Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 62, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1904 — JURY SETS DEWEY FREE. [ARTICLE]

JURY SETS DEWEY FREE.

Trial of Millionaire Kansas Cattleman Ends in Verdict of Acquittal. . At Norton, Kan., after deliberating for twenty-eight and a half hours the Jury brought in a verdict acquitting Chauncey Dewey and his two cowboys, Clyde Wilson and William J. Mcßride, of the murder of Burchard Berry. This ends one of the most famous trials in the criminal annals of Kansas and which at one time threatened to cause an armed uprising in the cattle country. So strong was, the feeling against Dewey and his men that the Governor was at one time forced to call out the State militia to prevent hostilities between the rival factions. A few years ago Chauncey Dewey ar rived in. Kansas from Chicago. He had. plenty of money and at once established a large ranch in Comanche County, buying several thousand acres of land and surrounding it with wire fences. Settlers in the neighborhood did not look upon, his enterprise with favor. He had money and they had not and they feared that he would eventually drive them out of the country by buying all the unoccupied land on which they grazed their cattle and fencing it in. Many times his fences were destroyed by the settlers and there was more than one clash between his cowboys and the small cattle owners. The BeYrys, Daniel and his sons Burchards and Aipheus, were especially active in opposition to the young millionaire. Finally the climax came in the early part of last summer and in a fight between Dewey and his men on one side and the Berrys on the other Daniel Berry and his two sons were slain. The whole county was immediately in an uproar. Dewey and his cowboys were placed under arrest and armed bands of settlers gathered to wreak summary vengeance on them. A company of militia was sent to assist the sheriff in taking his prisoners to the jail at St. Francis and all the way the soldiers were threatened with attack from- the angry settlers who hovered about the little army as it marched across the prairie. For several weeks the jail was guarded by the militia until the excitement had died down sufficiently to make it safe to put the men on trial. The acquittal will doubtless cause a fresh outburst on the part of the settlers and it is doubtful whether Dewey will ever return to operate his big ranch.