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About the confines of American civilization, there has always hovered, like scouts before the march of an invading army, a swarm of bold, enterprising, adventurous criminals. The broad, untrodden prairies, the trackless forests, the rivers, unbroken by the keels of commerce, furnished admirable refuge for those whose crimes drove them from companionship with the honest and law-abiding. Hovering there, where courts and civil processes could afford but a weak bulwark of protection against their evil and dishonest purposes and practices, the temptation to prey upon the comparatively unprotected sons of toil, rather than to gain a livelihood by the slow process of honest industry, has proved too strong to be resisted. Some of these reckless characters sought the outskirts of advancing settlements for the express purpose of theft and robbery; some, because they dare not remain within reach of efficient laws; others, of limited means, but ambitious to secure homes of their own, and with honesty of purpose, exchanged the comforts and protection of law afforded by the old, settled and populous district for life on the frontiers, and not finding all that, their fancy painted, were tempted into crime by apparent immunity from punishment. In all new countries, the proportion of the dishonest and criminal has been greater than in the older and better regulated communities where courts are permanently established and the avenues of escape from punishment for wrong-doing more securely guarded.
When white people first began to enter upon and possess the Cedar River country, there were but two counties organized west of the Mississippi River, even to the Pacific Ocean, if we except the counties of Missouri. These two counties were Dubuque and Des Moines. They extended from the flag staff at Fort Armstrong back into the country forty miles, and from the Missouri State line northward to a line running westward from Prairie du Chien. It was a vast scope of country, and afforded secure hiding places for outlaws and desperadoes. When the rich prairies, beautiful forests and magnificent valleys began to attract honest immigration, human vultures followed in the rear or settled down in the midst of the industrious, toiling pioneers to prey upon their substance, well knowing that, by reason of the unorganized condition of society, there would be comparative freedom and immunity from detection and punishment.
In 1837, the country began to be flooded with counterfeit money—in fact, says our informant, there was more counterfeit money than there was of good. Occasionally, and the occasions were rather more frequent than angel’s visits, a horse would be stolen. No one could tell where the counterfeit money came from, nor where the stolen horse was hidden. At last horse stealing became so general and was successfully prosecuted that when a farmer missed a horse from his stable or his pasture, he never hunted for him beyond a half mile from his premises. It was useless, the gang was so well organized, and had such a perfect system of stations, agents, signs and signals.
Early in 1837 or 1838, a number of persons settled in Cedar County, whose habits and practices gave rise to the suspicion that they belonged to a regularly organized gang of law breakers, horse thieves and counterfeiters. They had no visible means of support, and were almost constantly coming and going, wore good clothes—that is to say, they dressed better than the honest, toiling farm makers—had plenty of money, and were ready at all times and on . . .
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. . . all occasions to pay their way. When the young men and women—the sons and daughters of the settlers—got up a ball, these suspected parties, at least the unmarried portion of them, sought to “run things” according to their own notions, and at last became so overbearing and dictatorial that, as a measure of self-protection, the scions of the pioneers found it necessary to choose as managers of their Terpsichorean entertainments the strongest and most athletic of their number to do the fighting—the “knocking down and dragging out” of the domineering young pirates, who generally carried their revolvers wherever they went.
These people were shrewd, cunning and secret in their business maneuvers. To their immediate neighbors they were obliging, kind and charitable, where charity was needed. They wore an outward garb of respectability, and so hedged themselves as to escape detection and exposure for many years.
PERSONALE OF THE FREEBOOTERS.
Among the representative men of these bold plunderers were Squires, Conlogue, James Stoutenburg alias James Case and Christian Gove. Squires lived in Iowa Township. Conlogue first settled at Gower’s (Cedar Bluffs) Ferry, but subsequently moved across the county line and settled in Johnson County, near what is now Morse Station. Stoutenburg alias Case was an unmarried man, and divided his time between the houses of Squires and Conlogue as best suited his convenience and the purposes of those with whom he was connected and associated. Gove was also an unmarried man, and, while Conlogue managed Gower’s Ferry, worked for and made his home with him. Besides these men, there were a number of others of equally suspicious character. Some of them lived in Cedar County, and others lived in the borders of the adjoining counties.
Besides these above named, there was a man named McBroom—a keen, shrewd, cunning fellow, with some knowledge of law—who was always present to defend such members of the gang as found themselves in the "clutches” of the law. McBroom came here from Illinois, and was regarded as a very dangerous character, and a “member in good standing” with the unworthy fraternity.
John Brodie and his four sons—John, Stephen, William and Hugh—came to the country in 1839, and were among the first settlers in Linn County. They were natives of Ohio, and commenced their career of villainy in that State as much as fifty years ago. Somewhere about 1830 or 1832, they were driven from the Clear Fork of the Mohican River, in Richland (now Ashland) County, and sought refuse in Steuben County, Ind., for two or three years, where they became so notorious as to arouse the entire country against them, and in 1835, they were forced to quit that country and flee westward. In the year last named, they found their way to the Rock River (Illinois) country, and settled at what came to be known as Brodie’s Grove, in Dement Township, Ogle County. At that time, that region of country was completely under the power and dominion of outlaws and desperadoes, and there, for a time, they found congenial companionship and associations.
At last, however, the honest people organized themselves as Vigilantes or Regulators, as a measure of self-protection; and, in 1839, the Brodie brood was bought out, and warned to leave the country. They accordingly left there at once, and came to Linn County, where their houses became refuges and hiding-places for their accomplices in crime and villainy. For a number of years after the Brodies came to Linn County, there was scarcely a term of the court in which some of the family were not arraigned for trial, on the charge of horse stealing.
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Sam Literel and Joe Leverich were said to be members of the gang; and, if not actively engaged in horse stealing, their homes and houses were resorted to by those who were.
This gang operated over a large scope of country, and with so many members located in Cedar County, such secure hiding places, and so many of the gang coming and going, it is but little wonder that the people came to live in constant fear and dread. But the villains worked so cautiously and secretly as to be almost past finding out. Horse stealing became so common that a man who owned a good horse never presumed to leave him over night in an unlocked stable, and, in many instances, farmers and horse owners slept in their stables with their rifles by their sides. The time came, however, when the gang planned and undertook the perpetration of a robbery that aroused honest people throughout the country, and caused the immediate organization of a protective association, and the visitation of quick and summary punishment upon several of the Cedar River Buccaneers.
