USA > South Dakota > Minnehaha County > History of Minnehaha county, South Dakota. Containing an account of its settlements, growth, development and resources Synopsis of public records, biographical sketches > Part 23
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or intoxicated person, or to any person in the habit of getting intoxi- cated, or to any person when forbidden in writing so to do by the husband, wife, parent, child, guardian or employer of such person, or the supervisor of the township, or the president or trustee of a town, mayor of a city, or the board of county commissioners of the county where such person shall reside or temporarily remain.
Again there is a local option feature. At the annual municipal election held in any township, town or city, the question of granting permits to sell intoxicating liquors at retail, must be submitted to the legal voters upon the petition of twenty-five legal voters of such township, town or city, and if a majority vote against the granting of permits then the granting of permits is prohibited.
Upon the business of manufacturing or selling spiritous or in- toxicating liquors at wholesale an annual license of one thousand dollars is required to be paid; upon the business of selling brewed and malt liquors at wholesale, six hundred dollars; and upon the manufacture of same, four hundred; and upon the business of retail- ing intoxicating liquors, the sum of four hundred dollars must be paid to the county treasurer, and such further sum not less than two hundred dollars, nor more than six hundred dollars to the township, town or city where the business is to be engaged in, as such town- ship, town or city may by ordinance require.
All persons before engaging in the sale of intoxicating liquors are required to give a bond in the sum of two thousand dollars, with two good sureties, conditioned, that they will conform to all the re- quirements of the law and pay all judgments for damages or fines imposed for the violation of any of its provisions.
The foregoing, although not a full summary, comprises the main features of the law under which the manufacture and traffic in intox- icating liquors is now being conducted in South Dakota.
But the legislature of 1897 did not stop with the enactment of a high license law, but passed the following joint resolution:
"Be it resolved by the Senate, the House of Representatives concurring therein: That the following amendment to the constitu- tion of the State of South Dakota is hereby agreed to, and which amendment, when approved and ratified, shall become part of the constitution as Article twenty-seven thereof.
"The manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be under exclusive state control and shall be conducted by duly authorized agents of the state who shall be paid by salary and not by com- missions. All liquors sold shall be first examined by a state chem- ist and the purity thereof established.
"The legislature shall by law prescribe regulations for the en- forcement of the provisions of this article and provide suitable and adequate penalties for the violation thereof."
This amendment was submitted to the electors at the general election in November, 1898, and was ratified by them by a majority of 1,613. The vote in the county was 1,340 for, and 1,097 against its ratification. This matter was scarcely alluded to during the cam- paign, and was not made a party measure. The vote itself is evi- dence of the fact that a large proportion of the people did not take enough interest in the measure to register their votes.
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HISTORY OF. MINNEHAHA COUNTY.
We say "it is the law under which the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors is now being conducted" that is, if it can be law- fully conducted at all. As seen above, it was incumbent upon the legislature of 1899 to enact a law for its enforcement, but when it as- sembled there proved to be such a contrariety of views entertained by the members that no measure proposed could obtain the neces- sary votes to secure its passage, and the legislature adjourned with- out enacting any law upon the subject.
One thing is certain, the State of South Dakota has a remarkable record upon the liquor question; license, local option, prohibition, and high license, and now, although the constitution of the State pre- scribes that "the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors shall be conducted by duly authorized agents of the State, who shall be paid a salary" for so doing, the State is not manufacturing or selling intoxicating liquors.
It is evident that the people of the State in the near future will endeavor to rescue the subject from its present entanglement, but what the end will be, no one would dare to predict.
SANTA FE SCRIP AND ITS BOGUS ISSUE BY J. D. CAMERON.
On the 3d day of March, 1879, Congress passed an act which provided that settlers upon unsurveyed lands could have the same surveyed by applying to the surveyor general and depositing money with some assistant treasurer or other designated depository of the United States to defray the expenses of the survey. Upon the money being deposited the depository was instructed by a circular issued by the commissioner of the general land office to issue triplicate cer- tificates in the sums not less than $200 each, that the settler had de- posited such sums, the original certificate to be sent to the secretary of the treasurer, the duplicate to surveyor general of the district in which the land was situated, and the triplicate to the settler. The triplicate could be used by the settler in payment for public land, and it was assignable to other parties for the same use. Large sums of this scrip were issued. At first it sold at a discount, but the de- mand for it had so increased in 1881 that it left but a small margin. The certificates were printed upon paper ordinarily used for blanks, and no methods were used in their manufacture to make them diffi- cult to counterfeit.
