History of Richland County, Ohio : (including the original boundaries) ; its past and present, containing a condensed comprehensive history of Ohio, including an outline history of the Northwest, a complete history of Richland county miscellaneous matter, map of the county, biographies and histories of the most prominent families, &c., &c., Part 55

Author: Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Mansfield, O. : A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Ohio > Richland County > History of Richland County, Ohio : (including the original boundaries) ; its past and present, containing a condensed comprehensive history of Ohio, including an outline history of the Northwest, a complete history of Richland county miscellaneous matter, map of the county, biographies and histories of the most prominent families, &c., &c. > Part 55

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

The second murder in this (Ashland) county occurred December 17, 1853. The tragedy had its origin in a matter of 7 cents that had been used at a "raffle." The money belonged to one Noah Mock, but had been appropriated by Thornton Pool, and, in the controversy growing out of this trifling affair, Pool stabbed and killed Mock. The case was tried at the March term. 1854, Pool found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to the Ohio Penitentiary for ten years.

On the morning of March 12, 1870, Mans- field was startled and shocked by the. news of the horrible murder committed the night before on Oliver street, in rear of the Atlantic Hotel.

The victim was Mrs. Mary J. Lunsford, a woman about twenty-eight years of age, who occupied the west part of a story-and-a-half wooden building, the east part of the building being occupied by a negro family named Har- ris. Each part of this house contained two rooms, one above and one below. The murder was committed in the west room up-stairs. The woman's character was not good, it appear- ing that she was the mistress of Ansel L. Rob- inson, a foreman in the Blymyer, Day & Co.'s works.

It appears that Charity Harris, living in one part of the house, heard, about 1 o'clock at night, smothered screams and groans issuing from the apartment of Mrs. Lunsford. Her husband went out to ascertain the cause, rapped at Mrs. Lunsford's door and called several times, but, as all was quiet, he returned to bed. The same noise was also heard by the watchman at the Aultman & Taylor works, who came over to ascertain the cause, but, finding all quiet, returned. In the morning, there being no signs of life about Mrs. Lunsford's room, an entrance was effected, and she was found lying diagonally across the bed in her night-clothes, with her throat cut, and other cuts and bruises on different parts of her body. Her arm was also bitten in several places, the prints of the teeth being plainly visible. The condition of the bed gave evidence of a terrible struggle, and there was a pool of blood on the floor under her head, which hung down through the head of the bed (the slats having given way) to within six inches of the floor.

The murderer had made his escape through a window on the lower floor, leaving bloody marks in different places.

Naturally the excitement was intense, and under this stimulus Ansel L. Robinson was ar- rested for the crime, though it does not appear that there was at that time, nor at any subse- quent time, sufficient evidence to cause his arrest. Robinson was from Cincinnati, where

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he was a local politician of some note and had been a leader in the workingmen's movement, which resulted in the election of Samuel F. Cary to Congress. During the Grant campaign, he was prominent in Mansfield and commanded a company of Grant Guards in the city. He had a good deal of influence among a large class of workmen here. It appears from letters that he became acquainted with Mrs. Lunsford in Cincinnati, and, after he secured his position here with Blymyer, Day & Co., induced her to come and reside in Mansfield. Robinson was tried and acquitted, after which he left Mans- field and has not since been heard of in this vicinity.

Several other parties were arrested and ac- quitted, and to this day the motive of the mur- der and the whereabouts of the murderer remains a mystery. There are opinions con- cerning this matter among the Mansfield people, which have assumed the importance of well- grounded belief. This belief has been strength- ened since the trial and execution of Webb for the murder of Mr. Finney. It is known that Webb was a frequent visitor to the negro family living in the same house with Mrs. Lunsford ; that he knew of the murdered woman ; and, considering the brutality of the murder and the well-known brutality of Webb, it is believed that he was the murderer, though he refused to confess the same before he was hanged for the Finney murder.

In this connection and in the light of to- day, it is interesting to read the following, printed in the Cincinnati Commercial in April, 1870-the month following the murder. It is from the pen of Don Piatt, then Washington correspondent of that paper : "I read the ac- count of this mysterious crime to one of the most remarkable lawyers in the United States. and he said :

"' In all cases of circumstantial evidence, the conclusion jumped at by the ordinary mind is apt to be erroneous, from the fact that the

stronger links are generally the more delicate, and so escape consideration. Thus when Dr. Burdell was murdered, the fact of Mrs. Burdell being in the house over-rid the other facts, that Burdell, a strong man, had made a vigorous fight for his life-so vigorous that an ordinary woman could not possibly have conquered him -- and the bloody track of a stranger feeling his way out of the house. When a woman premeditates killing, poison is her ordinary weapon ; if not premeditated, it was simply impossible.

