a gag in his mouth, displaced enough to allow him to make some outcry.
The court-house bell was rung, and soon a considerable company of citizens was gathered, and the town generally alarmed.
The treasurer told his story-how that having remained in the office to pay, at special request, some witnesses in a case in progress that evening, so that they might take a late train home, two men (one with a big shawl) had come into the office and made inquiries about a little back tax; and that while he was intent upon the books, looking the matter up, the one cast the shawl over his head, and the other seized him, and by their united exertions he was bound and gagged. The keys were taken, and the moneys taken out of the safe, and the robbers withdrew.
Much sympathy was expressed for the treasurer, and at a public meeting of citizens of Coshocton, and some from the county, this sympathy found expression in resolutions which read a little strangely now-a-days. The meeting urged the commissioners to spare no expense or effort in the ferreting out and punishing the bold miscreants who
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had injured the treasurer and robbed the people. It also advised that Wm. Bachelor, Esq., be employed to go about almost at will in search of the criminal. And there was much hurrying to and fro. But no clue was announced.
At length, two men were put on trial; but the treasurer could only swear that one of them looked like one of the men that came into his office.
After a time, legislative relief was sought, and the treas- urer and his sureties freed from the charge of the amount stolen.
Time passed on. Ketchum stepped out of his office by " resignation," but showed no signs of guilt-only seemed worried by his " misfortune."
Among other plans looking to discovery of the robbers, the commissioners of the county requested by special mes- senger that banks should be on their lookout for such money as was taken-nearly all of it being in bills on the State Bank of Ohio.
In May, after the robbery, notice came from the Bank of Cadiz that a package of stained and musty bank-notes had been presented at their bank for redemption by James M. Brown, of Coshocton. Brown was called upon for an ex- planation, and his statement was written down and pre- served ; but as it could not be discovered that he was using more money than he had apparently been using before the robbery, the suspicions against him died out and were for- gotten.
Years passed away, and no clue to the robbery could be obtained. Brown, however, was closely watched. While no offense had ever been proven on him, he had estab- lished a reputation from boyhood for being eager in the pursuit of money-keen to acquire it, and close to hold it. He had been for some time engaged in " shaving " operations, and had not by some of these helped his repu- tation, though evidently filling his purse. He was mak- ing money rapidly in a year or two after the robbery, and no one could tell just how.
In December, 1864, he was charged with burglary on . Ward's drug-store, and at next term of court indicted
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therefor. About this time he was not to be found in Coshocton, nor thereabouts. An unsuccessful attempt was made to bring him from Canada, where he was after a time discovered operating largely in gold, and with, it was reported, some $58,000 in ready funds.
In 1865, facts enough had come to light to warrant the grand jury in finding an indictment for robbing the treas . ury, and another for receiving the money stolen. The state proposed a trial in December, but Brown obtained a change of venue to Licking county, and by some informality in proceedings could not then be compelled to go to trial there unless he chose, which he did not.
Meantime, testimony was increasing to show that Brown never got his moneys where he alleged-chiefly from some parties in Kentucky. Just at this stage the attorney-general of the State commenced civil process against Brown for the state's proportion of funds abstracted from the treasury, attaching all his property-his farm, a mile below Coshoc- ton, and many valuable properties he had within a few years purchased in the town. Quarters were now getting close.
