Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1886 — CRIMINAL RECORD. [ARTICLE]

CRIMINAL RECORD.

JANUARY. Geo. Travis hanged at Wellsboro, Pa., for the murder of Martha Slyvia ; Travis cremated the corpse to conceal the crime. Wright Leroy swing off at San Francisco for the murder of Nicholas Skerrett, and Wm. F. Henry served in like manner at Alton, Ill., for the murder of two colored friends. Thomas J. Chapman, a farm hand, hanged at Charleston, Ill., for the murder of Nicholas Hubbart, a farmer, in September, 1884. Chas. J. Rogers, penitentiary warden, hanged at Portland, Oregon, for the murder of another prison official. Lafayette Melton, who four years before was captain of a band of Ku Klux that murdered Franklin Hale for betraying their secrets, paid the penalty on the gallows at Corning, Ark. FEBRUARY. Elijah Wease, aged 75, arrested in Hardy County, West Virginia, confessed that he murdered twelve persons prior to or during the war; he was the leader of a band of robbers who ravaged that section. John L. Jack and Carter B Page fought a duel in a street at Portsmouth, Va.; nine shots exchanged, Page being mortally wounded and Jack escaping in.ury; meeting occasioned by alleged Lreach of social courtesy. Three men confined in the jail at Audubon, lowa, charged with murdering an old man named Hiram Jellerson, were lynched by a me j ; two cf the men were shot in their colls, and the remaining one, who was a son of the murdered man, was hanged. Ben Hawkins, a colored murderer, taken from jail and riddled vith bullets by a mob at Franklin, Texas. Wayne Powers and Go rge Gibson, who killed William Gibson for sl2 and a suit of clothes, hangt d at Estillville, Va. A butcher at Gibraltar, Spain, believed to be in ane, murders the Vicar General of the does ein the cathedral. Toomas Morris, a n gro, charged with assaulting a lit. le girl cf 13, was left dangling to a tree at Schulenbir.i, Tex. A Georgia negro attempt d o poison an entire family, gi .ing as an excuse that "dere was too many whit? folks in de world, and dat it was time to get shut of some of dem.” Kamsdorf and Kuechler, ananhis B, who attempted the life of the G< rman Emperor and otter royal personages at ‘h > Niederwald celebiat on, beheaded at Halle. Lige Parker and Rush Johnson, negroes, were h am ed at Little Boek for the murder cf John C. Wall, a white man. Bishard Trenke at Philadelphia, for the murder of Augusta Zimm, his paramour. Dr. L. N. Beach hanged at Hollidaysburg Pa; uxoricide. James W. Murray suffered death at Portland, Ore., for ths mu'.der of Alfred Yenke. George Schneider convicted of murder in the first degree at Hamilton, 0., for killin!’ and robbing his own mother. Sanford J-iickson hinged at Selma, Ala., for the murder of Rufus Gill; both negroes. Franklin J. Moses, of South Carolina, on being sentenced to the Boston House of Correction, argued that the petty n ture of his crime showed his mind had give n way under his troubles. Bob Johnson, a negro boy, assassinat ?d a citteen at Princeton, W. Va., and v as tied to a tree and riddled with bullets. Babe Ellison, colored, was hanged by a mob at Shelbyville, Tenn,, for assaulting a ■white lady. Mrs. Mack, who was once sentenced to the Wisconsin Stato Prison for life for murd ring her husband in Rock County, in whose case the jury d isagreed on a second trial, checkmated the prosecution by marrying its chief witness, and was released on her own bond. In the District Court. Chicago, after a trial lasting fifteen days, J. C. Mackin, W. J. Gallagher, and Arthur Gleason we re convicted for perpetrating election frauds, and Henry Biehl was acquitted; mo ions for new trials were entered, and the first-named two were held in $20,000 each— Gleason in SIO,OOO. r lhree unsuccessful attempts were made at Exeter, England, to hang John Lee, who killed a woman near Torquay because she refused to marry him; the machinery of the gallows was swollen from moisture, and the trap refused to work ; the execution was postponed. The cases against Frank James, the Missouri bandit, were dismissed at Booneville, on motion of the Prosecuting Attorney. Minnesota adopted a new penal code restoring the death penalty for murder iu the first degree.