""'In this case, the struggle indicates some- thing more than murder. Had Robinson or any other man set about the killing for that purpose and none other, we would not have the struggle that broke down the bed, nor the bites in the arm so much relied on. These indicate some- thing more, and more probably that some one, perhaps a negro, knowing the woman to be a loose character, entered the window by which he escaped. Infuriated at the resistance, he first bit and fought, then, probably fearing de- tection, committed the murder.

"When a man premeditates a killing, the caution attending it grows with the intelligence of the criminal, and, in nine cases out of ten, the crime is tracked by the very means used to conceal it. A vicious, stupid brute may strike down and cut to pieces his victim in a moment of blind frenzy, regardless of consequences and not unfrequently with a successful escape. This seems to be the case here."

The above reasoning is so clear that it seems like a prophecy ; and there is good reason to believe that it is a simple statement of the facts of this murder, though uttered years be- fore Webb was known.

In the following September of the same year (1870), young Edward McCulloch was killed by Charles Hall. son of H. Hall, who owns a farm, on which he resides, a short distance north of Mansfield. This was not a cold- blooded or brutal murder, like the one just

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related, but was caused by liquor. A party, among whom were Hall and McCulloch, came to Mansfield in the evening to attend a circus, leaving their conveyance at a livery stable.

Before they were ready to go home, Charles Hall was partially intoxicated, having sepa- rated himself from the remainder of the party. When ready to go home, they could not find Hall, and drove away without him. Enraged at being left behind, he hired a livery team and drove after them, passing them on the road. At home, he accused Edward Townsend, one of the party, of leaving him on purpose. Some words passed, when Hall drew a pistol and fired at Townsend, the ball passing through his wrist. Edward McCulloch, a hired man living with the family, now interfered, and, in the melee, was shot by Hall, the ball entering the left face and penetrating the brain.

Hall gave himself up and was sent to jail. He was tried and acquitted, with a fine of $150 and costs.

August 5, 1870, a sad affair occurred near Newville, by which a boy lost his life at the hands of his brother. Two sons of Mr. Will- iam Norris, an old and respected farmer of Worthington Township, became engaged in an altercation while driving some cows home from pasture, and John, the older brother, got the better of William, threw him down and punished him severely. After he let him up, William seized a billet of wood and struck John a tremendous blow on the temple, knocking him insensible. The boy lived but a day or two.

The surviving brother was overwhelmed with grief and remorse for the unlucky blow, struck while in a passion. He gave himself up and was admitted to bail in the sum of $5,000, his father going on his bond. He was tried at the September term of court, the same year, and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty.

The murder of William S. Finney, an old and respected resident of the county, residing

on his farm, three miles southwest of Mansfield, occurred December 6, 1877, and in brutality was similar to that of Mrs. Lunsford. The sup- posed motive for this murder was for the pos- session of a small sum of money Mr. Finney was supposed to have in his house. The mur- derer entered the house in the night, when the family were sleeping, and commenced his search for the money. It does not seem to have been his intention to commit murder, but when Mr. Finney was aroused by the noise, the stranger, probably fearing opposition and detection, com- mitted the murder. The weapon used was an old musket, known to be the property of Ed- ward Webb, a negro, living on Pine street, in Mansfield. Mr. Finney was killed with this weapon, used as a club, and his aged wife also re- "ceived severe injuries. Other members of the family were aroused by the noise, and the thoroughly aroused negro, who seems to have become a devil incarnate, attacked them also, seemingly bent upon murdering all who opposed him. Several members of the family were in- jured by his desperate and terrible blows, be- fore they could realize the situation, make united resistance, or give the alarm. Before he could accomplish his terrible object, the house was thoroughly aroused ; some of those occupying the upper parts of the house raising the window and crying, Murder ! Finding he had a larger contraet on hand than he could carry out, the desperate villain retreated through the window, and, strange as it may appear, ran across the fields directly to his own home in Mansfield, leaving a very plain trail behind him, in the light snow. On the follow- ing morning, Marshal Lemon followed this track, without any difficulty, to the house of Edward Webb, arrested that individual, who was quietly eating his breakfast, and who, as clearly proved in the trial, was the murderer.

