Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 21, Number 67, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1900 — The Circuit Court . [ARTICLE]

The Circuit Court .

Wm. Archer Found Not Guilty. The trial of Win. Archer, o Kniman, for alleged malicioqs trespass, was the biggest trial of whole present term, and the only jury trial except one small case, earlier in the term. The principal facts of the case, together with the names of the special jury called to try the case, have already been given. A Mr. Silvermoon, a patent medicine faker, engaged to give two shows and perhaps more in the Kniman school house. He showed Friday and Saturday evenings, and left his platform, his old bed-quilt curtains, wooden rats etc, in position over Sunday. The platform rested 1 on wooden “horses” and between the wooden horses, wooden rats, and the possible not wooden habitants of the bed-quilts, the show was quite a menagerie as well as a circus The Sunday following was the Methodists’ turn to hold services in . the school' house. When they began to arrive and saw the paraphernalia of the show, they objected so strongly especially the ■ women, to the presence of theplat-' i form, that Mr. Archer, who had ■ long been acting as janitor of the j building on days that the Methodlists used it, went to work and tore i up about half of the platform and thrust the material out of the i window. Some of the boards were ■somewhat -spilt-.in_tlii_jQperatiom Silvermoon had Archer arrested for malizious trespass. Squire Van Doover, of 'Wheatfield fined and costed him about s3l. appealed to the circuit court, and the case was tried Friday. The jury got the case about 1 p. in., and after being out about 20 minutes brought in a verdict of “not guilty.” The jury at first stood 9 lor Acquittal and 3 for conviction. The divorce case of Fannie M. Reece vs. Wm. H. Reece, was tried Friday. They were married Feb. 22nd 1895, and separated Feb. Ist, 1896; when according to the evidence of the plaintiff, the defendant wholly abandoned her. arid has not returned, and his present whereabouts are unknown. She was granted a divorce and the right to resume her maiden name of Fannie M. Albion. She lives in Kankakee township, and is employed as a domestic.