Iowa
Old Press
Humeston Advocate
Humeston, Wayne co. Iowa
April 8, 1904
Death of Isaac Peck
Word was received in Humeston Saturday that Isaac Peck, formerly
a railroad engineer, who ran on the old H. & S. from Humeston
to Shenandoah several years ago, had died at his home in Yankton,
South Dakota. Interment was at Shenandoah, his brother, Conductor
Tip Peck, taking charge of the remains and accompanying them from
Yankton to the place of interment. Deceased, who was a nephew of
D. Bott, of this city, was well known in Humeston, where he
resided while an employe of the railroad company.
The News in Iowa
-Mrs. Seymour Miller, of Ottumwa, has been arrested by Chief of
Police Gray on the charge of obtaining money under false
pretenses. Mrs. Miller is aggeged to have passed a $20
Confederate bill on a local furniture store, paying a bill of $11
and receiving $9 in change.
-A team driven by Frank Hink, a 19-year-old boy, took fright at a
train at Arthur. In attempting to go ahead of the team to quiet
them, Hink was kicked in the stomach and was rendered
unconscious. HIs condition is serious.
-The large implement house of Gus Hillman at Modale burned from
some unknown cause at 2 o'clock a.m. The building was a new
structure, containing $5,000 wourth of farm implements. There was
$1,200 insurance. But for the damp weather the entire town would
have been wiped out.
-William Clark of Newton committed suicide by shooting himself in
the temple. He attended a banquet on the preceding night, and his
suicide is a great surprise to his friends. He has been somewhat
despondent of late and it is supposed that he took his life while
under one of these spells. He was a member of the local lodge of
Masons and had been employed in the Taylor-Newell factory.
-At Plattsmouth, Neb., a few days ago Henry Kephart of Bartlett,
Iowa, while worrying over family troubles, took a dose of
strychnine, which came near ending his life. He has a wife and
three children in Plattsmouth. He was addicted to the use of
strong drink, and while under its influence one day pounded his
wife up in a horrible manner. She caused his arrest and he was
confined in jail one month, but was released upon his promise to
leave the state and remain away.
-A sensational divorce suilt has been filed in the district court
of Linn county by Isaac Trimble, a free Methodist preacher, who
charges that his wife hid and destroyed his preacher's clothes so
that he could not appear in the pulpit; also that she struck and
beat him and assaulted him with a butcher knife. This modern
Wesley askes for a decree of divorce and the care and custody of
his eight children.
-Miss Lucinda Greek, who created a sensation at Onawa some time
ago by serving notice of a suit for $5,000 against Joe Moore, a
well-known hay merchant of Onawa, for breach of promise, has,
through a petition just files, entered claim for $3,000
additional damages for slander, it being claimed that the
defendant had made allegations against her character by which her
good name has been greatly injured. The petitions in both actions
are now on file and the case is expected to come up at the April
term of the Monona county district court, which convenes on April
18.
-James Lobbins, alias James Smith, colored, the confessed
murderer of William Henry White, a white man, at Oskaloosa, last
September, was arrested at Lincoln, Neb., and brought back to
Iowa for trial. An officer from Oskaloosa was in charge of the
prisoner. Lobbins struck White with a heavy scantling during a
quarrel and then fled without knowing the consequences of his
act. He fled to Des Moines, where he was apprised by
acquaintances that White had died ten days after the assault. He
went to Lincoln shortly after hand had since been in that city.
Lobbins confessed his crime when confronted by the Iowa officer,
and says he will plead guilty in court. He declares the White
abused him and that he did not premeditate murder.
-John Harms, of Iowa Falls, who was recently released from the
penitentiary at Anamosa where he was sentenced for one year, is
in trouble again and has left for parts unknown. It appears that
Harms returned to his old home in Franklin county after his
release from the penitentiary and found employment driving a
creamery wagon. He was entrusted with a check for delivery to a
patron of the creamery but failed to prove true to the trust
reposed in him and endorsing the check by forging the payee's
name, he obatined the money which only amounted to a few dollars
and left for parts unknown. His conviction and sentence were
secured on the charge of committing a similar offense.
-Bearded, gray haired and all but weeping, Charles Cackley a few
days ago walked into the district court at Keosauqua, and changed
his plea of not guilty to guilty of the murder of Reuben
Fenstemaker in Farmington thirty-six years ago. He pleaded not
guilty of murder in the second degree and Judge Eichelberger
sentenced him to ten years in the penitentiary at Fort Madison.
