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LINCOLN COUNTY, KANSAS A Souvenir History GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT Pages 50 - 51 It is a relief to turn from the above tragic facts to something more agreeable. Lincoln County was enjoying continual growth and prosperity. In 1873 there were five hundred families or about 2,500 people. Stone buildings, bridges, mills, and other improvements were being built. A fine new school house the best this side of Junction City was put up in 1872. The next year the Rees Mill was built. It is still one of the most beautiful spots around Lincoln Center. It was built by Elias Rees and after his death was operated by his son, L. J. Rees, who is the present owner. At present Mr. T. F. Brann and Mr. Howard Rees operate it. In this same year a six foot vein of coal was found a mile from Lincoln Center. There were also coal mines in the Elk-horn and Spillman, the vein being 3-1/2 feet thick. A vein 3 feet thick was discovered underlying the whole Danish settlement. Twenty-five men were employed in the Spillman mines and more were being put in as fast as room could be made. This coal was worth $3.50 to $3.75 per ton at the mines. Lincoln had great prospects for a mining country. For further discussion read the article on "Geology" in another part of the book. Lincoln County has had prairie fires, cyclones, and floods which brought more or less disaster with each visitation. The first big fire on record was in 1871. The fire originated on the railroad track near Fort Harker, and came into Lincoln County from the south. It burned up ranges and destroyed many thousand head of cattle. No lives were Iost! The most disastrous fire was in March, 1879, when the northwestern townships were burned over. Three deaths occurred about a mile north of where Prairie Grove Church now stands. The victims were Robt. Montgomery and his fourteen-year-old son, Robert, and Isaac Pfaff. These men were caught out on the prairie and overtaken by the flames. The Montgomery home was also destroyed. The population in 1880 was 8,572. The work of organizing townships which had been in progress since 1875 was finished about this time and the county was redistricted as follows: First District, Indiana, Valley, Franklin, Colorado, and Madison; Second District, Marion, Beaver, Salt Creek, Logan, Scott, and Battle Creek; Third District, Orange, Cedron, Grant, Pleasant, Highland, and Golden Belt. It was about this time that railroad agitation began. The Topeka, Salina and Great Western organized in 1880, and secured a right of way in Lincoln County in 1881, without opposition. Then the Kansas Central put up a good talk and wanted $60,000 for a narrow gauge. Later the Kansas Central was absorbed into the Union Pacific. The Union Pacific had surveyed a Saline Valley route in 1866, when Junction City was the terminus of the Kansas Pacific, but when the Union Pacific became a candidate for Government subsidies its projects naturally took the route along the Smoky Hill, which was the old "Pikes Peak" trial and along which were the military posts of Fort Harker, Fort Hays, and Fort Wallace. Not until compelled to do so for fear of other roads did the Union Pacific build the Saline Valley branch. In spite of five years of daily expectance of a railroad, in 1885 the people of Lincoln County were still hauling their grains to Salina and Ellsworth and hauling back their goods in wagons. In October of that year aid was voted by the county and in 1886 a branch of the Union Pacific, called the Salina, Lincoln and Western reached Lincoln Center. The road is now called Salina and Oakley. In the morning of January '3, 1888, the community was thrown into great excitement over the killing of Jesse Turner by a neighbor Pat Cleary. The two men had quarreled over a drinking place where both wished to water stock, and as Turner was driving his stock to water Cleary shot him. He then came to town, gave himself up and claimed he did it in self defense. Coroner De Armond summoned a jury and repaired with the sheriff to the scene of the shooting. The facts as they appeared to this jury did not support Cleary's plea of self defense. He was tried, found guilty of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to twenty years' imprisonment. After serving a few months of this term a new trial was granted by the supreme court. Accordingly Pat was brought back to Lincoln. A jury was impaneled and the trial begun May 16, 1889. The State made out even a better case than it had before but from some -words which were let drop from time to time, the public was not sure that Cleary would be convicted. The jury was sent <out Wednesday, May 30. They were able to come to no agreement and by Friday the citizens began to think that some one or two men were persistently voting for acquittal. Saturday might the jury was sent out until the judge should ask for their report. The people had now become convinced that the jury was "spiked." Sunday night there were open threats of lynching, and an extra guard was placed over the jury room. Monday morning the jury was still unable to agree and they were discharged. Cleary might have gone free now for anything the State could have done for a change of venue can not be taken in criminal cases, and another lawful jury could not have been secured in the county. But as