Iowa
Old Press
Sioux City Journal
Sioux City, Woodbury co., Iowa
Sunday, March 29, 1896
HAD STOLEN CHICKENS
Three Men Arrested for Handling Other People’s
Poultry.
Sheriff Davenport at last has succeeded in capturing the thieves
who have been stealing chickens in the surrounding country for
the last three months. Harry Clark, James Dawson and E. Alexander
are locked up in the county jail, with good prospects of
remaining prisoners for some time. Early yesterday morning the
sheriff received a telephone message from Webber’s poultry
house saying a man had come in with about seventy chickens in a
wagon, and the supposition was they had been stolen. Deputies
Fullen and Anderson went down at once and arrested the men named.
When the men first came to Webber’s with the chickens they
were informed they would have to be identified before the
chickens would be purchased. One of the men went out to get some
one to vouch for them, but the action of the others excited
suspicion, and the sheriff was notified. A little later J. W.
McNeill, who lives near Elk Point, reported that seventy chickens
had been stolen from him Friday night, and he has identified the
birds the men had in their possession as being his. The chickens
were nearly all Plymouth Rocks. These chicken robberies have been
of very frequent occurrence in the vicinity of Burbank, Elk Point
and in Plymouth county, and the sheriff has been working for
three months to capture the thieves. The men, he says, would
steal here and sell what they got in South Dakota, then steal
chickens and bring them here. The men all live in the vicinity of
Elk Point.
WITH MILITARY HONORS
Burial of the Remains of Benjamin P. Harris
A military funeral was held over the remains of Benjamin P.
Harris at 2 o’clock yesterday afternoon at the family
residence, 513 Iowa street. Gen. Hancock post, G. A. R., had
charge of the service and attended in a body. Rev. Marc Darling
officiated. After the services at the house a large following
went to the Floyd cemetery, where the remains were laid to rest
with the impressive military service. A firing squad detailed
from Company H, commanded by Sergeant Hood, fired a parting
salute, and the service closed with the bugle call, “Lights
out.”
B. P. Harris had a good record as a soldier. He enlisted in
Company A., Fourteenth Iowa infantry, at the beginning of the
war. Later he was transferred to Company D, Forty-first Iowa
infantry, with which he served the remainder of his three years’
enlistment, when he was discharged. He re-enlisted in Company K,
Seventh Iowa cavalry and was discharged October 31, 1864, at
Sioux City.
A few days before his death he decided he would like to go to the
soldiers’ home at Marshalltown, Ia., and his admission
papers were forwarded; immediately after the papers were sent he
realized that he had only a few days to live, and decided to
remain. He leaves a wife and two children, Warren B. Harris and
Mrs. Allen Skinner.
TOOK HIS FRIEND’S CLOTHES
For This Offense Robert Shufelt Must Serve Thirty Days
at Hard Labor
Robert Shufelt was tried in Justice Whitney’s court and
sentenced to thirty days in the county jail at hard labor on the
charge of the larceny of a quantity of clothing from James Dolan.
James Dolan and three professed friends, Jim Teller and Archie
and Robert Shufelt, came together from Stillwater Minn. On the
way here Dolan stopped at Garretson, S. D., and the other men
induced him to forward his clothes to Sioux City under a
fictitious name. When he reached Sioux City he found his clothes
had been taken from the express office. He saw Archie Shufelt and
asked him what had been done with them. He was told the three men
had pawned a new suit, which was in the sack in which the clothes
were shipped, and had received two cheaper suits in return. These
suits the two Shufelts were wearing. Dolan swore out informations
against the three men, and they left the city, going to McCook,
S. D. Robert Shufelt returned and was arrested here Wednesday
afternoon by Deputy Sheriff Fullen. He told where a part of the
clothes were, but claimed to know nothing of the new suit. In
court he said his brother took the clothes from the express
office and pawned them. The officers have been unable to locate
either Archie Shufelt or Teller.
[transcribed by L.D., November 2014]