The same evening he was taken back to the penitentiary from where
he had been brought to attend his trial, having been held there
pending the trial. Cackley shot and killed Constable Reuben
Fenstemaker, July 5, 1868, escaped from jail and until a week ago
has been at liberty. During the interval he married and raised a
large family to whom his crime was not known. Having served in
the civil war, he applied for a pension and his name attracted
notice on the pension list. An officer was sent to Cackley's home
in southern Missouri. The fugitive was arrested and brought back
for trial.
-A Los Angeles, Cal., dispatch says: "Make it life
imprisonment," cried Jake Overholtzer here, when the court
sentenced him to two years in prison for forgery. The man was
overcome. He had maintained a stolid demeanor up to the time the
prison bars faced him - then he broke down. He was formerly a
member of the Iowa legislature. He was convicted of participation
in extensive land frauds. The company with which he operated is
believed to have branches all over the country. It is possible
that a branch of it furnished the characters who bilked Senator
Titus of Muscatine out of $6,000 and other Iowa men out of
thousands. Overholtzer's home in Iowa was in Audubon county, when
he represented in the legislature. He made himself conspicuous by
the introduction of a bill to strangle cockle burrs.
[transcriber note: The Iowa Official Register lists
Jacob A. Overholtzer of Viola Center, Audubon co. as republican
representative serving in the 20th General Assembly Jan 1884-Apr
1884, and the 21st General Assembly Jan 1886-Apr 1886, of the
Iowa Legislature]
-An extradition law brought out by the case of Mrs. Dye of Boone,
who was accused of sending poisoned candy to Miss Rena Nelson of
Pierre, S.D. , has been passed by the senate.
-"Satan" Andrews, a prisoner in the Polk county jail
under indictment for rape, and E.J. Bennett, alias L.M. King,
under indictment for forgery, made their escape from the county
jail a few nights ago by unlocking their door with an improvised
key and walking to the street door out of which they disappeared
from view. Jailor Conn was in the rear of the cell room eating
his supper when the escape was effected and knew nothing of the
jail delivery until after the men had gained the safety of the
street. In the cell with Andrews and King were C.W. Graves, under
arrest for the murder of his wife, and a number of men under
indictment for minor offenses. The two runaways after gaining
their own liberty closed the heavy iron door after them, thus
locking their fellow prisoners safely in the cell.
[transcribed by S.F., April 2007]
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Humeston Advocate
Humeston, Wayne co. Iowa
Friday, April 29, 1904
The News in Iowa
An unknown man whose body was found hanging in a woodshed at
Missouri Valley was Christ Moeller of Sioux City, who left the
latter place about ten days ago to look for work. He was a farm
laborer.
The machine foundry of W.E. Moss at Charles City burned a few
days ago. Loss, $10,000. Insurance, $2,000.
Mrs. E.C. Manning, wife of a well-known Burlington engineer,
committed suicide at Burlington by drinking carbolic acid while
temporarily insane from illness.
During a thunder storm lightning struck the barn of the Easton
place, northeast of Ida Grove. Herbert Easton, Howard Easton and
Ray Miller were clipping a horse at the time and were rendered
unconscious by the bolt. The horse they were clipping was
instantly killed.
John Miller, wealthy farmer of Big Grove township, Johnson
county, committed suicide by hanging himself in his barn. No
motive is known except that it is known that Miller worried over
his moral condition. He recently consulted a minister on this and
later joined the church. He leaves a wife.
Fred Fear & Co., of New York, have purchased the Rogers
Cereal company's plant at Boone and will operate it, beginning
about May 1st. T.P. Rogers of Boone will manage the plant. New
machinery has been ordered and the oatmeal mill will be in full
blast August 1. Fear & Co. and branch offices will take the
product. The mill will employ from fifty to a hundred men.
O. Stillwell, a stock raiser of New Sharon, had to be removed
from a Rock Island passenger train at Davenport, having attempted
to kill his son while suffering from temporary insanity.
Stillwell had been to Chicago with a load of stock, which he sold
for $1,800, and the sights of a great city seen under the light
of such sudden prosperity, had unbalanced his mind.
The sensational perjury case against Mrs. Sarah A. Gallaugher,
whose indictment was dismissed on a technicality by the supreme
court, may yet be tried. Additional charges have been made at
Iowa City and an effort will be made to secure a reindictment.
The perjury charged is said to have been committed while Mrs.
Gallaugher was on trial for the murder of her husband.
It is doubtful if there ever occurred before in the state of Iowa
as remarkable a gathering as attended the recent celebration of
the eighty-ninth birthday of Mrs. Polly Starkweather of Anamosa.
Under the same roof were gathered five generations, hale, hearty
and happy, descending in the following line: Mrs. Polly
Starkweather, Mrs. Adelia Soper, Mrs. George F. Bodenhofer, Mrs.
