1857-President Buchanan, in his annual message to Congress, requests money for soldiers and supplies to suppress the revolution in the Utah Territory.
Hang Them All
Federal judges, free from local politics, (and you certainly won’t find one like that in Kansas City, Missouri) were especially influential in making courts effective on the frontier. Outstanding was Isaac Charles Parker, known as the Hanging Judge. His court at Fort Smith Arkansas, had jurisdiction over the wild Indian Territory, where outlaws of several races terrorized large sections of country, robbing and killing with little concern for the law. Ohio-born Parker had been a Missouri judge and congressman. When he assumed his duties at Fort Smith in 1875, he was, at thirty-six, the youngest man on the federal bench. He took his new duties seriously. In his first court term, he tried ninety-one criminals. Of eighteen murder cases, fifteen ended in conviction. Of eight killers sentenced to be hanged, one was killed while trying to escape and another had his sentence commuted to life in prison, and the other six were hanged in public on September 3, as several thousand watched. Most people approved of the new judge. “The certainty of punishment is the only sure prevention of crime,” said Fort Smith’s Western Independent, “and the administration of the laws by Judge Parker has made him a terror to all evildoers in the Indian country.” During the twenty-one years in which he presided over the court, Judge Parker lost sixty-five deputy marshals, killed while trying to perform their duties. He tried more than thirteen thousand crimes that carried the death penalty; he sentenced 172 to be hanged. Some escaped the noose by dying in jail or by obtaining commutation or presidential reprieve, but 88 swung from the gallows outside of his jail. By the time of Judge Parker’s death, late in 1896, most of the West had been tamed. Feuds, range wars and vigilante hangings were less common. Such primitive means of attaining justice had given way to the application of statutory law through the courts. Except for sporadic outbreaks, the West had become almost as law-abiding as the rest of the country.
This Day…
1870-The opening round of the El Paso Salt War erupted in Ben Dowell’s saloon when a local lawyer named B.F. Williams killed Judge Gaylord Clarke and wounded politician Albert Jennings Fountain. Fountain brought Williams down with a rifle shot, then state police Captain A. H. French dashed in and finished Williams off with a shot to the head.
Outside the Law
Several bandits of Mexican outlaws included members who were dispossessed miners. In the two years following the passage of the California tax law, these thieves maintained an intensive program of horse stealing, running off cattle, holding up stagecoaches, robbing saloons and stores. Nobody knew who was in these bands, but when their depredations occurred hundreds of miles apart people came to the conclusion that there were at least five bands. The name of the leader of each was said to be Joaquin-a common Mexican name-and it is noticeable that no surnames were mentions. In fact, no one knew any of the bandits’ names. Outlawry became so frequent that, in the spring of 1853, a bill was introduced in the California legislature offering a reward for the head of “Joaquin,” no last name given. It was pointed out that a law putting a price on the head of a man who was unknown except by the popular sobriquet, “Joaquin,” would be unconstitutional, and the bill failed to pass. However, the legislature did authorize a former Texan, Harry Love, to raise a small company of mounted rangers to capture the “robbers commanded by the five Joaquins.” Governor John Bigler, on his own authority, offered a reward of $1,500 for any Joaquin killed or captured. For about two months the rangers did little but chase rumors. Then one day they came on a group of Mexicans sitting around a campfire. After the rangers had asked a few questions, both groups began shooting. The rangers killed two of the band and captured two. One of the dead was identified as Manuel Garcia, a notorious thief and murderer better known as Three-Fingered Jack; the other, though not identified, was said to have referred to himself as the leader. Since the reward offered had been only for a Joaquin, the rangers quickly decided that the dead leader was a Joaquin. They cut off his head and the hand of Three-Finger Jack. These mementos were taken to Sacramento. A grateful legislature added $5,000 to the government’s reward and the grisly relics, preserved in jars of alcohol, were exhibited in various California towns. It should be noted that the first reports said only that this head belonged to Joaquin. No last name was mentioned. Later, however, the rangers obtained affidavits that the head belonged to Joaquin Murieta, a man wanted for murder. Three Mexicans in the party who had escaped said later that the beloved man was Joaquin Valenzuela. The Alta California, a San Francisco newspaper, denounced the ranger action as a humbug. The Joaquin fiasco might have been forgotten except for the appearance in 1854 of a fictional paperback entitled the Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit by John Rollin Ridge. The lurid word made Murieta a legendary Robin Hood who suited the romantic tastes of the readers of his time. The work was pirated by many other hack writers until the fictitious and heroic Joaquin Murieta became, in many people’s minds, a historic character-so historic that two of California’s best early-day historians, H.H. Bancroft and Theodore Hittell, put him in their serious texts as a real person.