Webb bore himself, all through his trial and the subsequent period in jail, in a manner that showed he did not realize his situation, or the

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enormity of his crime. He would alternately sing, pray, swear, and use the most obscene language ; was always ready to laugh, talk, joke, and seemed to be under an impression he had created an immense sensation, and was the hero of the hour. He was a great gormandizer and grew fat, while waiting to be hanged ; seemed on the whole to be much more of a beast than a human being. The day of execution was Friday, May 31, 1878. A great crowd appeared at the place of execution, in the old jail-yard, on Third street. The execution was to be pri- vate, and a high broad fence inclosed the seaf- fold. As the time for the execution approached, the crowd grew boisterous, and developed into a mob, determined to " see the nigger hung." . The company of militia, on duty as guard, was brushed aside with little ceremony, and the in- closure about the scaffold demolished in a few moments. A characteristic smile played about mouth of the murderer, as he walked toward the scaffold, and knew that all this fuss was made on his account. He seemed, to the last, to have no comprehension of his awful doom, and was swung into eternity, without seeming to realize, know or care, what issues are in- volved in life and death.

In April, 1878, the people of Independence were thrown into a state of excitement by a murder in their midst. A man named Samuel P. Bowersox kept a saloon in the place, to the great annoyance of the Independence people, who are generally strongly inclined to temper- ance. Bowersox was consequently consider- ably annoyed one way and another in his business. One night, a party of young men visited the saloon, and, after drinking more than they should, went out and created some disturbance on the street near the saloon, by hallooing, throwing stones, etc., which so en- raged Bowersox that he took down a revolver, and, opening the door, thrust his hand out and fired into the crowd, instantly killing Alfred Palm. He was brought to Mansfield, tried, a

nolle prosequi entered in the case, and he was acquitted on that ground.

Soon after the war, Mansfield was infested with thieves, blacklegs and confidence men. For a year or two, their presence was borne with patience, in the hope the law and law officers would deal with them as they de- served. These men came to be well known to the officers of the law and citizens generally, but such was the dexterity they exhibited in their calling, they could not be caught, or if caught, no crime could be proven against them. Their outrages were committed almost nightly. Private houses and stores were burglarized ; citizens were knocked down on the street and robbed, sometimes in broad daylight. It be- came dangerous to walk the streets alone after dark ; and even in daylight, especially in the vicinity of the railroad depots, men were not safe from robbery and outrage. So great had this insecurity become by 1867, that, finding the law could not reach these miscreants, the citizens determined to take the matter in their own hands. A company of regulators was formed, and, in March of that year, the follow- ing proclamation appeared :

To thieves, blacklegs, confidence men, etc .: Our city has been infested by, and our citizens suffered as long as they will bear, your depredations on person and property. You are all known to our Regulators. We therefore warn you to leave our city instantly and for- ever, for we will not tolerate you longer. You are watched and cannot escape. A short shift will be your doom if caught at your wicked business hereafter.

Before issuing the above, the citizens met and passed the following :

Resolved, That the city is in need only of honest men. Swindlers and confidence men are notified to leave or suffer the consequences. Our Regulators are authorized to enforce this resolution. All persons are warned against harboring or assisting these pests of society. We are determined to rid the community of them, and any person standing in the way will do so at their peril.

A squad of Regulators searched the saloons and arrested six or eight men who were well

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known to belong to the gang, whom they con- veyed to jail.

On the afternoon of March 12, a meeting of citizens was held at Miller's Hall to consider what was best to be done with these men. The hall was packed. The parties who had been arrested, and whose photographs had mean- while been taken, were brought before this meeting, and the sense of the audience taken as to the disposition to be made of them. A

few were for hanging, but, after much discus- sion, it was decided to escort them to the depot and place them aboard the first train. This happened to be a north-bound train on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. They were threat- ened with hanging if they returned. However reprehensible this plan may have been, it was effectual. Quiet and order were restored, and Mansfield has been comparatively free from them since.

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HISTORY OF RICHLAND COUNTY.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

THE MANSFIELD BAR.

THE FIRST COURTS OF THE COUNTY-THE FIRST GRAND JURY-THE EARLY LAWYERS OF MANSFIELD-THE VIS- ITING LAWYERS-THE PRESIDENT JUDGES-GEN. MCLAUGHLIN-GEN. ROBERT BENTLEY-THOMAS H. FORD MORDECAI BARTLEY-JUDGE BRINKERHOFF-L. B. MATSON-MILTON W. WORDEN-GEN. BRINKERHOFF'S REVIEW OF THE MANSFIELD BAR.

