Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 January 1907 — Old Time News. [ARTICLE]

Old Time News.

Fifty-One Years Ago. Jasper Banner, Jan. 17th, 1856. Probably no article ever published in the Banner was read with more interest than a three column account copied from the Lafayette Daily Journal, of a triple hanging in that city. The exact date of the occurrence is not given, bnt probably it was on Friday, Jan. 11, 1856. Not only would so unusual an event as the legal execution ot three men all at one time, and in a place so near and well known, be in itself a matter of absorbing interest, but that interest was very greatiy increased by the fact that one of the three men had been for some time, and not very long before, a resident of Rensselaer. The men were Abram Rice, Timothy Driskill and Dayid M. Stocking. Rice was a tinner and at one time had a shop here about where the Eger hardware and tin shop now is. He was mentioned in this column lately as being here in 1854 when a gang of robbers came up from Lafayette with the object of robbing Col. May’s bank, and Rice was probably their confederate and local spy. Rice and Driskill were hanged for the murder at Wildcat, near Lafayette, of a man named Cephas Fareubaugh, and Stocking for that of John Rose. Both murders were for the purpose of rob. bery, and Rose especially was a prominent and greatly respected citizen. All three men denied being guilty of murder, tho Rice and Driskill admitted being present when Fareubaugh was killed and Stocking said he knew who killed Rice but that he would not tell who it was. All three were swung off at the same time. They all showed plenty of nerve and courage, and during their final preparations Rice and Driskill remarking of Rice’s dressed up appearance, that he looked d d starchy. Stocking, who was a. much older uiau than the behaved with quietness and dignity. He was 50 years eld, Rice 27 and Driskill only just past 23. The Journal said ot the n that they were very bad men and deserved their fate. Their deaths a’d the sending of several of their confederates to prison for life, seems to have pretty effectually broken up the reign of crime in and around Lafayette for which their gang was largely responsible. Some 30 or 40 persons witnessed the hanging, but if any Jasper county men were present we can not say. Our townsman, Harvey Phillips, was in Lafayette when it took place and saw the bodies of the turee men after it was over.