soon as the jury was-discharged the prisoner through his attorney, Ira C. Buzick, entered a plea of manslaughter in the third degree and was sentenced by the judge to three years imprisonment, which is the maximum punishment for that degree of crime. As soon as it became known that one man had persistently voted for acquittal the wrath of the citizens burned higher and higher. J. P. Harmon, who voted for acquittal, was intercepted by an unorganized mob on the street, who demanded to know why he hung the jury. He placed himself under the protection of the sheriff and was taken to the court house for safety. All day long hundreds of men from all over Ellsworth and Lincoln Counties, who knew Cleary and believed the ends of justice had been defeated and the law made a travesty, poured into Lincoln. It is believed that Cleary had attempted to kill John Lyden and that he killed his brother-in-law, Cornelius Deits. Other stories of his vengeful and bloodthirsty nature were afloat. The jurors and those who had testified against him in the two trials were especially alarmed lest when he would finally be released he would get his revenge. The mob filled the court house square and demanded that J. P. Harmon show himself and be catechised. He came to the window and gave his reasons but his answer failed to satisfy the crowd. There was nothing to do now but wait for night. It was said that a guard was stationed every fifty feet in Lincoln to prevent any possible escape of the prisoner. Toward night the excitement was so tense as to be felt in the atmosphere. Comparatively few people were seen on the streets at dark and shortly afterward Harmon escaped by the back of the court house. Sheriff Boyle placed guards over the prisoner and about nine o'clock went home leaving the door unlocked. Soon after the sheriff was gone Cleary took a hatchet from the stove and made a desperate attempt to escape. Several shots rang out as he ran across the court house yard. He was captured in the wire fence at the northwest corner of the square. One shot had taken effect in his left side. In course of the short trial given him before his execution he is said to have confessed to killing three men and trying to kill two more but said it was in self defense. He was taken down to the Fourth Street bridge. A new rope provided for the occasion was tied around his neck and he was dropped off the bridge and fell fifteen and a half feet. There were some three or four hundred men in the crowd and it was the verdict of ninety-five per cent of the people that it was the only thing to do under the circumstances. It looks like a brutal thing to drag a fatally wounded man to the bridge and hang him, but once into the business the lynchers could not afford to quit till the job was finished. The sequel to the Cleary case was a libel suit for $10,000 damages brought against Anna C. and W. S. Wait, proprietors of the Beacon, by Jeary Moler, of Salina, one of Cleary's attorneys. This gentleman came near being lynched with his client, and he was warned never to come to Lincoln County again. The Beacon had remarked concerning Moler's conduct of the Cleary case that he was an all round villain. Mr. Wait charged him with "fixing" the jury. A short time afterward, on complaint of Moler, Wait was secretly arrested and conveyed to Salina at once. It was feared that if the news of his arrest became public it would be impossible to take Mr. Wait from Lincoln as the people would demand that he be tried in his own county. On learning of the arrest the people were very indignant. When the train came in that evening Mr. Wait was met by hundreds of citizens in buggies, in wagons, and afoot. Business was suspended for the time being. A subscription had been already started to pay the costs of the trial. Mr. Wait was taken to the center of the town and asked to make a speech telling the public all about the day's experience in Salina. The trial had been set for October. The Republican of Sunday, October 27, 1889, contains an account of the trial in which it is spoken of as the most noted trial ever held in Saline County. The affair stirred up Lincoln to the depths as nothing had for years and the people stood by Mr. Wait, regardless of party or personal affairs. The case was widely commented on by the press over the State and in other States, these comments all favoring the defense. Had he been tried at home he would have undoubtedly been acquitted in the first trial. But Saline County was divided. The jurors were all farmers and at the end of seventeen hours they stood equally divided. On being told that they absolutely must agree they returned a verdict of guilty with a recommendation of nominal punishment. Mr. Moler made a speech recommending light punishment and Mr. Wait was fined $10, and court costs amounting to $600. An appeal was taken and granted. The supreme court reversed the decision of the lower court and Mr. Wait was acquitted. The General Statutes of Kansas for 1897 contained the following decision concerning this case: "A part of an alleged libelous article was that the person alleged to be libeled who was an attorney-at-law assisting in the defense in a criminal prosecution for murder, had at the time no possible hope of being able to clear his client with a fair jury but his only hope lay in a packed jury and that his manner of conducting