Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 December 1885 — CRIMINAL RECORD. [ARTICLE]

CRIMINAL RECORD.

A Recapitulation of Some of the Noted Deeds of Darkness Committed Daring the Year, Lynchingg, Murders, and Other Acts of Lawlessness—Executions the Year. The criminal record for the year la a dark and bloody one, and a full review of the multitudinous murders, lynchings and legal hangings that have occurred would require half a dozen issues of this paper. We note only a few of the most sensational events of this character:

JANUARY. Geo. Travis hanged atWellsboro, Pa., for the murder of Martha Sylvia; Travis cremated the corpse to conceal the crime. Wright Leroy swung off at San Francisco for the murder of Nicholas Skerrett, and Wm. F. Henry served in like manner at Alton, HI., for the murder of two colored friends. Thomas J.’ Chapman, a farm hand, hanged at Charleston, 111., for th > murder <f Nicholas Hhbbart, a farmer, in September, 1884. Chas. J Rogers, penitentiary warden, (hanged at Portland, Oregon, for the mttrdtr of another prison official. Lafayette Melton, who four years before was captain of a band of Ku Klux that murdere d Franklin Hale for betraving their secrets, paid the penalty on the gallows at Coming, Ark. FEBRUARY. Elijah Wease, aged 75, arrested in Hardy County, West Virginia, confessed that he murdered twelve persens prior to or during the war; ho was the leader of a band of robbers who ravaged that section. John L. jack apd Carter B Page fought a duel in a street at Portsmouth, Va.; niue shots exchanged, Page being mortally wounded and Jack*escaping injury ; meeting occasioned by alleged breach of social courtesy. Throe men confined in the jail at Audubon, lowa, charged with murdering an old man named Hiram Jellerson, were lynched by a mob; two of the men were shot in their cells, and the remaining one, who was a son of the murdered man, was hanged. Ben Hawkins, a colored murderer, taken from jail and riddled With bullets by a mob at Franklin, Texas. Wayne Powers and Getrge Gibson, who killed William Gibson for jfl2 and a suit of clothes, hangcd at Estillville, Va. A butcher at Gibraltar, Spain, believed to be insane, murders the Vicar General of the d-cce ein the cathedral. Tuorras Morris, a n gro, charged with assaulting a little girl ts 13-, was.left dangling to a tree at Schulenb< rg, Tex. A Georgia negro attempts d‘o poise n an entire family, giving as an excuse that "dere was too many-white folks in de world, and dat it vyas tim 1 to get shut of some of dem/’.-'Roins-dorf anil Kuechler, anar.his s, who attempted tbe iife.of Iho G<ranin Emperor and of e.- royal personages at hs, Niederwuld calebt at on, beheaded at Halle. Lige Parker and Rush Johnson. negroes, were banged at Little Book for the murder ts John C. Wall, a v h.te man. Ri ‘barb Trenke at Philadelphia, for ihe rnurcer of Augusta Zimm, his paramour. Dr. L. N. Beach hanged at Hoi ii lays burg Pa; uxoricide. James W. Murray sufle rod death at Portland, (lie., sor 1 the mta. dot of .Alfred Yerke, George; Schneider conviotedvof muider in the first degree at Hamilton. 0., for billina and rol b ng his ov n mother. Sanford Jackson h raged at Selma, Ala., for the murder of Rufus Gill; both 'negroes. 1 ranklin J. Moses. cf South Caiolina. on be n; sentenced to the Boston House of Correction, argued that tbe petty n ture'of his crime showed his mind had given way under his troub’es. Bob Johnson, a negro boy, assassinated a citizen at Prince on, W. Va., and w as tied to a tree and r ddled w ith 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 State Prison for life for mutdering her husband in Rock County, in whose case the jury disagreed on a second trial, checkmated the prosecution by marrying its chief w itness, and was released on her own bond. In the District Court. Chicago, after a trial lasting fifteen days, J. C. Mackin, W. J. Gallagher 1 , and Arthur Gleason were con vie tod for perpetrating election frauds, and Henry Bielil was 1 acquitted ; motionspfor new trials were entered, and the first-named two were held in 820,000 each— Gleason in 810,000. Ihree unsuccessful attempts were made at Exeter, England, to hang - JoUn Lee, who killed a woman near Torquay because she refused to marry him ; the machinery of the gallows was swollen from mo'sture, and tbe trap refused to work; the execution was postpone d. Tho cases, against Frank James, the Missouri baudit, were-disinissed at Booneville, on motion of the Prosecuting Attorney. Minnesota adopted a new penal code restoring tho death penalty fer murder in the first degree.

