THE MURDER OF JONATHAN DEWEES.

     On the 15th of July, 1859, Jonathan Dewees was killed in Marion township. The circumstances were about these: Near the Crooked creek ford at Van Doren's mill, stood a small house which was used as a bawdy house. Proceedings were so disreputable and annoying to the neighbors, that they concluded to take the law in their own hands and abate it as a nuisance. Accordingly on the evening of the day stated, about a dozen of men proceeded to the house to carry their determination into effect. Meeting with resistance a fight ensued, the assailing party being fired upon by the inmates of the house, one shot taking effect upon Mr. Dewees, who lived but a few moments, the ball entering the back between the shoulders and passing through the chest. There were four persons in the house at the time--two men and two women--but it is presumed that Arnold Custar, one of the men, fired the fatal shot. In the confusion he escaped. He was indicted for the murder by the grand jury, but has never been, and probably never will be arrested, and the indictment still stands against him.

THE KILLING OF DR. SALES.

     On the 18th of August. 1868, Dr. J. T. Sales was shot by Dr. L. E. Hogue, on the streets of Brighton, from the effects of which he died one week afterward. Hogue escaped; was never brought to trial. The circumstances in the case were as follows:
Mr. Sales, in connection with others, had given Hogue a letter of credit to a Chicago house where he bought $300 worth of jewelry. Soon after returning Hogue packed up his things and sent them to Fairfield, and himself left the next morning. The gentlemen who had signed the letter of credit followed him to Fairfield and attached the goods. Hogue returned to Brighton, paid the costs of the suit, and had a team ready to leave. Dr. Sales met him on the street and began to remonstrate with him for his conduct. Sharp words followed and Sales took hold of Hogue and began to shake him, whereupon the latter drew a pistol and shot his assailant. The county offered a reward for the apprehension of Hogue, but he was never found.

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THE M'NALLY-KING MURDER.

     At the term of district court held in October, 1869, John McNally was tried for the murder of Thomas King. The jury brought in a verdict of murder in the second degree. Judge Sampson sentenced the prisoner to the penitentiary for life. The case was then taken to the supreme court and a new trial was ordered, which was taken to Muscatine on a change of venue. The attorney for the defense setting up the plea of insanity, a commission was appointed to pass on his sanity. The jury finding the defendant insane, he was directed to be sent to the State asylum at Mt. Pleasant. The circumstances of this murder were as follows: It seems that: McNally had held a grudge of near twenty years standing against King. In the summer of 1868, after having been drinking freely, and while under the influence of the liquor, the former called at the house of King and informed him that he had called to settle that difficulty. King invited him in, and while the two were discussing the matter McNally stabbed him with a knife. King died a few days afterward.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JOHN O. DAYTON.

     John O. Dayton was shot in a billiard saloon at West Chester on Saturday, the 19th of August, 1876. He was engaged in a game of billiards with J, K. Dayton at the time, and was leaning on the table awaiting his turn to play, when an unknown assailant fired a revolver between the curtains of an up-raised window. The pistol-shot was fired simultaneous with the billiard stroke and was not heard by any of the parties in the room. Dayton cried out "Hold on, I am shot," and upon examination blood was found flowing from the wound, from the effects of which he afterward died. E. C. Clemons was arrested on suspicion and lodged in jail the following day. The circumstances which fastened suspicion on Clemons were that two boot marks in the soft ground near the window exactly corresponded with the boots worn by him, and the fact that Clemons was a known enemy of Dayton and the only one. During the month of July previous, Mrs. Clemons was granted a divorce. Dayton was one of her witnesses on which account a feud grew up between the two.
     Clemons was indicted by the grand jury, and his case came up for trial during the month of March following. District attorney Lafferty managed the prosecution, while the defense was conducted by Henderson and Jones, assisted by G. D. Woodin, of Sigourney. There were about seventy-five witnesses examined and the trial lasted four days. The jury was out about twenty-four hours when a verdict of murder in the second degree was rendered.

KILLED BY THE CARS.

     Mr. John Vincent, his wife, and Mr. Giltner were run into by a freight train between Keota and West Chester, on Monday, October 31, the two former being instantly killed and the latter fatally injured. They were returning home from a visit to some friends at the time of the accident. For several hundred yards in the vicinity of the accident the railroad track runs parallel with the wagon road. They saw the train coming and whipped the team into a brisk trot in order to cross the track before the train arrived. The engineer sounded the alarm twice, but they stil1 kept on. When the engineer became convinced that they were determined to cross he gave the

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signal for brakes and reversed the engine, but to no purpose. The pilot struck the wagon midway and knocked it into a thousand pieces. Mrs. Vincent was found dead under the pilot when the train was brought to a stop, and both the men were on the pilot, both insensible, with legs broken, bodies bruised, and badly cut about their heads. Mr. Vincent was eighty-one years old, and one of the first settlers of the county, he having come to Iowa in 1842.