Flora Mundis: Lady Horse Thief an Excerpt from The Bedside Book of Bad Girls
Tom King followed five, spirited, fast-moving horses into a dense line of trees seven miles outside the town of Fredonia, Kansas. It was a stifling hot, August day in 1894. The ground the criminal’s horse’s hooves pounded into was cracked and dry. Sweat foamed around the animal’s neck and hind quarters. Low hanging branches on brown, thirsty trees slapped at them as they passed by. King, dressed in worn trousers, chaps, flannel shirt, a large brimmed hat, and a tan duster, skillfully maneuvered his ride around limbs that had fallen and lay about on the path they raced along.
King and his roan were directly beside the five horses as they broke through the other side of the copse of trees. His horse leapt over a cluster of large boulders standing between the rider and the open prairie. Tom leaned back in the saddle as his horse jumped to let the wind strip off his coat. In that moment Tom and the horse were in mid-air, and the coat trailed behind him like leather wings.
From a crude camp in the far distance, Fredonia Sheriff H.S. McCleary watched Tom and his mount keep pace with the horses. The lawman cast a glance at the deputies standing on either side of him. Their eyes were fixed on King. If not for the fact that the authorities were there to arrest King for horse stealing, they might have felt compelled to congratulate him on his equestrian skills. They had apprehended King’s partner, Ed Bullock, at the thieve’s camp, placed a gag around his mouth, and handcuffed him to the back of a wagon. The ground around the vehicle was strewn with provisions that had once been packed inside the wagon. One of the items was a large trunk. The sheriff and his men had been searching for something, and the hunt appeared to have concluded with the trunk. The lock on it had been busted; the trunk was opened, and an assortment of stolen jewelry, resting on a long tray, gleamed in the sunlight.
Bullock tugged at the handcuffs in a desperate attempt to break free. He wanted to warn King about what was waiting for him. King led the ill-gotten horses into the camp, realizing too late the law had found him. The sheriff leveled his gun at the outlaw, and King slowly dismounted. He surrendered his weapon without having to be asked. The sheriff took a few steps toward King, studying his face as he walked. The sun and wind had darkened King’s complexion, and at first glance he appeared to be a mixed-blood Cherokee Indian. Sheriff McCleary asked him how old he was, and King told him his age was twenty-five. The sheriff scrutinized King’s face then told him to remove his hat. In that moment it was clear that the notorious Tom King was really the woman named Flora Mundis. Her lashes and small features gave her away.
Ed Bullock wasn’t a man either. She was Jesse Whitewings. Both women were from the Cottonwood Creek bottoms of West Guthrie, Oklahoma. Flora has been arrested twice in the last two years but managed to escape before standing trial for her crimes. Knowing her history Sheriff McCleary wasted no time taking the two women to his jail in Canadian County. He would not make the same mistake other lawmen had who were too intimidated by the fact that the wanted horse thieves were indeed ladies but was going to treat them like the criminals they were.
According to the August 17, 1892, edition of the El Reno, Oklahoma, newspaper, the El Reno Democrat, that once the women were locked up the sheriff recognized how difficult it would be for his deputies to follow his example. “There is something ominous to the atmosphere of the jail here…a death-like quietude and a tip-toe carefulness about the place not common of men used to handling hardened criminals. The officials appear awkward and confused, and the turnkey is beside himself. The famous woman, who has caused so much trouble in the past, is going to cause much more in the immediate future. The jailers have arranged it so that a physician is near at hand…although some believe the event will take place without accident.”