It was at this stage of affairs that John D. Cameron, then a resi- dent of Sioux Falls, conceived the idea of counterfeiting this scrip. A large amount of it was manufactured. Of course, at a discount of eight per cent it was an object for bankers and land agents in locali- ties where parties wished to pay for government land to have scrip on hand to supply their customers.
To put this into circulation, a bogus firm under the name of Burt & Miller of St. Louis, Mo., sent circulars to the banks and land agents all over the Northwest that they could furnish this scrip, de- signated as Santa Fe Scrip, at the discount above named.
The First National Bank of Sioux Falls ordered $5,000 of it, and
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the Mckinney & Scougal Bank $1,000. The scrip ordered by the First National Bank came to John D. Cameron, and he claimed that he had been appointed agent for the sale of the scrip in Dakota, but the bank having become suspicious, refused to take it. McKinney & Scougal had expressed the money in payment of the scrip ordered. but were warned in time to stop its delivery by the express company.
C. H. Winsor of Sioux Falls was sent to St. Louis to look up Burt & Miller, but he was unable to find the parties comprising the firm, although an office of Burt & Miller was found furnished with a table and two chairs with a boy in charge.
But it was a short-lived swindle. The bogus scrip was an exact counterfeit of the original. The conspirators for Cameron had ac- complices-after procuring the paper and type sent a printer from Beloit, Ia., to Canton, S. D., where he printed the bogus scrip.
P. A. Haverold of Sioux Falls, was employed to fill out the scrip, but the prospect of getting considerable money in a very short time induced him, while in an intoxicated condition, to disclose to an im- portunate creditor his expectations of soon having all the money he wanted. The creditor was Guy Weed, deputy United States mar- shal, and he succeeded in getting from Haverold a pretty full account of the knavish scheme of the conspirators. Weed reported what he had learned to the United States authorities, and they promptly in- stituted a thorough investigation which resulted in the arrest of Cameron on the 3d day of May, 1882, and the seizure of his office papers which furnished considerable incriminating evidence against him. At the next term of the United States court at Yankton. Cameron, W. D. Russell of Yankton, and E. E. Carpenter of Beloit, were indicted charged in substance with counterfeiting this scrip and conspiring to defraud the government. A large number of wit- nesses were summoned in the case, about forty being from Sioux Falls. There was a lengthy trial of the case, but it did not result favorably to the government. On two occasions it was continued over the term, and finally a change of venue was taken to St. Louis, Mo. At the first term there the case was continued, although the usual number of witnesses were in attendance. At the next term the case was abandoned by the government. It was an expensive case to all parties concerned, and especially to Mr. Cameron, who not only paid out a large sum of money in his defense, but was com- pelled to lie in jail some time, being unable to procure bail. Another feature of the case was the suspicion in the community that the escape of Mr. Cameron from punishment was owing to the fact that there were other parties than those indicted who were greatly interested in his acquittal, fearing if he was convicted he might make disclosures that would be unpleasant for them to meet.
IMPEACHMENT OF ALDERMAN JOSEPH SAMPSON.