At this time, Brown commenced suit in Franklin county against Ketchum for the balance on a note given by him to Brown for $18,000. He alleged it was money loaned to Ketchum in his line of business as a broker. Ketchum said it was " hush " paper given without any consideration ; that in June, 1857, he had discovered a " shortage " in his accounts as treasurer, and had got Brown at that time to lend him that amount ; that he repaid it, and Brown insisted as a matter of comity upon getting occasionally sums from the treasurer ; that, to prevent exposure of his deficits, he borrowed on other occasions, but that ulti- mately Brown had the advantage, and threatened to have Ketchum prosecuted as a defaulter. On the 22d of January, 1859, the commissioners were to examine the treasury. To cover up the deficiency the sham robbery was planned. On the 21st of January, 1859, Brown came into the office, and suggested the carrying out of the plan, stating that he (the treasurer) must be discov-
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ered next day and go to the penitentiary anyhow ; that he agreed to the arrangement, provided Brown would give up the $18,000 note, on which he had, as alleged, paid him $14,000 (as the credits on the notes showed), and also give up a $2,000 note, secured by mortgage on Ketchum's house in Lafayette ; that Brown promised to do all this, but said he did not have the notes with him, but that after the smoke had blown away he would give up all notes, and give him a good portion of whatever he could get out of the safe that night. The bargain was made; Brown tied the treasurer, put the gag in his mouth, and carried away every dollar, amounting to some $16,000 or $18,000, including the whole sum in the treasurer's private safe.
This was the treasurer's statement, as forced out of him by Brown's suit in Franklin county. And now another indictment was in place.
April 16, 1867, Samuel Ketchum and James M. Brown were indicted for embezzlement, by simulated fraud, from county treasury, and put under bonds of $20,000 each.
Brown got a change of venue to Licking county. The trial began January 14th and closed February 2d, by the jury failing to agree. A subsequent trial, begun March 18, 1869, worked Brown's conviction. This also was held in Newark.
On law points the case was carried to the Supreme Court, but sentence was finally passed, and Brown and Ketchum were fellow prisoners in the Ohio Penitentiary, as elsewhere noticed. The attorneys for the State were A. G. Dimmock, R. M. Voorhees, E. T. Spangler, Wm. Sample, and C. Hoy ; and for Brown, Nicholas and James. Campbell and Voorhees were Ketchum's attorneys.
Sheriff John Hesket (who was a bondsman of Ketch- um), Colonel James Irvine, C. H. Johnson, and James M. Sells (and Sheriff Rankin, of Licking county), are recog- nized as having played prominent parts in these famous cases.
COSHOCTON WAGS IN EARLY DAYS.
No greater "wags" ever lived than two Coshocton boys, Bill - and Sam - Old Deacon E-t had
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raised a nice lot of watermelons, and, just as they were ready for use, found the boys were after them. The two above-named were his apprentices at the time, and finally, as helping the old gentleman to discover what boys had been on hand, proposed to try "the track," when, lo! to the old man's horror, it was discovered that his own shoes just fitted the tracks; the boys, when they went to the patch, taking the precaution to "hook" the old gentle- man's shoes as the first step.
A couple of festive youths from the rural districts, on one occasion, came to town, and inquired of one of the above wags if he could direct them to a house of certain (here nameless) sort. He, after a little hesitation, suggested that they might go about dusk to a certain house which had just been left vacant, and matters would be all right. He then notified his cronies, and while the aforesaid young men were seeing the lions in the groceries, etc., they hastily gathered into the old house a few articles of furniture and utensils, giving the place an inhabited appearance. At the appointed time, one of the town "b'hoys," arrayed in female apparel, received "the guests" at the door, and they were just beginning to feel at home, when in rushed a party of young men, who made things so lively for the rustie gen- tlemen that they were glad to escape with their lives !
HUMORS OF THE CRUSADE.
Among the humors of "the Crusade" was the case of one "Christ" S-h. He had been put on trial for violating the beer ordinance. The case being about over, there was some little talk between the justice and the lawyers about the penalty, and especially about going to jail. At this juncture, " Christ" broke out with-" Jail ! oh me can no go to shail. Vy, vot would become of mine shop and mine bakery ? Now, dare is Christ E-t; he got nuthing to do, vy can't he go to shail, and leve me alone ?" The point made was a double one, especially in view of the fact that the " substitute" proposed having been out of employment for some time, had been acting as a sort of Deputy Mar- shal, especially in Crusade cases,
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CHAPTER XXI.
TIIE CHURCHES-GENERAL STATEMENTS-DETAILED ACCOUNTS OF THE BAPTIST, CHRISTIAN, CATHOLIC, AND LUTHERAN CHURCHES.
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