Flora Mundis was born Flora Quick in Johnson County, Missouri, in 1875. Her father, Daniel Quick was a wealthy rancher and farmer. He was married twice and fathered fifteen children. Flora was the youngest daughter and his favorite child. She possessed considerable talent, and at fourteen Daniel enrolled her into Holden College, a school for the arts in Holden, Missouri. In less than a month, Flora had left school and returned home. She didn’t like being confined to a classroom and preferred instead to ride her horse around the family estate.
Flora’s father died in 1880. The twenty-four acres of land he owned as well as $13 thousand in personal property was divided equally among his children. Daniel named his oldest son executor of his holdings, and, in addition to taking charge of the finances, he assumed responsibility for his siblings. He decided to send his head-strong sister Flora to a school in Sedalia, Missouri. He hoped that while there she would settle down and marry a man of good, moral character. Flora did the exact opposite.
After a brief stay in school, she dropped out and married an older, disreputable man named Ora Mundis. Family and friends warned Flora that he was untrustworthy and only after her part of her father’s estate. She didn’t believe them. She thought Ora was exciting. The couple spent their evenings in Holden visiting the saloons along the main thoroughfare of town, drinking and gambling. The newlyweds quickly bored with the nightly routine and decided to leave the area to participate in a hunting expedition. Mister and Missus Mundis returned to Holden a year after they departed. They were heavily armed and boasting about their encounters with the law and how feared they were in the Indian Nation. They warned Holden residents that they were “bad, bad people that were not to be trifled with.” Holden’s city marshal was not intimidated by the pair. He relieved them of their guns they were carrying and strongly suggested they leave town.
Shortly after Flora sold her share of Daniel Quick’s estate she and her husband left Holden and headed for Guthrie. They arrived at the growing Oklahoma rail town in November 1892. Flora was seventeen years old, and Ora was thirty.
The two lived a fast and elaborate lifestyle until the money Flora made from the sale of her father’s estate ran out. Ora left his wife soon after that. Desperate and penniless, Flora turned to prostitution. During the day she could often be seen riding her horse through town dressed in an equestrian costume she had purchased with her inheritance. Her gowns were green and black and according to the September 26, 1893, edition of the Cedar Rapids, Iowa, newspaper the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, she “wore upon her head a black turban trimmed with a gold braid, which glistened brightly in the sun or under the electric lights.” A curious reporter for the Guthrie Daily Leader newspaper sat down with Flora at the saloon where she worked and dared to ask her what had become of her husband. “I don’t know,” she told him. “We didn’t get along well and fought everyday. I suspect he’s better company now,” she offered solemnly.
During Flora’s time in Guthrie, she became good friends with a madam and gambler named Jesse Whitewings and joined her in the criminal act of horse stealing. When they weren’t stealing the animals outright they were trading their services for horses or money to acquire a place to keep their stolen livestock.
Flora’s first tussle with the law did not involve stolen horses or prostitution but a claim of assault she made against a prominent physician in the area. Frustrated that he spurned her advances she falsely charged Doctor Jordan with attacking and trying to rape her. Convinced a jury would believe the teary-eyed, tawny, complicated beauty, Doctor Jordan decided to flee the territory rather than go to court. The allegation caused irreparable harm to Flora’s business. Customers stopped doing business with her because they couldn’t trust her not make accusations against them should she be so inclined. Faced with being a pauper, Flora decided to pursue stealing horses full time. She traded in her fancy clothes for cowboy gear and set off to solidify her position in outlaw history.
During the spring of 1893 she brazenly stole numerous horses from hitching posts outside stores, family farms and ranches. The stolen horses were then taken to Flora’s hideout, and any animal that was carrying a brand was quickly re-branded and sold in an area called Hell’s Fringe. Two, well-known lawmen from Oklahoma City named Chris Madsen and Heck Thomas tracked a few hundred stolen animals to the outlaw’s hideout in Canadian County, and Flora was subsequently arrested.