MARCH. Dr. Albert G. F. Goerson, who poisoned his wife five years before, was hanged at Philadelphia. Lee 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. Wm. Neal, the third and last of the gang who murdered two girls and a boy and burned their bodies at. Ashland, Ky., in 1881, was hanged at Grayson, Kv. George Rouse, a negro, outraged a fanner’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 Y'ork dentist, spent two days in killing himself 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, r tho life of Ellison Sapders ; all four were people of color. Geo. A. Mills, a wif<s murderer, 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, es Loudon. F.ng., with a note placed on the laxly reading : “So perish all traitors to the great cause on the breast of the dead man was 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 County, Missouri, Wm. Clark shot Mrs. Harding and her sen 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 ; Bel! and Small wepe rival lawyers. Tho.-. Samon. who two years’ previously murdered Mrs. Ford, his landlady, and a mail 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. Ballericli. 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. Geoi£e 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 scene of the murder. A passenger train on the L., N. A. AC. H. 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 *1,000; 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. Klvnn and then shot dead M. S. Mayburry, his wife and three children, and also a neighbor; a guard of citizens surrounded the honse, but were surprised by Nelson, who shot one of the Sarty, and was then himself dispatched. Six lousand 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 heflrd 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 the scene of the tragedy; the twrles were mill htnds, and had just bien paid off- Mrs. Pfrati, of Let it Pa., tok her nve children to a p nl, and after kiss ng them threw them into ;he water; their screams brought help, and three of them were rescued, but tbe motuer and two others were drowned. Andrew J.i Johnson, a noted "Outlaw at Bell Conntv. Kentucky, lay in wait behind a building in Kiheville and killed Thomas Napier and Joaiah Hoskirs and bis daughter as they were-re-turning from church. Ch* slry-Chambera was arrest. d at B:oomington,li.d.,. ni identified as the p rson wLo robbed the e (press cur on the night of April 27, and shot B&ggageinaster Webber and Express Agent Davis. Charles Henry Rugg, a ngero, who murdered Mrs. Lydia Mavbee and her daughter Annie at Oyster hay. L. t, two years previously, was hanged at Hunter's Point. Goodwin Jackson (catered) suffered the death

penalty at Clarendon, Ark., for the murder c ! Handy Redmond with a fence-rail; Jackecm protested that he was unlawfully executed, as he did not mean to kill Redmond. i ■* JUNE) A deadly fend in Knott County, Ky., between two rival families named Jones and Hall, resulted in the killing of nine persons within three weeks. Five negroes, one of 'them a woman, convicted for outraging and murdering a white woman, were hanged by a mob at Elkhart, Tex. Mrs. Luoille Ysenlt Dudley, who made an unsuccessful attempt to kill the dynamiter O’Donovan Rossa, was acquitted by a New York jury on the ground of insanity. Andre J. pumont (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 all 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 Conmnche County, Texas, and when he afterward called upon Mr. Secrist for tho 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 oareer at the age of 15 years by stabbing a companion, and during the teD years preceding bis death had stabbed or shot forty-five perspns. Thomas R. Brantly, of Bainbridgy,-Ga., arres'ei for brutally ill-treat-ing his wife, was taken from jailtby his neighbors and hanged to a tree. In Ariaerson County, Kentucky, three brothers named Hawkins w;ere shot by Horace Mullins, whom they had called to accouat lor alleged slander of their sister; two of the brothers were killed; one was badly hurt; Mullins escaped unhurt. Valentine Wagner was the first criminal hanged under the new law in Ohio, by which executa n t are to take place in the penitentiary before sunrise, in presence of but few witnesses ;’Wagner kilted hi# 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 Prestan, the leader of the revolutionists of Panama, who seteral months before fired and destroyed the city of Aspinwall, having been duly tried and convicted, was hanged Aug. 18. A 1 Lockie who murdered eight persons and then attempted to commit suicidi, was taken from jail at Blanco, Tex., and hanged by a mob ; Lockieunade a confession, saying that he would have killed more people had his ammunition not given out.