MARCH. Dr. Albert G. F. Goerson, who poisoned his wife five years before, was hanged at Philadelphia. Loe Slatter (colored) was taken from jail at Monroe, N. C., by a mob and hanged. Fifty citizens of Fairfield, Neb., captured and hanged Mrs. Taylor and her brother to a bridge on suspicion of complicity in the murder of a farmer named Roberts. Win. Neal, the third and last of the gang who murdered two girls and a boy and burned their bodies at Ashland, Ky., in 1681, was hanged at Grayson, Kv. George Rouse, a negro, outraged a farmer’s wife near Vienna, Ga., and then cut her throat; he was captured, mutilated by a mob, and hanged naked to a tree. APRIL. Nelson Edwards, a New York dentist, spent two days in killing himself with a razor; his throat and body were horribly gashed. Richard Fraser was hanged at Charleston, S. C., for the murder of Jack Gethers, and Columbus Cranford was swung off at Yorkville, in the same State, for tak.n ' the life of Ellison Sanders ; all four were people of color. Geo. A. Mills, a wifemurderer, expiated his crime in the jail-yard at Brooklyn, N. Y. An extremely sensational murder excited St. Louis ; crowded into a trunk in the Southern Hotel was found the partially decomposed corpse of a man known as Arthur Preller, of London. Eng., with a note placed on the body reading: “So perish all traitors to the great causeon the breast of the dead mariwas a cross cut with a knife; Preller was believed to have been chloroformed and murdered by a companion named H. Lenox Maxwell, M. D.; both parties were dandified Englishmen. The people of Union City, Tenn., took from the Sheriff and hanged a negro boy named Pierson, and Ward, a white man, members of a desperate band of robbers. At a farm-house in Holt Ceunty, Missouri, Wm. Clark shot Mrs. Harding and her son and daughter on account of a bastardy suit, and then killed himself. A party of lynchers from Blunt and Harold, Dakota, forced the jail at Pierre, and hanged James H. Bell, the murderer of Forest G. Small, to the flag-staff of the Court House ; Bell and Small were rival lawyers. Thos. Samon, who two years previously murdered Mrs. Ford, his landlady, and a man and a child, was hanged at Laconia, N. H. Near Lewiston, Idaho, the bodies of Peter Brazil and James Flynn, stock ranchers; were found near each other, with pistols and clubs by their sides. The Abbe Gannahut was guillotined at Paris for the murder of Mme. Ballerich. A shocking tragedy was reported from Concordia, O. ; a German named Adolph Hess beheaded his child with an ax, beat his wife to death with the same weapon, and then hanged himself. MAY. George Mack, a colored murderer, was taken from officers near South Bend, Kan., and, with a rope about his neck, was dragged by a galloping horse into town, where he was suspended to an awning in front of a billiard saloon, the jeene of the murder. A passenger train on the L., N. A. & C. R. R. stopped for water at Harrodsburg, Ind., where it was boarded by an unknown man, armed with a hickory club; he entered the baggage-car, fractured the skull of the express messenger, snatched a revolver from him, and then compelled the baggageman to open the safe, from which he took about $3,000: then he shot the baggageman in the head, and escaped from the train as it slacked up at Bloomington. W. H. L. Maxwell, the murderer of C. A. Preller at the Southern Hotel. St. Louis, was arrested at Auckland, New Zealand, on landing at that port. At Benito, New Mexico. Martin Nelson, an insane man, killed Dr. Wm. H. Flynn and then shot dead M. S. Mayburry, his wife and three children, and also a neighbor; a guard of citizens surrounded the house, but were surprised by Nelson, who shot one of the party, and was then himself dispatched. Six thousand people flocked to Morganfield, Ky., to witness the execution of Moses Caton, who had beaten his wife unmercifully and then hanged her; Caton’s crime, for inhuman and diabolical cruelty, surpassed anything ever heard of in the criminal history of Kentucky. In a dispute over cards at Walthourville, Ga., five negroes were killed and four wounded*; a flat-car standing on a side-track was thg scene of the tragedy; t e juries were mill h n Is, end had jus been p. d < ff. Mrs. Pf■ at:, of Le it •, Pa., t o< her live 0 ildren to a p n l , and a ter kiss ng them thre.v them into h> water; the-r sjreims brought help, and tinei of them were rescued, but the nw.i.er and twooth rs were drowned. Andrew J. Jobnion, a not<d out aw of Bell Countv, Keitr.ck/. lay in wait beDtod a building in Piner i le hi d ki 1 id Thomas N pier and Josiah Hoski; s am, h’s dan"!.ter as they were returning f o n cnurch. Ch si >v Chambers was arrest d at B oomington,!; d., n I identified as the p rson who robbed <h ■ eepress caron the night of April 27, and shot Baggugemaster Webber and Express Agent Davis Charles Henry Rugg, a ngero, wbomurderod Mrs. Lydia Maybee and her daughter Annie at Oyster Bay, L. L, two years previously, was hanged at Hunter’s Point. Goodwin Jackson (colored) suffered the death penalty at Clarendon, Ark., for the murder of