Geo. Matthissen and Gladys Matthissen, the latter being 4 years
of age and a great-great-grandchild of Mrs. Starkweather.
Because of a fall down a stairway in the station of the Illinois
Central railway, Miss Sara E. McNaughton of Charles City has
brought suit for damages in the sum of $10,000 in the district
court. On May 29, 1903, Miss McNaughton was in the waiting room
at the station awaiting a train when she started for what she
supposed to be the toilet rooms. The door opened on the stairway
to the cellar, however, and she claims that she received damages
in the above sum through the fall.
Ernest French, a young man beating his way to Cedar Rapids from
Davenport in the expectation of getting work on the Interurban
line, was held up by three other men beating their way to Cedar
Rapids on a freight train. They took from him $2.45 and then
forced him to jump from the moving train at the point of a
revolver. He made his way to the nearest telephone and called up
the police of Cedar Rapids who arrested the robbers when the
train arrived. The revolver and French's pocketbook were found
upon them.
The presence of mind of Police Matron Hill of Davenort saved the
life of Mrs. Lottie Evans, a female prisoner, who swallowed
several chloride of mercury tablets while on her way to the house
of detention under arrest. When taken il she told the matron she
had poisoned herself because she could not endure the disgrace
her arrest would bring upon her family. Her mouth and throat were
terribly burned by the poison but emetics the police matron gave
her will probably save her life although at last reports she was
ina critical condition. Her husband had had her arrested on
account of her alleged liking for another man.
J.C. Rhinehart, a farmer living a few miles southeast of Peoria,
a little obsolete town in the corner of Polk county, has a strain
of Jersey Red hogs that are truly a varvel in their way. Mr.
Rinehart has a sow about eighteen months old and weighing 300
pounds, which gave birth to seventeen pigs about three weeks ago.
The pigs are still all alive and as stout and healthy pigs as
ever followed a mother. The sow herself is one of a litter of
nineteen, all of which were raised. The eighteen others of the
first litter were all fattened and were sold when thirteen months
old and averaged a trifle over 297 pounds, bringing Mr. Rhinehart
the neat sum of $205.87.
Enticed by the glittering inducements of matrimonial bureau
advertisement to enter into a correspondence and an exchange of
pictures with fair Mrs. Elizabeth Kalmick of Sioux City, Albert
J. Swartz, a verdant farmer lad frm Plankington, S.D., arrived in
Sioux City a few days ago only to find his "love's sweet
dream" to be an iridescent one. Aided by the police Swartz
hunted up his correspondent to find her only a fraud - a woman
who confessed later to the police that her handsome carriage,
beautiful complexion and magnificent wardrobe were the results of
her abillity to profitably play the matrimonial advertising
graft. She confessed to fifty verdant bridegrooms-to-be who are
now on her staff. She promised ot leave the city under threats of
prosecution. Swartz was placed in jail for his safe keeping.
Marion Morgan, a farm hand, aged about 38 years, was burned to
death on the farm of T.O. Stewart, in White Oak township, Mahaska
county. Morgan was assisting Mr. Stewart rake and burn corn
stalks and trash from the field when the accident and death
occurred, and just how it occurred will never be known, as when
first discovered by Mr. Stewart, who was fully eighty or ninety
rods away, the man was lying on the ground, his clothing on fire
and he writhing in agony. When reached by Mr. Stewart, life was
extinct. As he was known to be subject to epilepsy it is supposed
that his cothing in some way caught fire and that the scare or
fright therefom brough on a fit, rendering him unable to care for
himself or to cry for help.
News from Leroy
-Harry Cherry had a brown horse stolen about a week ago and Sam
Morrison had a saddle and bridle stolen at the same time.
-James Buffum and son, of Osceola, who were visiting E.S. Buffum
returned home Tuesday.
-V.D. Hicks will soon move on the farm they bought of J.B. Hood
-Wallace Hicks solld his city residence to Claud Kirkwood.
Derby News and Notes
-Those attending the celebration of the I.O.O.F. anniversary from
Derby Tuesday evening were: Miss Grace Parkin, Mrs. H. Westfall,
Mrs. W. Yearnshaw, W.F. Pollard and wife, Joe George, Chas.
Johnson, C.B. Taylor, Joe Parkin JR and Joseph Parkin.
-Marion Hanson died at his home west of town Saturday April 21,
interment took place Wednesday April 27 in the Last Chance
cemetery.
-Miss Elsie Courter went to Chariton Wednesday evening to attend
the Hemphill and Sullivan wedding.
-Mr. Hunt, of Bethany, Mo., is visiting his daughter Mrs. Frank
Elliot.
-A baby girl was born to Mr. and Mrs. M.T. Grimes April 21.
[transcribed by S.F., April 2007]