Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 June 1892 — A TERRIBLE DEED. [ARTICLE]

A TERRIBLE DEED.

THE BRAVE TOWN MARSHAL OP KENTLAND SHOT DEAD. Jackson Plummer, The Murderer, in Jail at Rensselaer, 1 "" A terrible affair occured at Kcntland last Monday, a little after noon. Ohe Jackson Plummer, an old resident of the town, had taken great offence because of an ordinance recdntly passed by the Town Council, requiring all shade trees on the street to be trimmed up to a certain bight. He had been brooding over the matter for some time, it is said, and on Monday, armed with a revolver, he started through the business" portion: of the town, flourishing bis weapon and declaring his intention to annihilate the Town Board. One of these, James Conklin, he met, and pointing his revolver at him, Plummer demanded if he, Conklin, was one of the men who ordered his shade trees cut. Conkling said, “No,’ ’ and made bis escape through Restore. Plummer then walked on and Someone called the town marshal, James Dorn, and he started after Plummer. He soon overtook him ahd bravely approached him and tried to get him to give up his weapon. This Plummer refused to do, and continued to flourish it in a threatning manner, and finally fired at Dorn, the latter then ran up and struck Plummer with the butt end of a heavy whip, expecting to thus knock him down and disarm him. The blow failed of its intended effect, and Plummer again raised his weapon.' Dorn Bteppgcr a little baek, and iK>hind a small tree and also drew his revolver. Each man then fired two shots, at a distance of Bor 10 feet. Both missed their man the first shots and. both struck the second time. Plummer

was hit on the side, a l.ttle towards the back, the buuct striking a rib and inflicting only a flesh woun <1 several inches in length. Dorn w s hit in the right breast and the bullet palled through his ehest and pFobaWy into the heart as he fell and expired, almost instantly. Plummer was soon after arrested by Dept. Sheriff, J, W. White, who witnessed the shooting.' He ..afar held to the circuit court, without bail, by Justice Heilman, and at 9 o'clock that evening, there being great fears that Dorn’s friends would organize a lynching party, Plummer was put into a carriage and started for Rensselaer, guarded by Dept. Sheriff White, T. M. Rush and J. V. Dodson. The roads are bad and it was nearly an all night’s ride, as they did not arrive here until 4 o’clock. Tuesday morning.

Dorn, the murdered man, has been Town marshal of Kentland for the last 10 years. He was a most excellent arid popular man, and brave to the extreme of rashness. He leaves a wife and seven children. He was about 48 years old, and a member of the G. A. R., having served in a Michigan regiment, during the war. He is the man whom Charley Roberts, the Parke Co. desperado, shot at, a few years ago, and for which he is now serving a 5 years term in Michigan City. * • Jackson tlummer, the murderer, is about 60 years old, Has a Wife but no children, and has lived in Kentland many years. He, too, was a soldier, and draws a good pension. He seems to be of a very morose and morbid disposition. Never did, any work except to raise a garden aid spent about all his time in his own house. One of the men who brought hhn over, says that he once drew a revolver on some neighbors over a little dispute about a side-walk; and another of the same party says that he once “laid for” Wm. Cummings, With an tat. -He does not have the imputation eff being a drinking man, bob Mr. White says that the odor of liquor was plainly apparent upon him when arrested.

Since the a>x>ve was in type we have learned from Wm. a very iuailigent'resident of Kentland, that the former axe and alleged revolver episodes, above mentioned, were really: only one case. That Plummer was angry at the Town Board for trying* to compel him to rebuild his side-walk, and that he waited one night for Cummings, then a member of the Board, with an ax and a hatchet, and that Cummings drove hijn i£to his house, at the point of a revolver. We also learn from Mr. Kennedy that Plummer has long been a slave to the morphine habifc-=™== The most of Tuesday Plummet remained in a dazed and semi-uncOn-seious condition, as though under the influence of some drug, but in the afternoon he be van to recover his faculties. At first lie talked in a rather wild and incoherent way, and prayed : and seemed to see visions, but a little later his conversation was rational. He says he krtows nothing of how or why he came to take his revolver With him down town, but that he was getting home as fast as he Could when the marshal overtook him. Also that the latter struck at him several times with his billy (the butt end of a big whip,) and also fired first before he (Plummer) returned the shot. He further says that only two shots wese fired in all—not five as stated by the parties who brought him He does not tell quite the same S&ry every time, however, as he stated jb one man that he fired two times himself.

In appearance'Plum mer is tall and and gaunt, and while looking as though he might be ordinarily a most harmless and inoffensive man, such as, no doubt, he generally was, there is a look upon his drawn and haggard features that suggests a latent and dangerous lunacy, easy to be developed into dangerous mania der the stress of excitfinent jom trouble. .....