In June 1893 Tom King was thrown in jail alongside Ernest Lewis. Lewis, nicknamed “the Killer,” was incarcerated for murder and suspicion of robbing a train. King and Lewis became fast friends, and Lewis convinced the horse thief to venture into the train robbing business. King believed the idea had merit and agreed to help his new partner escape the Oklahoma City jail. They would plan a train robbing job on the outside.
On June 27, 1893, Tom revealed her true self to an impressionable guard. She seduced him and locked him in her cell. King then let Lewis out of his cell, and the two fled that area on a pair of stolen horses. The criminals made their way to a place called the Outlet (a sixty-eight-miles- wide strip of land south of the Oklahoma-Kansas border) and immediately set their sights on robbing the Santa Fe train. King hired a friend named Manvel to help them get the job done. At 3:30 in the afternoon on June 29, 1893, the trip set their plan into action.
Carrying a rifle in his coat, Manvel boarded the train in Oklahoma City and hid himself in the smoking car. Manvel was supposed to jump out when the train reached Black Bear Creek between Red Rock and Wharton, overtake the conductor, and order him to stop the train. King and Lewis were waiting at that location to board the vehicle and rob it. The conductor did not let the outlaw get the upper hand. He wrestled Manvel’s gun from him, knocking him out in the process. Manvel was arrested but not before divulging the whereabouts of King and Lewis.
When the train didn’t stop, King and Lewis realized something had gone wrong. They decided to separate and leave the area before law enforcement arrived. Lewis headed to Colorado and King remained in Oklahoma. She abandoned any further thought of robbing trains and returned to stealing horses.
Authorities searched the Oklahoma Territory looking for Tom King. On July 12, 1893, Deputy Robacker of Guthrie, spotted the wanted horse thief at a livery stable in town. She was sitting atop her ride talking with a few men completely unaware she had been recognized by the law. She was arrested and returned to the Oklahoma jail where she had escaped once before.
By August 8, 1893, King had broken out of her cell again and fled to a town twenty miles west of Oklahoma City called Yukon. According the September 26, 1893, edition of the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette, “the case after King was marked by two incidents, one tragic and the other sensational. In the darkness two parties of searchers mistook each other for horse thieves and opened fire with Winchesters,” the article read. “Will Fightmaster, son of the sheriff, was killed. Another party of deputies discovered a young woman in male attire in company with a young man in a secluded spot in the woods. They thought of course they had caught Tom King but this young woman turned out to be a well-known railroad man’s wife out for a lark.”
King was recaptured and hauled back to Oklahoma City. This time the jailer locked her in a steel cage. Her stay at the facility was brief, however. Law enforcement agents in Canadian County demanded the outlaw be turned over to them to be tried for horse theft charges she committed there when her illegal trade had begun.
Deputy Marshals Chris Madsen and Heck Thomas loaded King and several other prisoners onto a wagon and transported them across the Territory to El Reno, another town in Central Oklahoma. The crafty horse thief managed to break out of that jail, too, on December 5, 1893. The headline across the top of the December 8, 1893, edition of the Cedar Rapids Evening Gazette read, “Tom King, the Romantic Horse Thief, Breaks El Reno Jail in her Third Escape; She is Bound to Make a Record!” The article that followed the headline read, “It seems there is no jail that can hold her. Even the Oklahoma City jail, which is considered the strongest in the Territory, yielded before her magic art… She is very cunning and clever. The vigilant officers usually get her, but getting her does not seem to be of much effect in curing the mania with which she is afflicted. She finds the same delight in horse stealing as other women would in reading novels or playing croquet. It is her ambition to be the most famous horse thief of her generation, and already she has taken more of them than any man in the history of the Southwest.”
Included in the search team to recapture King in the winter of 1893 was a pack of bloodhounds. King managed to elude all but one of the dogs. He followed her across the South Canadian and Wichita counties to a point near the Kiowa-Comanche-Apache reservation line. At some point King was able to subdue the animal and prevent it from coming after her again. The December 17, 1893, edition of the Guthrie Daily Leader reported that the hound had been shot at close range. “He evidently had caught her trouser leg,” the article explained, “for beside where the dog lay was a piece of Scotch-Tweed of irregular form and about the size of the sole of a man’s shoe, which is said to be a piece of the suit of men’s clothes which Missus King was allowed to wear in jail.”
