CRIME – JASPER COUNTY

            In its early history, Jasper County bore an unsavory reputation. The impenetrable character of the swamp land along the Kakakee River afforded a safe retreat for a class of criminals who were early know as the Bandits of the Prairie, and while their depredations were not committed so much upon the people here, they made this region a resort to evade the pursuit from other quarters, and gained for the county reputation of being a community of those-thieves. This class infested the Northwest as early as 1837, and while they scrupled at the commission of no form of crime, they were especially annoying in their principal business of horse-stealing and counterfeiting. Their plan of operations was to take the lighter horses of Illinois to Indiana and sell them, making their return trip with heavy draft horses which were disposed of in Iowa and Michigan. For a time these depredations were carried on with impunity. The population, scatters at considerable distances apart, was principally confined to the edge of the timber. Leaving the prairie a broad highway for these bandits to pass form one end to the country to the other undiscovered. The early settlers did not submit to this state of affairs without some efforts to bring these persons to justice and to recover their property, but singly the pioneers proved poor trappers of this game. The bandits were known to be desperate characters, adepts in the use of weapons and in traveling the open prairie, and it often happened that when a party got close upon the thieves, discretion seemed the better part of valor, and the chase was given up. Their success emboldened these robbers, and the early land and stock buyers learned to seldom travel alone, and never unarmed.

            A good horse caused many persons to be waylaid and killed, and a large amount of money in the possession of an unprotected person, almost inevitably brought him into trouble. Burglary soon followed success on the road. Farmers became more cautious and evaded these footpads. In this case the cabin was entered, and the money taken, while the family was kept discreetly quiet by a threatening pistol. The open-handed hospitality of a new country made the settlers an easy prey to those who lacked event he traditional respect of the Bedouin freebooter. It was impossible to discriminate between the worthy stranger and the bandit, in disguise. Civil authority seemed hopelessly incapable of remedying the evil. Occasionally a desperado would be apprehended. Legal quibbles would follow and the rascals get free, or justice would be delayed until a jail-delivery would set him loose to prey upon the public again. This occurred with such monotonous regularity and unvarying success, that the scattered pioneers began to lose confidence in each other, and anarchy seemed about to be ushered in.

            Counterfeiting was an evil which was carried on to a considerable extent within the limits of this county, and caused a great deal of indignation among the honest settlers here. The two classes of outlaws were united and had their sympathizers everywhere among the early settlers. Indeed, the latter class became so bold in their operations as to take little pains to conceal their work, and so skillful as to deceive the officials of the land office. It is said that a neighbor came upon a blacksmith of the county one rainy day, and found him busily engaged in coining bogus money. He made no attempt to conceal his dies, but said, in a matter-of-fact way, that he had just finished making enough to enter another quarter section of land, and proposed to stop the business. This he did, destroying his dies and showing them to his neighbor, but he secured his land and no official scrutiny was ever directed toward his manner of getting his property. This was not an isolated case, and both men were respected as men of high social character and probity, but the theory seemed to exist that so long as the evil was not directed against the home community, it was a venial crime. 

                        THE JASPER RANGERS

            Such looseness in the public morals, however had their inevitable re-action, and the reputation and peace of community began to suffer. Horse-thieving, petty larceny of all kinds, malicious destruction of property, murderous assaults and counterfeit became prevalent right here, and finally aroused the people to he necessity of a determined prosecution of these offenses. Accordingly, in February, 1858, a company was organized in this county under an act authorizing the formation of companies for the detection and apprehension of horse-thieves and other felons, and defining their powers. It was composed of two men from each township under the direction of a captain, and each man was constituted a detective to arrest or cause the arrest of any suspicious character. The effect of this company’s work was prompt and salutary. Before the organization was two weeks old, it secured the apprehension of a noted horse-thief, and a week later had him safely incarcerated in the penitentiary under sentence of a five years’ term. The honest residents of the county cordially aided the company, which in a year or two rid the county of the gang which infested the county. On one occasion, a new wagon of a settler was found mutilated and essentially ruined. Suspicion pointed to a man and his four sons, one of whom was apprehended and examined. Nothing could be elicited, and it was determine to try more forcible means. A rope was procured and the victim pulled up to a tree in the court house yard. After suspending him as long as they dared, he was lowered. But he still remained firm in his denial of any knowledge of the affair. He was again strung up and would probably have died had not one of the Rangers cut him down. Once brought to his senses, he gave the whole gang away. This organization subsequently got upon the track of the counterfeiters’ organization, found and destroyed dies of these operators in Union Township, McClellan, Bogus Island and west of these places. These places were evidently the workshops of the gang, and contained guns, saddles and bridles, counterfeit coin, dies, provision, etc. There was no serious encounter, though armed men appeared to dispute the party’s advance. Finding a determined show of force would not turn the Rangers from their course, they made a hurried retreat. With the growth of settlements and the drainage of these swamp lands, this species of outlawry has long since ceased, and Jasper County bears a reputation for a law-abiding, thrifty population second to no county in the State. Its courts have had no cases of remarkable importance, save perhaps the action of the County Commissioners against a treasurer of the county, and the controversy in relation to the formation of Newton County. These were both settled in the Supreme Court.

Source: Counties of Warren, Benton, Jasper and Newton, Indiana by F.A. Battey & Co., 1883.