McArdle, Patrick

MCARDLE

Posted By: Ken Wright (email)
Date: 11/11/2007 at 19:58:19

History of Jackson County,
J. W. Ellis

One of the most brutal and revolting murders which it has been our lot to write of, was committed in Prairie Creek township, Dubuque county, on the evening of the 12th day of February, 1864.

Patrick McArdle, wife and three grown up sons lived in Prairie Creek township, some eighteen or twenty miles southwest of Dubuque, and, according to evidence of neighbors, had lived there since 1848. The old man, reasonably well off, had two hundred acres of land, but the home life was unpleasant. The old man told some of the neighbors that he believed the old woman and boys would kill him. They frequently beat him. On one occasion it came out in evidence that Patrick Jr., beat his father terribly, and would have killed him if one of the other boys had not interfered.

On the evening of February 12th, Mrs. McArdle claimed that the three boys had gone to a debate at a schoolhouse in the neighborhood, and that shortly after the boys left two drunken men came and called for whiskey, which the old man refused them. This she heard from the outside and went into the house and found the old man down, and went to him to protect him at the same time telling the men they could have all the whiskey they wanted. She said the men threw her out of the house and she went to Collins, the nearest neighbors, and told Collins the story and asked Collins to go to the schoolhouse for the boys, which, he, Collins did, going on horseback, and calling the boys out told them what their mother had told him. The boys went home and got some of the neighbors to go. When the neighbors came, they found the house dark. A candle was produced and lighted, and on going upstairs found the old man McArdle lying on the floor dead, with many wounds about his head and face, and brains oozing from his skull, and pools of blood on the floor, and blood on the stove wood in the lower story where it leaked through.

An inquest was held and the verdict of the coroner’s jury was that deceased came to his death by parties to them unknown. But a day or two later Mrs. McArdle confessed to having killed the old man, although it was believed the sons were also guilty. Mrs. Catherine McArdle and three sons were held for murder, but, on examination before Judge Stephen S. Hemstead, on the 23rd, 24th and 25th of the same month, James and John McArdle were released from custody and Catherine and Patrick, Jr., were held. Mrs. McArdle took a change of venue to Jackson county, but Patrick took his chances with his neighbors and was tried in Dubuque county, his mother, Catherine McArdle, appearing as a witness for him and testifying that she killed the old man and that Patrick did not know of it till after the murder, and Patrick was acquitted. Catherine was tried at the October term of the district court of Jackson county, convicted and sentenced to be hanged on the 9th of December, 1864, but before that date Governor Stone commuted the sentence to imprisonment for life, and a few years later, Governor Samuel Merrill pardoned her. Of course, this was not a Jackson county crime, but I mention it because it was tried in Jackson county.