Andrew Michaelson/Mickelson (-1885)

MICHAELSON, MICKELSON

Posted By: Dorian Myhre (email)
Date: 11/25/2015 at 21:03:56

From Nevada Representative November 25, 1885 (front page)

Cambridge.

November 17, 1885.
Tuesday, Nov. 10, intelligence reached here that one Andrew Michaelson, who lives in Sheldahl, was missing. Mr. M. owns a farm near the west church. Mr. Oley Nelson drove him to his farm on the morning of the day mentioned. When he left Nelson he said he would return to Sheldahl via Huxley and the crossing. Not returning on Tuesday, nor yet on Wednesday the wife and friends of Mr. Michaelson became alarmed at his absence and a search was instituted, and finally the whole neighborhood turned out. On Sunday morning over 200 person were engaged in the search, and Sunday A. M. he was found dead, only a few rods from the Huxley depot. He was lying face downward in the mud and water, the face half buried in the same. The ice covered one side of his face. In each hand was grasped mud and grass. It seemed that he had made one spasmodic effort. The friends lifted the body and carried it to the nearest dry ground. The body was searched and on it found $11.00, a pocket knife, a pair of mittens, a business card of some firm, two bottles full and one partly full of liquor. Oley Nelson telegraphed the county coroner, Dr. Hostetter, who arrived at Huxley Monday morning at 7:30. A jury was empanneled, witnesses examined. A post mortem examination was made by Dr. Aplin. The principal points proved were that Oley Nelson had left him at his farm, Micheaelson's about 9 a. m. Tuesday. He went from there to his house, and from there to the corn field, where he talked with the man who had his farm rented; from there he went west to his line fence; from there to Lars B. Larson's; from there northwest toward Huxley, his object it is supposed, to take the passenger train due there at noon. He got within 40 rods of the depot where as stated, he was found Sunday morning. Now where did he get the liquor? The man Lars B. Larson at whose house Michaelson was on Tuesday, was summoned as a witness and testified that he, Michaelson, did get liquor of him day; that he had brought a jug for him; that and least three other occasions he had sold Michealson liquor; that he had told Larson to get him a gallon of gin, which he did and Michaelson paid him $2.00 for it. Further that he had procured liquors for other neighbors for medicine. The verdict of the jury was in substance but not in their exact words: The cause of death was neuralgia of the heart. That further, that it was the opinion of the jury that one Lars B. Larson had clandestinely sold to the deceased liquors contrary to the laws of Iowa and of the U. S. and greatly to the injury of the deceased. The coffined body was buried at Sheldahl, so we are informed. One point in particular interests us druggists. We are accustomed to selling all, or nearly all of the liquor that is sold. Now here is a case. This man Michaelson could not get liquor of any druggist that knew him. This man Larson knowing his habits, knowing that his friends used every effort to keep liquor from him, knowing that he would get drunk if he got liquors, knowing all these things and more too, swears that at various times he did sell this man liquor. If any druggist in Story county would do as mean and contemptible a thing as that, he should be tarred and feathered.