Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 September 1876 — A Bloody Wedding Tragedy. [ARTICLE]

A Bloody Wedding Tragedy.

A thrill of horror was created in Baxter Springs on Tuesday evening by the enactment of a tragedy moat horrible in its ■ details. ft appears that John Craige is a veilknown and steady working carpenter in . Ike town of Baxter Springs. He is about forty-five or fifty years of age, and was the father of a bright, handsome, and indMatrions daughter, now aged about nineteen years. Katie Craige has been for two years past—up to the past two montits —* member of the family of Matt Clury, the well-known conductor on the Missouri Hirer, Fori Scott «fc Gulf Railroad. She ■was lighthearted and gay, and up to last thmdftiy no one supposed that Katie had ever thought of love. But she had. These was a hard-working and steady young man in Baxter, named George Elliot, lie was a teamster, owning one or two teams, and was making his way steadily upward in the world by hard work and steady habits. He and Katie had seen each other, loved each other, and kept Jheir business a secret until last

Sunday. Last Sunday morning, Katie Craige and Qecrge Elliot left Baxter Springs and came up the road to Columbus, a lively young city in Cherokee County, and there Katie Craige became Mrs. Elliot. The happy pair went back to Baxter on Monday, an a found a home in the home of a friend of both families, not more Shan 200 yards from the railroad depot. Mo one except Katie suspected that anything serious would result from this runaway marriage. Bat the blithesome bride beseeched her husband to be carefal, for ■hex father was a dreadful man when angry. But George Elliot, conscious of -baying done no wrong, went out to work “with his team on Tuesday, and, after his day’s work was nearly ended, drove up to the Baxter Springs depot for a job of .hauling. He had been engaged to haul a load of commercial travelers’ sample trunks over from ‘the Baxter depot to Joplin, twelve miles distant. He was waiting at the depot, just before sundown, looklog northward for the Kansas City train, the smoke of which was just visible in the far. dim distance of the prairie. Then it va* that John Craige, the father of Katie, the hride, wstitM up to Elliot, and said through his teeth: “George Elliot, you have acted like a dog.” W ith that Craige commenced to shoot at point blank range. The first shot passed through Elliot’s body. He turned mid started to run, and across the railroad tracks, three in xnnriber, and timed southward toward the house where his new-made wife was living. As he ran he received two more shots in Jhis body from the pistol of his father-in-faw, and staggered and fell with his head upon the iron rail of tire side-track, just as hi* young wife came rushing toward ihim from the house he was seeking to wee all. Father and daughter met face to «abe, the latter reeled and fell insensible as her husband’s corpse was being raised from the track and laid upon the platform. The murderer tinned and ran to his boose, which was dose by, and, arming himself with a double-barreled shot-gun and two revolvers, started westward across the prairie on foot. The City Marshal of Jpier and his deputies started in pursuit, |mt Craige leveled his weapons upon his pursuers and a brisk fight ensued. The Bjgkive was wounded in the head by a btettet, but continued to fight and retreat, jiftuing as a# fell imm^a The City Marshal and his posse ro- - tamed to Baxter, and the Sheriff and a Rgxs&sstsr*.

murderer wp found, bleeding to death. But he was prepared to fight to the death, audit was only by a charge made with overpowering force Uiat the desperate man was taken. He was arrested and token into Baxter Springs, where he, at last accounts, was in a hopeless condition, a bullet having entered his head between the two eyes. Mrs. Cnugc is an Invalid, and this shock will probably kill her. The bride, Katie, passes from one swoon to another, and it is thought her reason is upset. The ease, token in all its phases, is one of the most terrible tragedies ever enacted in Southern Kansas. The bridegroom killed, the father-in-law mortally wounded, the mother-in-law on the point of death, and the bride on the road to insanity. There was no cause for the murder other than a personal antipathy on the part of Craige toward Elliot. The former had forbidden any young man to see his daughter. He was proud and haughty, but a quiet, hardworking mechanic, lie is said to have come from Bowling Green, Ky. From thence he went to Arkansas, and then to Texas. This is not his first killing scrape, be having killed one or two men in Arkansas or Texas. He has lived in Baxter Springs about three years.— Kama* City (Mo.) Timet.