U PON the organization of Richland County in 1813, the Associate Judges were Thomas Coulter, William Gass and Peter Kin- ney. They held a special session in June of that year, the only business coming before them being the appointment of Jonathan Coulter and Rebecca Byrd as administrators of the estate of Levi Jones, who had been killed by the Indians. Winn Winship, George Coffinberry and Rolin Weldon were appointed appraisers of Jones' property.

On the 9th of September of the same year, these Judges again organized a court, and re- mained in session two days. The last will and testament of Jacob Newman, deceased, was presented, proved and ordered to be recorded. Andrew Coffinberry and James McCluer were appointed and qualified executors, giving bond in the sum of $10,000.

Ruth and Abraham Trucks, wife and son of Nicholas Trucks, deceased, were appointed ad- ministrators.

The next day, September 10, the court or- dered the Treasurer to pay Samuel McCluer $12.25 for seven days' service as Commissioner and Melzar Tannehill $9.25 for five days' ser- vice as Commissioner ; also, Samuel Watson, $14. for eight days' work in the same office. The court also appointed Winn Winship, Clerk ; Andrew Coffinberry, Recorder, and William Biddle, Surveyor.

The Court of Common Pleas, prior to the Constitution of 1851, was composed of one

President Judge and two Associates. The President Judge must needs be a lawyer, but the others were not necessarily such, and gener- ally were not. The Associates sat on the bench with the President, but were not expected to know much of law. They discharged the duties of the present Probate Judge, and in all other respects were ornamental rather than useful.

The first court of this character, regularly organized for business, convened January 14, 1814; President Judge, William Wilson ; As- sociates, Peter Kinney, Thomas Coulter and James McCluer. The grand jury at this time, and the first ione in the county, was composed of Isaac Pearce, foreman ; George Coffinberry, Chusthy Brubaker, Thomas Lofland, Samuel Hill, Amariah Watson, George Crawford, Hugh Cunningham, Melzar Tannehill. Ebenezer Rice. William Slater, William Biddle, Solomon Lee and Rolin Weldon.

The first day's proceedings of this court in- cluded the granting of licenses to Royal N. Powers, to retail merchandise; to James McCluer, to keep a house of public entertain- ment ; to Asa Murphy, to keep a tavern at his dwelling (site of the Wiler House) ; to Johnson McCarty, for four months. to retail merchan- dise, and to George Coffinberry, to keep a pub- lic house.

Rules were adopted for the government of the court, and on the 14th it adjourned.

Thus was put in motion the first legal ma- chinery in Richland County, and that machinery,

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with many repairs and additions, is yet grinding out justice ; it is hoped and believed, to rich and poor alike.

This court met in the upper part of the old block-house, on the square, and when it con- vened there was no resident lawyer in Mans- field.

The courts were " on wheels " in those days, the custom being for the court to travel from place to place, the lawyers accompanying it. It was not until 1815, that John M. May, the first lawyer, took up his residence in Mansfield. From that time forward, the place never wanted for lawyers, and many of them have been men of more than ordinary ability, and have been honored with high positions in the State and nation.

The second lawyer was Asa Grimes, father of A. L. Grimes, of Mansfield, who died of consumption shortly after his arrival.

In 1816, Col. William W. Cotgrave and Wil- son Elliott came, and these were followed in a few years by James Purdy, Jacob Parker and James Stewart. Of these first lawyers, James Purdy is yet living in Mansfield. Although eighty-six, he occasionally appears upon the street, and his step is slow and apparently painful, on account of a sciatic affliction of long standing ; yet his eye · is bright, and his manner and conversation give evidence that his heart is yet young.

Most people in Mansfield can yet remember John M. May-" Father May," as he was famil- iarly known among his intimate friends. He walked across the Alleghany Mountains, seek- ing his fortune in the "Far West," stumbled upon this little frontier town in the woods, and remained here fifty-four years. He was a good citizen and an honest man. What more need be said of any man ? How short that sen- tence is ; yet what years of struggle must pre- cede it, if it be truthfully uttered.