Joseph Sampson, who has been a resident of Sioux Falls for sey- eral years and engaged principally in grading work upon streets and railroads, was expelled from the city council on June 7, 1895, and his office of alderman from the Sixth ward declared vacant. Mr. Samp- son has been a prominent figure in Sioux Falls. He was active in
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politics, particularly in everything relating to city affairs. He was appointed street commissioner in 1889, and again in 1891, and held the office until November 16, 1892. At the city election in 1893, he was elected alderman from the Sixth ward, and in 1894, he was elected president of the council. Mayor Williams, owing to severe illness, left the city for medical treatment on the 20th day of March, 1895, and thereupon Mr. Sampson became the acting mayor of Sioux Falls, and so remained until the 6th day of May, 1895. During the time he was acting mayor he collected from the disorderly houses in the city $767.50. This was deposited in the Union National bank to his credit, and checked out by him on the 27th day of April, as he said, for the purpose of paying certain persons the amount of their claims against the city. This he did not do, but left the city in the early part of May for Wyoming, where his wife had gone a short time before. He was elected alderman from the Sixth ward at the city election in April, and qualified as such at the proper time. Soon after he left, the question as to what had become of the money be- longing to the city that he had checked out in April, was brought to the attention of the city officials, and when they were unable to find that it had been used for any lawful purpose, or that it had been left with anyone in the city, the matter was taken before the grand jury and they returned an indictment against him for embezzlement. Mr. Sampson was easily located at Sundance, Wyoming, and the sheriff at that place took him in charge upon instructions received from the county officials of Minnehaha county, and Sheriff Hubbard went to Sundance with a warrant for his arrest and brought him to Sioux Falls. Soon after his return to Sioux Falls, he was arraigned upon the indictment, and when the time arrived for him to plead, his coun- sel, John E. Carland and Joseph Kirby, made a motion to quash the indictment, for the reason that Sheriff Hubbard had assisted in drawing the grand jury for the April term of the circuit court, hav- ing at the same time suits, in which he was a party, upon the calen- dar for trial. This motion was sustained by the court, and Mr. Sampson was held in bonds of $1,000, to answer at the next term of court upon the same charge. A good many rumors were in circula- tion in the city as to what had become of the money. But, as Mr. Sampson had not accounted to the city, Alderman Lien, at the regu- lar monthly meeting of the council on the 3d day of June, offered a resolution, which was adopted without a dissenting vote, calling upon Mr. Sampson to appear before the council on June 7, to show cause why he should not be expelled from the council. The preamble to the resolution set up the facts in reference to his obtaining the money, and his official connection with it, and that he was a member of the city council. On the 7th day of June the council met, and there was a large attendance to witness what was anticipated would prove to be a "great moral show." The proceedings were tame. No dramatic features appeared. The resolution was read, and Mr. Sampson denied that the city council had any authority to expel him, and also denied that the allegations in the charge were true. He ad- mitted drawing the money, and said he still had it in his possession, but that he "would not turn it over until the injunction served on
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him was dissolved, and the criminal proceedings against him dropped." When through with his defense, the roll was called upon the resolution. and the vote stood eleven for Mr. Sampson voting no), and Mr. Sampson was declared to be no longer a member of the city council of Sioux Falls. It only remains to add that the charges were investigated by the next grand jury, but no indictment was found.
POLITICS.
The County of Minnehaha was the most populous county in the Territory of Dakota for fifteen years prior to its division and admis- sion into the Union as the states of North and South Dakota, and since that time it has had a larger population than any other county in the State of South Dakota. Owing to the fact that it has the largest city in the state within its limits, the politics of the county has a sort of metropolitan air that is not found elsewhere in the state. During the early days no county had greater influ- ence in territorial affairs than Minnehaha, and the respective parties were able to maintain party lines upon territorial issues. Until 1896, the republican party had a good working majority in the county, but it must be admitted that a good deal of guerrilla warfare was carried on in respect to county officials, and now and then the unexpected would happen and a nominee of the weaker party or an independent candidate be elected. But the great influence of the county in territorial and state politics has been largely due to the fact that it has been the home of a large number of leaders not only in one party organization but in all. It must be conceded that it is the political center of the state, the Mecca that all aspirants for office visit, the birthplace of political schemes for the public welfare. There is no place in the state that enjoys the reputation of having discovered so many men qualified to serve the public as Sioux Falls. At least, the statesmen in Sioux Falls seem to act as a sifting com- mittee, and when an aspirant for office is found wanting in availability he generally has time to devote to his ordinary pursuits. Yes, Min- nehaha county is a great county for politics, and it bids fair to re- main so for some years to come. During the last decade there has been but few removals from the ranks of its politicians, by death or otherwise, while on the other hand new political prodigies have claimed the attention of the public. The time may come when the disease known as political death may invade the political ranks in Minnehaha county, but so far, although several politicians have been supposed to be dead, it has turned out in the end that they were only hibernating for a season. For political thrift, enterprise and energy, for earnest, vigorous effort with no ulterior selfish end in view but the public good, for self-abnegation and subserviency of all personal ambition, the politicians of Minnehaha county of all degrees, big, little, and diminutive, war horses, mules and colts, taken collectively, by pairs or individually, are the peers of any similar aggregation on the continent.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE MURDER OF MARY EGAN -- BURNING OF THE EGAN HOMESTEAD-THE LACEY-BUNKER TRAGEDY -- THE MURDER OF ALFRED ERIKSON-THE JOHN MCDONALD HOMICIDE-THE MESSIAH CRAZE AND TRIAL OF
PLENTY HORSES FOR THE MURDER OF LIEUTEN- ANT CASEY.