Sandy Redmond with a fence-rail; Jackson pr» tested that he was unlawfuUy executed, as he did not mean to kiH Redmond. JUNE. A deadly feud in Knott County, Ky., between ■ two rival families named Jones and Hall, resultI ed in the kiUing of nine persons within three weeks. Five negroes, one of them a woman, I convicted for outraging and murdering a white woman, were hanged by a mob at Elkhart, Tex. Mrs. Lucille Ysenlt Dudley, who made an unj successful attempt to kill the dynamiter : O’Donovan Roesa, was acquitted by a New York jury on the ground of insanity. Andre J. Dumont (colored), at one time Naval Officer at New Orleans, suicided because of domestic troubles. JULY. Tramps stole the clothing of an unknown man who was bathing in the Missouri River at Omaha; he remained in the water aH day, and when he came out at nightfall he was found to be insane, and died a few hours later. William Matthews eloped with the wife of James Secrist, of Comanche County, Texas, and when he afterward called upon Mr. Secrist for the lady’s personal effects that gentleman shot him dead. Joseph Taylor was hanged at Philadelphia for the murder of a penitentiary keeper; Taylor began his criminal career at the age of 15 years by stabbing a companion, and during the ten years preceding his death had stabbed or shot forty-live persons. Thomas K. Brantly, of Bainbridge, Ga., arres’el for brutally ill-treat-ing his wife, was taken from jail by his neighbors and hanged to a tree. In Anderson County, Kentucky, three brothers named Hawkins were shot by Horace Mullins, whom they had called to account for alleged slander of their Bister; two of the brothers were killed; oue was badly hurt; Mullins escaped unhurt. Valentine Wagner was the first criminal hanged under the new law in Ohio, by which execution! are to take place in the penitentiary before sunrise, in presence of but few witnesses; Wagner killed big brother-in-law two years previously. , AUGUST. A triple execution occurred at Fayetteville, N. C., two white and one colored man being hanged. Maxwell, the alleged murderer of C. Arthur Preller, whose body was found in a trunk at a St. Louis hotel in April last, arrived at San Francisco from New Zealand in the custody of officers. Pedro Prcstan, the leader of the revolutionists of Panama, who sei oral months before fired and destroyed the city of Aspinwall, having been duly tried and convicted, was hanged Aug. 18. Al Lockie who murdered eight persons and then attempted to commit suicide, was taken from jail at Blanco, Tex., and hanged by a mob ; Lockie made a confession, saying that he would have killed more people had his ammunition not given out. SEPTEMBER. Chinese miners who had been imi.orted by the Union Pacific Railway Company were driven from the pits at Rock Springs, Wyoming, by a force of armed white men. the Chinese fleeing to the hills for safety: fifteen of the fugitives were shot dead by the mob, and many wounded; thirty-four bodies were recovered, besides many more buried in the debris of burned houses. A mob visited the Pike County Jail at Murfreesboro, Ark., and made an attempt to shootthe two Polk boys, confined for murder, but not being able to get within range hauled a load of wood to the jail, piled it around the iron cell, saturated the wood with coal oil, and roasted both prisoners alive, nothing standing but the bride walls; the Polks murdered a peddler in 1881, and had several trials. Near Cainsville, Texas, detectives surprised and killed the two Lee brothers, who were regarded as the most daring roadmen that had ever infested Indian Territory, and for whose capture, dead or alive, a reward of $7,000 had been offered ; perhaps no band of outlaws in the United States over did such bloody work in so brief a period as the Lee gang; witliin two years from May 1, 1885, forty-two human lives were taken by this bloody band of cattle and horse thieves. Nicholas Snowden, colored, confined in jail at Ellicott City, Md., on a charge of assaulting a child, was taken out and hanged by men of his own race. A remarkable tragedy occurred at Hilltown, Pa.; Mrs. Thomas V. Thompson, indignant because her husband would not accede to hor request to turn his aged parents into the street, murdered him and subsequently killed herself. It was estimated that over twenty-four thousand Christians were murdered in the outbreaks near Anam. Four negroes, one of them a woman, who were accused of several murders, were taken from jail and hanged by a mob in Chatham County, North Carolina. OCTOBER.