Judge Parker and Mr. May had been law students together in the office of Philemon

Beecher, at Lancaster, Ohio. Parker was a good man, a sound lawyer and a conscientious Judge. Judge Brinkerhoff says of him : " He - was one of the best 'case lawyers' I ever knew. The reading of adjudged cases was one of the luxuries of his life, and his memory of cases or points ruled by or discussed in them was wonderful. But he was not a reader of law reports only. Like James Stewart, who succeeded to the Common Pleas bench, under the Constitution of 1851, he was an omnivor- ous reader. Both of these gentlemen aspired to and attained a liberal general scholarship, and would have been ashamed to be thought lawyers simply, and nothing more."

Parker had graduated at the Ohio Univer- sity, at Athens, he and Thomas Ewing being the first to receive the degree of Bachelor of Arts from an Ohio college. He was not made a Judge until 1840, and then brought to his duties a mind well matured and stored, not only with law but with general literature. As a Judge, he was peculiarly successful, and would have done honor to the highest judicial position.

James Stewart studied law in the office of Judge Parker, and was admitted to the bar about the year 1828. Stewart was a Scotch- Irish boy, from Western Pennsylvania, and came West to grow up with the country. Like many another famous lawyer and man, he taught school while getting his legal learning, and was among the first and best teachers in Mansfield.

When Judge Parker's term on the bench expired, in 1850, Stewart, by unanimous rec- ommendation of his associates, was elevated to his place. Physically and mentally, he was a very strong man.

A few words spoken by Judge George W. Geddes, who was presiding at the time Mr. Stewart's death was announced, deserve preser- vation. He says : "In years, he fell far short of man's appointed time ; but reckoning time

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by the better rule, may I not say, he lived out the full measure of his years ? For we should remember that-

" ' We live in deeds, not years ; in thoughts, not breaths ; In feelings, not in figures on a dial.

We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives, Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best.'"

The first law student in Mansfield was Andrew Coffinberry, who studied with Mr. May. He was quite an important young man in the young city, making acquaintances easily and rapidly, and becoming rather popular among the backwoodsmen of that day. He was also one of the first school teachers, and generally went by the name of Count Coffin- berry. When he became a full-fledged lawyer, he was, one day, for some eccentricity, called by Judge Osborne, " Count Puffendorf," which name afterward clung to him for some years.

Among the lawyers who traveled with the court in those days, and visited Mansfield fre- quently, were William Stanberry, of Newark, who died in January, 1873, at the ripe age of eighty-five ; Hosmer Curtis and Samuel Mott, of Mount Vernon ; Alexander Harper and Elijah Mirwine, of Zanesville, and Charles T. Sherman, of Lancaster. Hosmer Curtis was the first Prosecuting Attorney, and was succeeded by Mr. May in 1816. Mr. May was succeeded by William B. Raymond, of Wooster.

The Judges then held their office seven years, and the successive President Judges of the Court of Common Pleas, up to the formation of the constitution in 1851, were William Wil- son, of Licking; George Tod (father of the late Gov. Tod), of Trumbull ; Harper, of Mus- kingum ; Lane and Higgins, of Huron, and Ezra Dean, of Wayne, the last of whom had been a lieutenant in the United States army, and had fought at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane.

One of the early lawyers in Mansfield was Gen. William McLanghlin, a large-hearted

Trishman, who came about the year 1827, from Canton. He is well remembered as a soldier and a patriot. He was generous and brave to a fault ; a man of great energy and activity ; making hosts of friends, laying down his life finally for his flag, in the war of the rebellion.

When Mclaughlin first arrived in Mansfield, hunting was quite an occupation among many of the pioneers, and, having a good deal of con- fidence in his powers, in whatever way he chose to exercise them, he desired to have it generally understood that he was a great hunter, though it does not appear that his exploits in that direction were marvelous. One day, after a tramp in the woods, he walked proudly into the village, with what he sup- posed was a wild turkey slung over his shoul- der. Thomas B. Andrews was working on the roof of the first brick court house at the time, and he says Mclaughlin swung his hat and cheered, holding up to view the trophy of his prowess as a hunter. Upon examination, however, the turkey turned out to be a turkey buzzard. The General was, at first, somewhat indignant at this verdict by his friends, pro- testing that it was a wild turkey, that his friends were blockheads, who did not know a turkey from a buzzard, and that he proposed having roast turkey for dinner.

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Author: Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848- Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Mansfield, O. : A. A. Graham & co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Graham, A. A. (Albert Adams), 1848-
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Mansfield, O. : A. A. Graham & co.
Number of Pages: 968