Between January and August 1894 Tom kept a very low profile. Rumors that she had formed her own gang and was criss-crossing Oklahoma planning various crimes circulated among law enforcement officers in Guthrie and Oklahoma City. One of the men suspected of partnering with Tom in a series of horse thefts around Tecumseh, Oklahoma, was Bill Dalton. Dalton was a bank robber and the brother of Gratton, Bob, and Emmett of the famous western outlaw gang known as the Dalton Gang.
According to the August 6, 1894 edition of the Austin, Texas newspaper the Daily Light, Bill Dalton participated in a poker game in which he put up Tom’s prized horse as a bet. The incident reportedly went as follows: “Flora Mundis, alias Tom King’s career as a horse thief ended with her arrest on August 7, 1894 in Fredonia, Kansas. She was extradited to Canadian County, Oklahoma and a trial was set. She was visibly pregnant when she went before the judge and although convicted of stealing horses he did not sentence her to serve anytime in jail. King was released on bail and left the Territory.”
Oklahoma lawman Heck Thomas believed King was killed in an attempted bank robbery attempt in southern Arizona. Thomas told a reporter for the Guthrie Daily Leader newspaper that the description and measurements of the outlaw shot at the scene of the crime matched those of the infamous King.
The last anyone heard from Tom King was late April 1896. Oklahoma City attorney and one of King’s friends, D.C. Lewis, received a letter from her that stated she was headed West by train. She promised to visit Lewis around Christmas but never showed. What really happened to Tom King and her child is a mystery.
Destined to Divorce an Excerpt from Object Matrimony
Deacon Joe Sleet’s correspondence with widow Nellie Wallace was full of promise for the future. When they began writing one another in late 1925, Mrs. Wallace had hoped to find a man who would love and care for her as her deceased husband once had. When she placed an ad in the “Get Acquainted” section of a western magazine and the deacon responded she believed he was the answer to her heart’s longing. “I’m not a flapper,” her advertisement read, “but I would like to exchange letters with a man between the age of twenty-five and thirty-two. I want a husband good and true, there is a chance it might be you,” the notice concluded.
Twenty-two year old Nellie Wallace lived in Tchula, Mississippi 1,500 miles from Joe Sleet’s home in El Paso, Texas. Of all the letters she received in reply to her ad, Joe struck her fancy completely. In a short time Nellie was writing Joe to the exclusion of anyone else. Through his letters she learned that he was a deacon in the Baptist church and that he was a widower. Nellie confided in him that she too was the victim of a sad romance, her husband having died some years ago.
The correspondence was hardly a month old before Joe had been granted permission to call his fair correspondent “Sweetheart.” Another week and respective photographs were exchanged; still another and a row of x’s appeared at the bottom of their letters. Another month passed and more letters were delivered at the Sleet home. In one of those letters Nellie admitted there was a “spark of love aglow,” in her heart.
The fervor of the letters increased with their frequency. Then came the inevitable exchange of locks of hair with Nellie giving an accurate description of herself. She informed Joe she was five feet, eight inches tall, weighed 180 pounds but, being tall, did not look obese. “And goodness knows,” the account concluded, “I like to eat.” Her devotion to the truth did not quench the flame of Joe’s growing love for Nellie. “Sweetheart,” he replied, “your age, weight, hair, eyes and everything is all right with me if you will only make some suggestion about the ‘yes’ part of it. Say ‘yes’ now, Nellie. Your loving Joe.”
Nellie’s letter back to Joe included the answer he had pleaded for and he was elated when he sent a note back to her telling of his joy. In this ecstatic note Joe drew a picture of his heart with “love drops” falling from it. “Now you can see,” was the accompanying comment, “that my heart belongs to you.” He signed his letter “Your All-the-Time Valentine.”
