Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 July 1858 — Lynching at Crawfordsville—Great Excitement. [ARTICLE]

Lynching at Crawfordsville—Great Excitement.

[From the Crawfordsville Review.

Our readers will recollect that in the winter of 1856, we gave an account of the elopement of Robert L. Coons with the wife of Montgomery Hudson. ' After an absence of some three months, the shame-stricken woman returned, having been deserted arid lel’U penniless at Ann Arbor, Michigan. Shortly altar, her seducer also returned, and they both went back to their respective families. For a while Coons conducted himself properly, and it was generally believed that he had reformed, through the influence of his family and connections, who are among the riiost respectable of our citizens, But the smothered fires of his amorous nature soon burst forth into nn eruption, and he planned the ruin of others. For a time his beastly passions were satiated, when, like a famished tiger, he again lurked for a fresh victim, when his eyes fell upon a beautiful damsel, fairer than the spouse of Potiphar, who, in a moment of dreamy dalliance, grasped the skirt of the blushing Joseph. She shone upon his entranced vision like a star of love, and he resolved to woo her to the bowers of Hymen’s Paradise of bliss. He addressed her a note, elegantly written and perfumed, stating his desire for an interview. They met—“lhey loved, not wisely, but too well,” us the sequel of this story will show. The heroine was a noble specimen of the daughters of Eve. Tall and lithe in figure,with a queenly air she stood the counterfeit presehtiiment of one of the three graces. Her eyes shone with a luster more refulgent than the glittering beams of Venus, ller golden hair hung in rich prolusion around a neck “whiter than snow und smoother than monumental ul.trios; " H<>,- ,-oice was as sweet as the “ciiar if . ’' and ‘^sounded an alarni to love.’' Numerous were . . interviews. In the classic shades of ;>■ utiful grove they often met and told their tales of love, ami sighed for some fairy isle in undiscovered seas where they might hide themselves from the rude and vulgar gaze of passing students and lynx-eyed vigilance committees. The plan was soon arranged. On last Monday evening, the fair enchantress, blushing with beauty, took the |ihin for Ladoga. The next morning, Lothario rose from his sleepless couch, and, with a small carpet-sack, wended his way to the depot, where he took the six o’clock train for the south. On arriving ait the Ladoga station, he dispatched a note by a messenger to his Dulcinea, who had taken up quarters with a respectable lady in the place, \v ho, discovering the character of her guest, dismissed her from her house, with the advice to return immediately to Crawfprdsville. Acting upon this advice, she‘came back upon the noon train. In the meantime Coons waited for the evening train to proceed to Greencastle, and from thence to Fiihnore, where he designed making some collections to ' defray the expenses of his third projected elopement. But alas f«ir human designs! A number of our most respectable citizens, who for some time had been apprised of this affair, determined to proceed that evening to Ladoga, seize the heartless villain and bring him back to Crawfordsville A and there make a public example of his deeds of infamy. This determination was speedily executed. They took the five o’clock tra n for Ladoga, where they caught the deserter of his wife and children, and arrived here on the ten o’clock train the same' night, (Tuesday.) At the depot they were met by hundreds of our citizens. The crowd proceeded to the Court House, where Dr. Fry read numerons letters addressed to the fallen victim of the prisoner’s lust. After several speeches by Fry, Wallace, Houston and others, in which they strongly urged the excited crowd to use no violence, a movement was made to adjourn. In an instant the hghts were extinguished, and all was darkness and cor.fusion. Coons was seized by several strong arms and quickly conveyed through a back door to the yard, where he was stripped and a coat of tar and feathers applied to his naked body. The next d iv he was escorted to the no in train, and left for Lafayette. At last accounts he was at Attica, where, it is presumed, hi* Dulcinea will join him.