the trial showed that he relied upon hanging the jury by a "fixed man," or in other word by a bribed juror and after evidence has been introduced tending to prove these matters the defendant has the right to show that one of the jurors was "fixed" or bribed; that he did in fact hang the jury; and the defendant has a right to show the conduct of said juror in the jury room, while the jury was deliberating on their verdict, and what said juror then and there did, and what he omitted to say and do, how he voted and how the other members of the jury voted." (State vs. Wait, 44 K. 310.) In beginning this work it was not the intention to lay stress on the criminal history of Lincoln County, but since three murders have already been extensively written up it seems best since one man's life is as important as another's to at least mention the other murders. In 1882 a farmer by the name of Wheeler was shot from the back of his wagon as he was driving home from town one night. A stranger was arrested for the murder but later broke jail and escaped. Wesley Faulk, a single man, was killed at night by unknown parties. No arrests were made. Mike Haley, brother to the Haley killed by Ezra Hubbard, killed his nephew, a young man by the name of Barrett. He was tried and acquitted on the grounds of self-defense. The killing was done in Haley's house. "Jack" Peate says that if you are going to point out the places in Lincoln County where people have been killed that it will be a long job, as violent deaths have occurred on nearly every acre of it. So I think we will stop here and discuss something else. The following men represented Lincoln County in the State Legislature in the years indicated: 1872, F. A. Schemerhorn; 1873, Geo. Green; 1874, Vollany Ball; 1875, Jas. B. Goff; 1876, E. S. Pierce; 1877, Reuben Williams; 1879, W. S. Wait; 1883 to 1886, R. F. Bryant; 1887, also 1889, J. D. Miller; 1891 and 1893, A. N. Whittington; 1895 and 1897, J. J. Lambert; 1899, Arthur J. Stanley; 1901, F. G. Dunham; 1903, J. D. Miller on resignation of D. E. Books; 1905 to present time, E. T. Skinner. Ira C. Buzick was the first Representative, also State Senator in 1881. Geo. W. Anderson was also a representative from Lincoln County. In 1895 A. P. Gilpin was Journal Clerk at the State House. He held this office two terms. William Baker, of Lincon, was a Congressman and represented the Sixth District in Washington. D. C. Who secured an appro-priation for the Beecher's Island monument. He belongs to one of the oldest and best families in the county, his people having moved here in 1866. His mother was the first school teacher in Lincoln County and his uncle, D. C. Skinner, was one of the Forsyth scouts. The man who made Lincoln County famous. Born and raised here. Went to the Legislature and helped make laws while
still in knee pants. His title should be "The Marrying Judge,'' or "The Lightning Knot-Tier." He was born and raised in New York State at Hunter. Came to Kansas in 1879. Taught school for a number of years. Elected to his present office in 1902. He has married a great many people and everybody that he married voted for him, so he will probably be there as long as he wants to stay. Here is a man with some real history. Born in Meigs County, Ohio, November 2, 1841. Enlisted in Company E, 75th Ohio Volunteers in 1862. Taken prisoner at the Battle of Gainesville, Florida, August 17, 1864, and was in Andersonville and Florence prisons until February 2d, 1865. Came to Lincoln County, Kansas, in 1879, and took a homestead. Elected County Clerk in 1889, and served four years. He was born in Missouri, but please don't hold that against him, for he has been in Lincoln County long enough to be an old settler, and has lived it down. Came to Kansas at the age of eight and his home was at Beloit till he came here. Mr. Hutchison is one of the jolly men of the court house crowd, and has plenty of friends. Born and raised in Iowa. Took a special course in surveying at Grand Island, Neb. Bo-came a government surveyor and surveyed through Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico. Came to Lincoln County and served a number of terms as deputy County Surveyor, and was appointed to fill a vacancy. Has been elected four times since. As there is not much surveying to do Mr. Brunt makes abstracting his main business. One of the Barons of the Spillman. He lives in one of the finest homes of the county. He is giving eminent satisfaction in his office as the people of the west side consider he has done more for them than any other man they have had. He is the good looker among the county officers. This picture does not. do him justice. He is a Democrat, but the Democrats are a majority on the Board of Commissioners, so it is all right. He was born in Pennsylvania in 1850, and came to Lincoln County, Kansas, in 1878, and engaged in farming. His home is on his fine farm not far from Lincoln. He was elected to office four years ago. Born in England in 1859. Came to Lincoln County, Kansas, in 1872. His business and official career is as follows: Farmer thirteen years, merchant ten years, auctioneer a number of years, city councilman, deputy sheriff and county commissioner. He is smaller than the other two commissioners, but he can hold is own and ably represents the First District. |
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