SEPTEMBER. Chinese miners who had been imported 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 ah attempt to shoot the two Polk boys, confined for murder, but not being able to get within range huuletl a load of wood to the jail, piled it around the iron cell, saturated the wood with coal oil, and roasted Loth prisoners alive, nothing standing but the brick walls; the Polks murdered* a peddler in 1884, and had several trials. Near Gainsville, Texas, detectives surprised and killed tbe two Lee brothers, who were regarded as the most daring roadmen that had ever infested Indian Territory, and for whose capture, dead or aliv*. a reward of $7,000 had been offered ; pernaps no band of outlaws in the United States over did such bloody work in so brief a period as the Lee gang; within two years from May 1, 1885, forty-two human lives were taken by this bloody band of cattle arid horse thieves; Nicholas Snowden, colored, confined in jail at Ellioott City, Md., on a charge of assuulting a child, was taken out and banged 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 her request to turn his aged parents into the street, murdered him and subsequently killed herself. It was estimated that over twenty-four thousand Christiuns 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 artilloryman living at Tangier, Morocco, ran amuck iu 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 Crawfords ville, 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 xigar. At ludianapolis the brother of a white| girl, who had been criminally assaulted by a negro, shot the assailant in the' court room. 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 to ashes. Near Starrucca, Pa., John Howell, a farmer, shot his four children, varying in age - from three to eleven veare, and then killed himself. A man named Brandt, at Waco, Neb., becoming irritated by a lad of 13, flung him into a thrashing machine, where his head was instantly tom from his body. George Miller was the first murderer legally hanged in Dakota ; ho wqs suspended at Grand Forks, and life was not pronounced extinct until after the expiration of 23 !4 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 oonvicted 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 boots ; having been convicted he was given one hundred lashes, his step-father swinging the whip. Cyrus W. Yondes, 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 tho woods of Webster County, Kentucky, to gather 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 Oazetle , 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 was promenading with her lover when seized bv the villains. Fred Townsend, aged 13, killed W'illie 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. Three Italians were banged 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 trio pulled the cord, while an accessory guarded the door; 8130 was the incentive. Eight of the Indians who were concerned in Riel's Canadian rebellion were hanged at Battleford, Northwest Territory. 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 Bight; the drop was six feet, and the weight used was fifteen stone. / ‘ >• DECEMBER. William Stevahs, of Detroit, confessed the murder of his affianced, Bertha Dnckwitz, saying that he drew a razor across her thVoat only in a ptoyful spirit. Joseph O. Koleß, a noted Democratic politician of Boston, killed himself because of disappointment in regard to a deputy revenue coUectorship. The College of the Propaganda at Rome announced that np 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 ot, hasband, wife,* and two children, murdered and cremated. War broke out between the villages of Ko and Ju, province of Kwong Tung, China, resulting in the extermination of nearly all the inhabitants; some 400 people were burned alive in one of the sacred temples; not a house in either hamlet was left standing. A pulley thirty-four feet in diameter and weighing th.rty-three tons has been made in England. It has grooves for thirty-two ropes, which, together, i will transmit 1,280-horse power, and ■ the rim will have a velocity of more than a mile in a minute. Haste*is the corn upon the cob of injndieiotuness.