At a later date Joe sent another letter detailing what train Nellie needed to take to get to him and what was to happen once she arrived in Texas. “We will be married at my home the night you arrive. I live with my mother. I am keeping our plans a secret from the pastor. I will tell him on Sunday that I am going to call a deacon’s meeting at my home on Thursday night and that the three deacons and I want him to be present. He will think it is just a regular business meeting until he finds out that one of his deacons wants him to officiate the happiest occasion of his life.”
It was that rosy promise and the anticipation of a joyous future that Nellie caught the next train for El Paso. The ceremony came off on schedule and Nellie, happy to escape bachelor-girlhood, joyous in her new found love, thought that her life couldn’t get any happier. Her happiness was short-lived however.
The first real problem between Nellie and Joe started with Joe’s mother. She did not like Nellie and was not shy about showing it. The two women could not agree on anything and were vocal about it. Furthermore, the groom had been led to believe, because of Nellie’s acknowledged fondness of food, that she would be able to make lavish meals. Joe was doomed to disappointment. Within a month the disgruntled bridge groom, fed up with the bickering and lack of home cooked meals by his wife, quietly disappeared one day. Joe’s mother broke the news to her daughter-in-law that her new spouse had moved to Chicago. Nellie was humiliated and furious. She moved to a neighbor’s house and began making plans to divorce Joe. In the meantime she found a job as a caretaker for an elderly woman. Joe beat Nellie in filing for a divorce citing as his reasons that his “mail-order bride,” had refused to cook his meals, fought with his mother, threatened his mother’s life and demanded that his mother leave. Nellie quickly countersued on the grounds of desertion. According to the October 5, 1926 edition of the El Paso Times, Nellie was, mortified by Joe’s accusation. “I don’t want him anymore,” she told a Times reporter. “And I wouldn’t live with him, but I am determined to go to court and to show him up.”
Meanwhile, the deacon sadly thought over his broken dreams and put himself on record with the Times as being “through” with mail-order matrimony. “I found out a month after the wedding,” he affirmed, “that our marriage was a mistake.” “I tried to get my wife to go back to her own mother. She refused. She wanted us to get a house to ourselves. I could not afford to do that. There was no use trying to reason with her. I left El Paso for Alexandria, Louisiana, my old home, where I remained a week. I did not leave her, as she claims, penniless. There was a deposit of $75 in the State National Bank, which was available for a ticket to Tchula, Mississippi.”
The divorce case took time to prepare. Meanwhile, the congregation of the church where Joe served was divided in their feelings and greatly concerned over the matter. There were those that sided with the bride and those who declared themselves to be loyal supporters of the deacon.
During a Sunday morning service directly following the announcement of the official breakup of the newlyweds, the atmosphere was electric with unvoiced opinion. The bride and groom sat on opposite sides of the church and members of the congregation who had taken a side in the matter sat with the person they believed had the most legitimate case.
When the case finally came to trial thousands of El Paso residence flooded the courtroom to hear the outcome of the troubled marriage between the deacon and his mail-order bride. The Sleet’s divorce was finalized on October 1, 1926.
Nellie and Joe Sleet’s mail-order marriage wasn’t the only correspondence romance that ended in bitter divorce. In 1914, Leola McGover from Excelsior Springs, Missouri waited patiently to walk down the aisle of the Methodist church in Silver City, Idaho and exchange vows with Lawrence Woodring, a miner who was living in Silver City. The couple had met via an advertisement Lawrence posted in the New Plan magazine. He was searching for a wife and Leola answered the call. They corresponded for more than two years before Lawrence proposed. The date of June 14, 1914 was set the wedding. The interesting outcome of the much anticipated event made the Town Talk section of the Coeur d’Alene Press. According to the articled dated June 22, the wedding between Leola and Lawrence was to be an “elegant event.” Among the bridesmaids was a cousin from Kansas City, Missouri. The groom and the cousin got along very well and the bride-to-be was pleased. Leola wanted her husband to like all the members of her family.
On the day of the wedding the church was packed with relatives and friends of both families. “The intended bride was beautiful in her marriage garb,” the Town Talk article read. “She was as happy as any girl has a right to be. Suddenly the blow fell. It was a horrible blow. It came from a note – a note from the man who was to have been her husband within the hour.”