THE MURDER OF MARY EGAN.
Thomas Egan, a native of Tipperary, Ireland, on Sunday, Sep- tember 12, 1880, at his home eighteen miles northwest of Sioux Falls, murdered his wife Mary Egan. The circumstances of the murder were peculiarly horrible and brutal. Egan was in the habit of beat- ing his wife, and on this day he sent his two boys away from the sod- shanty in which they lived, and then attacked his wife. He threw a piece of rope around her neck, and proceeded to strangle her, and beat her about the head with a hard wood picket until she became unconscious, and her scalp was laid open to the skull. He then threw the body through the trap-door into the hole used as a cellar. where it remained until Tuesday, when it was discovered. A coro- ner's jury was summoned and Egan arrested and lodged in jail. Af- ter unavoidable delays the trial came off in November, 1881, and the prisoner was convicted of the murder of his wife. A motion for a new trial was overruled, and he was sentenced to be hung on Fri- day, January 13, 1882. The counsel for the defense was L. S. Swezey assisted by C. H. Winsor, while the prosecution was conducted by the district attorney, J. W. Carter, assisted by E. Parliman and A. M. Flagg.
An appeal to the supreme court was perfected January 4, 1882, which staved proceedings under the sentence, until May 13, when the supreme court affirmed the judgment of the district court, and on May 29, Egan was re-sentenced, the date of the execution being fixed for Thursday, July 13, 1882. Through no fault of the officials
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in charge, owing to the accidental breaking of the noose at the first drop, and the consequent excitement, it was not until the culprit had been dropped the third time that the execution was successfully ac- complished, and while the scene was harrowing, it seemed but the just retribution for so horrible a crime. This was the first execu- tion in Minnehaha county, and the second one in Dakota. Joseph Dickson was the sheriff.
There are two incidents in connection with this deplorable trag- edy that are worthy of record. One is the changing of the date fixed. upon for Egan's execution to accommodate the publisher of a news- paper, and as E. W. Caldwell was the publisher, we will give the de- tails in his own language:
"I went to Judge Kidder and asked him if there was anything in the law which required that a man should be hung on Friday, and he said there was not. I then told him that I ran a weekly paper, which I issued on Thursday, and if Egan was hung on Friday, I would either have to postpone the issue of my paper, or hold the account of the hanging a week later, neither of which I wanted to do. He asked me if I had seen Judge Carter, the prosecuting attorney, and I said I had not, but I would; so I went to Judge Carter, told him the cir- cumstances, and asked him if it would make any difference to him. He said it would not; he didn't care when the man was hung, if he was only hung. I then went back to Judge Kidder, who finally said that he had intended to appoint Friday, July 7, for the hanging, but as that was so soon after the Fourth, it might put a damper upon the celebration, and if it would be any accommodation to me, he would fix it for Thursday, July 13. I told him that would just suit me, and so he did. Afterwards I was telling Mr. McLoney of it, and he took me to task for depriving the poor man of one day of life. I replied that I did not deprive him of a day, on the contrary I was the means of prolonging his life six days."
The other event was the burning of the Egan homestead. The fact of the burning was not so important as the fact that it resulted in the discovery of a poetess in Minnehaha county, who had hitherto been unknown to fame. It was printed at the time in one of the Sioux Falls newspapers and read as follows:
BURNING OF THE EGAN HOMESTEAD.
