People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1896 — Rival Mayors at Peru, Ind. [ARTICLE]

Rival Mayors at Peru, Ind.

Peru, Ind., special: The city council has five democrats and three republicans, but at the election last week the republicans gained three more and nowhave a three-fourths majority. The members qualified Friday. Saturday Mayor Jesse S. Zern died and that evening the old council, or the five democratic members of it, met and appointed Orson Durand, a democrat, as mayor. The six republicans of the new council claim the appointment Is not legal, and at the first meeting of the new boird they elected Charles A. Parsons, a republican, as mayor. Mr. Durand claims his sept and the affair will very likely have to be taken to the courts to decide.