Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1878 — DAVID BONHAM’S CAREER. [ARTICLE]

DAVID BONHAM’S CAREER.

From the GalloWs to the* Presidency the Missouri State Senate. [From the St. Ix>nia Glbbe-DSmocnrt.] -• The Hon. Fred Hora,- o*o>of the earjy settlers of WidMnHn, and who has served sevei-al trrftes as Speaker of the Arambiy of that Bt*te,> is writing some interesting letters to a Milwaukee paper about the old settlers. He relates as follows Of a well-known cfitiMen of Missouri: “ Another tragedy, in which one of the old settlers, who could be found -here during the sessions of the Territorial Legislature as an outsider or an officer, played apart, took place in Waukesha county in the year 1846. David Bonham was elected by the House of Representatives in that year Sergeant-at-Arms, and soon after shot and killed a man at or near his homestead in a dispute about the possession of a saw-mill Bonham was standing in the mill armed with a gun, and deliberately waited the coming of his unsuspecting victim, and, as soon as the latter was in sight, shot him dpwn and killed him on the spot, without warning. The j ury soon agreed ona verdict of murder in the first degree, ana the criminal was sentenced to be hanged at Racine; the gallows was erected, the military from Milwaukee had gone to the former place to keep order on the day of execution, when, a few hours before it was to take place, a paper arrived from Gov. Dodge commuting the George P. Delaplaine, the private secretary of Gov. Dodge and the special messenger on that occasion, had delayed on the road but a few hours, David Bonham would never have been President of the Missouri State Senate, which place he occupied some twelve years £)go, but would have swung from the gallows erected for him at Racine.

“BOnham was a good-natured but an impulsive and easily-excited Englishman. He never felt any remorse for the murder he committed; at any rate I could detect nothing of the kind in a long letter written to Mr. Noonan while the former was at the height of his glory in Missouri, and which Mr. Noonan gave me for perusal. The letter was full of expressions of gratitude to Mr. NoOnan for having saved his life, and showed at least, that he remembered his friends, which is a virtue not often to be found in these degenerate days when everybody iS filled with selfishness, and is calculating on future contingencies by stepping over the bodies of his slaughtered friends to obtain higher honors.”