POEM BY MRS. CYNTHIA WARREN.
It was a fair and pleasant night, April the third or fourth,
When at a distance we saw a light of a fire in the north.
The lurid flames ran to the east, not minding things of worth
Burning beautiful trees, and leaving bare the earth.
The breeze sprang up, the bright flames leaped toward the shining stars, With a rushing sound resembling them of a train of cars.
The frightened birds fly here and there, the frogs in the low pond croak,
While suffocating is the air, filled with ashes, heat and smoke.
Then o'er the hill the fire comes sweeping toward the south,
It has lit in Egan's forsaken home and burned the old sod house.
The roof and posts are burned, and all the boards around,
The sodding is all fallen in and lies smouldering on the ground.
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We never will forget the day when first the tale was tol },
That Mrs. Egan in the cellar lay a sad sight to behold.
By her husband she was killed, to get away she hoped,
And her life-blood there he spilled, and choked her with a rope.
Now nothing marks the place, save a pile of sod burned mellow And they lay by the place where she was found in the cellar.
Good people, far and near, all had one desire,
That a place so drear should be swept away by fire.
THE LACEY-BUNKER TRAGEDY.
Probably the most awful tragedy in the state, occurred about five o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, October 22, 1893, just outside of the eastern limits of the City of Sioux Falls.
Harry Lacey, a man known to all the residents of the city, shot his mother-in-law Mrs. Lydia Bunker, his wife Clara, and himself, all three dying within a few minutes, and before any of the neighbors arrived at the place where the terrible deeds had been committed.
Harry Lacey came to the City of Sioux Falls in 1882, and com- menced the practice of law. He was quiet and unassuming, but it was soon known that he was a man of considerable ability. He ob- tained a good standing in the community, and although he soon abandoned his profession, he was always occupied in some business enterprise. His mother-in-law, in 1889, sold her farm east of the city (except a few acres where the tragedy took place) for quite a large sum of money, and invested fifteen thousand dollars of this sum in a phonograph enterprise, and lost it all. Mrs. Bunker charged Lacey with this loss and Lacey denied his responsibility in the matter. Soon after the sale of the farm, Mrs. Bunker came to the city and resided with the Laceys. It was known among their neighbors that family matters were not running smoothly, but not until the early part of December, 1891, was there an open outbreak. At this time there was a serious disturbance in the family, and all three of them bore marks of a personal combat. Mrs. Lacey had Mr. Lacey arrested for assault and battery, and immediately brought a bill for divorce. After a few months she told the writer, that she could not live without her husband, and soon after, the divorce proceed- ings were abandoned, and they commenced living together again. It did not prove a happy re-union, and they lived apart and together, as they could agree, until the spring of 1893, when Mr. Lacey secured rooms a short distance from Mrs. Bunker's place. During the sum- mer there were frequent quarrels, and Mr. Lacey grew more and more dissatisfied and unhappy, and one thing more than anything else that seemed to trouble him was the fact that his little children were under the influence of Mrs. Bunker.
On Sunday, the day the tragedy occurred, he was in Sioux Falls and went home late in the afternoon. Shortly after he walked over to the Bunker house. In less than thirty minutes after he had been seen going to Mrs. Bunker's, his two little children, aged four and seven years, who had witnessed the terrible deed of their father, came to a neighbor by the name of Jones, the eldest boy saying: " Papa Jones come over; they are all dead. Papa has shot grandma
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and ma, and went out in the vard and shot himself." Mr. Jones went immediately to the house, and found them all dead. Mrs. Bunker and Mrs. Lacey were both shot in the back part of the head, near the base of the brain, and were lying but a little distance from each other in the kitchen. Lacey was lying in the yard, a few feet from the house, where he evidently fell and died without a struggle, after firing a bullet into his own head. Mr. Lacey was an expert marksman, and knew where the vital spark could be most quickly extinguished, and whether with the coolness of a wicked, desperate hate, or the frenzy of a man who thinks that nothing but blood can atone his wrongs, he brought his skill and knowledge into action, and committed the fearful tragedy with wonderful precision and fatality will never be known. He completed his work, and left nothing to be done but to bury the dead.
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