After murdering his mistress, a retired British artilleryman living at Tangier, Morocco, ran amuck in the streets, stabbing many persons, two of them fatally; he was finally captured and lodged in jail. During the execution of John W. Coffee, a double murderer, at Crawfordsville, Ind., the rope broke twice, but on the third endeavor the victim was “worked off” satisfactorily. Frederick Grenier was hanged at Columbus, 0., for the murder of his sweetdeart; he stepped on the scaffold with a smile, arrayed as if attending an evening party, and smoking a cigar. At Indianapolis the brother of a white girl, who hod been criminally assaulted by a negro, shot the assailant in the court rcom. A mob at Murfreesboro, Ark., set fire to the wooden jail in which one Churchill, a murderer, was confined; he appeared at a grated window, and piteously begged the mob to shoot him, but the flames soon reduced the victim and the building toashes. Near Starrucca, Pa., John Howell, a fanner, shot his four children, varying in age from three to eleven years, and then killed himself. A man named Brandt, at Waco, Neb., becoming irritated by a lad of 13, flung him intoa thrashing machine, where his head was instantly torn from his body. George Miller was the first murderer legally hanged in Dakota; he was suspended at Grand Folks, and lite was not. pronounced extinct until after the expiration of 23’6 minutes; he had killed the wife and son of Rev. C. H. Snell, on a farm near Inkster. Ferdinand Ward, the financial sharp of the late firm of Grant & Ward, was convicted of larceny and sentenced to ten years in the State prison at hard labor. NOVEMBER. A colored lad at Bluffton, Ga., was tried by a lynch court for stealing a pair of bootshaving been convicted he was given one hundred lashes, his step-father swinging the whip. Cyrus W. Yandes, of St. Paul, Minn., committed suicide partly because he dreaded the responsibility of settling up an estate giving him half a million. A party of four girls and two boys went, into the woods of Webster County, Kentucky, togather nuts; they were assaulted by tramps, who nearly killed the lads and bore the young ladies to a thicket and murdered them all; citizens who turned out in search identified and killed two of the tramps. At Fannin, Clay County, Texas, a lad of thirteen years, named Valentine Sanford, killed his mother with a rifle; he confessed having intended to murder his father, sell the plantations and organize a band of stage robbers. In the Criminal Court at London a verdict of criminal assault upon Eliza Armstrong was rendered against Thomas Stead, editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, and he was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. In the Criminal Court at Ottawa, Ontario, a gang of five ruffians were sentenced to imprisonment for life for a brutal assault on Miss Truman, a lady of good family,, who wae promenading with her lover when seized by the villains. Fred Townsend, aged 13,. killed Willi# McCallister, aged 5, at Troy, N. Y., by burying him up to the neck in a bank of soft white clay, where the child lingered twenty hours before death relieved him. Tnree Italians were hanged at Chicago for the murger of a fellow-countryman; the victim was getting a. free shave at the room of one of the culprits, and while his face was covered with lather a. rope was passed over his head; the guilty triopulled the cord, while an accessory guarded the door; $l3O was.the incentive. Eight of the Indians who were concerned in Riel's Canadian rebellion were hanged at Battleford, NorthwestTerritory. The hangman at Norwich, England, severed the head from the body of Robert Goodale as though it had been done with a razor; many spectators sickened at the sight; the drop was six feet, and the weight used was fifteen stone. DECEMBER. William Stevans, of Detroit, confessed the murder of his affianced, Bertha Duckwitz, saying that he drew a razor across her throat only in a playful spirit. Joseph O. Roles, a noted Democratic politician of Boston, killed himself because of disappointment in regard to a deputy revenue collet torship. The College of the Propaganda at Rome" announced that up to November 1, in Cochin China, 24,009 Christians were massacred, 10 convents destroyed, and 225 churches burned. Sam Wilson, a negro, murdered Celia Perryman and her two children at Laurel, Miss., and attempted to burn the bodies by firing the dwelling ; he was speedily captured and lynched. A family named Enoch at Detroit, consisting of husband, wife, and twochildren, murdered and cremated.