“Leola,” the note began. “I’m sorry, but there’s nothing else that I can do. Your cousin and I fell madly in love the moment we looked at each other. Our happiness lies together. And if I married you I would put a curse on both our lives. Please do your best to forgive me.”
Leola was stunned by the revelation and fainted. Lawrence and his former fiancé’s cousin traveled to Kansas City, Missouri where they were married shortly thereafter. Leola left Idaho and settled in San Francisco.
The five brides of George Stevens experienced similar shock and dismay when they learned the man they wed was married to several others. From 1929 to 1932, sixty-three year old Stevens used the matrimonial agency the American Friendship Society to find a suitable partner to marry. Stevens was a traveling shoe salesman for the Stride Rite Shoe Company based out of Cincinnati, Ohio.
According to the May 21, 1932 edition of the Hutchinson, Kansas newspaper the Hutchinson News, Stevens told representatives at the five different American Friendship Society offices across the state that “he was lonely and needed a faithful wife.” The Society was successful in being able to match Stevens with just such women. After exchanging a few letters with Blanche Burch of Athens, Ohio, Lulu Burke of Plainwell, Cora Hamilton of Union City, Utha Liggett of Margurette Springs, and Mary Endres of Oberlin, he arranged to meet them. Not long after their initial meetings he proposed and quickly married. After each wedding he spent about a month with his brides then departed with whatever cash or jewelry of theirs he could make off with.
Lulu Burke was the first to report Stevens to Athens’ police. He deserted her in October 1931 taking $11 in cash and her checkbook with him when he left. It wasn’t until Utha Liggett came forward to report that her husband stole $800 from her that the authorities noticed a similarity in the crimes and the description of Stevens. By reviewing teletypes exchanged between police forces statewide law enforcement was able to identify the accused as the same man. Further investigation showed that Stevens was not only married to Burke and Liggett but three other women besides.
Steven was arrested at a hotel room in Cincinnati, Ohio on May 2, 1932 and charged with bigamy and theft.
This Day…
1873-Four miners strike the “Big Bonanza” while digging through the rock of Davidson Mountain near Virginia City, Nevada. At a depth of 1167 feet, the miners discover a vein 54 feet wide filled with silver and gold. The richest strike in history of mining produces a fortune estimated between $150 million and $200 million.
He Had It Comin’
Okay, it’s not a tale about an Old West figure, but it is one that seems to fit the season in a way. A child was born to suffer and die for our sins. Pontius Pilate, the Bible tells us, played one of the crucial roles in the history of religion-he ordered the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. But the Bible never says what became of him afterward. Pilate, as procurator of Judea, ruled the region on behalf of the Roman Emperor Tiberius for ten years, from A.D. 26 to 36. He was considered a harsh ruler and incited trouble among his Jewish subjects from the start. After he installed symbols of the Emperor the Jews complained to Rome that the emblems represented false idols and got Pilate to remove them. He turned around and issued coins with pagan symbols, and caused riots when he took money from the Jewish temples to build and aqueduct. By the time the Jewish priests pressured him to execute Christ, some say, Pilate obliged them in order to avoid further confrontation. If so, his acquiescence didn’t last long. In A.D. 36 Pilate finally was recalled by Rome to answer charges of cruelty and oppression after he massacred a group of Samaritans. Pilate arrived in Rome to find the Emperor Tiberius dead and Caligula in his place. Soon after, according to the fourth-century writer Eusebius, Pilate committed suicide. It is unclear whether Caligula ordered Pilate to kill himself or whether Pilate did it in anticipation of the vicious Emperor’s sentence. There is a legend that Pilate’s body was thrown into the Rhone River, where he caused the same trouble. His body finally was put to rest, it is said, in a deep pool in the Alps. Among some early Christians, Pilate’s suicide was seen as repentance for his execution of Christ. In other news, be one of the first five people to request a copy of the Bedside Book of Bad Girls: Outlaw Women of the Midwest and the book shall be yours. For those you know who like true tales of western baddies this will make the perfect gift.