ANOTHER RAILROAD ACCIDENT.

     On Tuesday, June 19, 1877, an express train fell through a bridge about one mile north of Brighton, when coming at a rapid rate down the grade toward Skunk river. The bridge was about thirty feet high, and is supposed to have been undermined by the heavy rain of the night previous. The engine, baggage-car and one passenger coach went down. The engineer, baggage-master, fireman, express-messenger and two passengers were badly hurt. It was some four or five hours before the injured persons could be rescued from the wreck. It was the most serious railroad accident which had occurred in the county, with the exception of the breaking down of the Ainsworth bridge shortly after the war, when several discharged soldiers lost their lives within eight miles of their homes.

THE MILLER MURDER.

     Early in the summer of 1878 a man by the name of Miller was murdered in the vicinity of West Chester. All the circumstances attending the homicide were wrapt in obscurity, and to the present time it is not known who committed the deed. Thomas Dayton was arrested on suspicion, and, after preliminary examination, was bound over in the sum of $8,000 to await the action of the grand jury. His case, however, has not yet come to trial, neither is it likely to unless stronger evidence can be procured than that already made known.

BURNING OF THE RICHMOND BREWERY.

     The brewery owned by Henry Zahn, in Richmond, of this county, was burned on Sunday morning. May 3,1874, and the wife of Mr. Zahn perished in the flames. It seems that on the Saturday previous to the fire Mr. Zahn left home to attend to some business, and instructed his employes to be very careful about putting out the fire of the furnace in the evening. He did not return, that night, his business keeping him away. On the following morning between 4 and 6 o'clock the hired girl, who had slept during the night in the same room with Mrs. Zahn, was out milking the cow, when she discovered the building to be on fire. The town was soon aroused, and all attempts to stay the flames proving- to be in vain, the persons assembled turned their energies to saving as much as possible of the movable property, and in the excitement neglected to rescue Mrs. Zahn, who was asleep in an upper room, until it was too late. Her body was found in the ruins .about half consumed.

THREE SUICIDES AND ONE MURDER.

     Early in the year 1879 there were three suicides and one murder in the county in about one week's time.

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     On January 23, Oliver P. Hull, living in Lime Creek township murdered his daughter Emma, and shortly after committing the deed killed himself.
     February 8 John Strahkirk, living in Marion township, committed suicide.
     February 11 George Hill, visiting friends about three miles south of Ainsworth, took his own life.
     All three of these persons were doubtless laboring under temporary insanity at the time they committed the heinous crime. Hill was not a citizen of the county, his home at the time being in New York.

THE GREAT TORNADO.

     In early days Iowa had an unenviable notoriety for wind storms, and undeservedly so; for while a number of frightful storms have swept across the State, they have not been greater in number or more destructive in their results than in other States.
One of the most destructive tornadoes which ever passed through this latitude was the one occurring on the 22d of May, 1873. Certain portions of Washington county were particularly unfortunate.
     "About 6 o'clock in the morning the rain came down in torrents, and in less than thirty minutes the streams were "on a tear," and gave new highwater marks-the highest for many years. After it was over the people gazed up in the heavens and wished for dry weather with about as much solicitude as Noah did when the waters of the flood subsided and the dove was sent forth from the windows of the ark to look for the top of the mountain. The morning was warm and sultry; noon came, and up to that time, neither wind, hail nor rain.
     "About half-past 2 o'clock P. M. the clouds gathered in the west. More rain was predicted. An ominous silence prevailed--not a bird sung, and not a leaf fluttered in the air. The clouds passed over from the northwest to the southeast--just as clouds often do a few drops of rain came down at first, then the bottom seemed to fall out, and in a few minutes the streams were on another "bender." Hut still there was no wind, and as yet but little hail. The rain almost ceased, and Old Probabilities being absent, some of his lineal descendants looked again into the heavens and prophesied fair weather, but a yellowish tinge in the west and northwest caused many to shake their heads in doubt.
     "In a few minutes the drops of rain began to fall again, with hail-stones the size of a hazelnut, and when one came down as large as an acorn it was picked up and displayed to the eager crowd as a trophy. Stories were remembered, that were told by the grandfathers of the present generation, of hailstones falling as large as a hen's egg, in some other State. But Young America wouldn't believe it. But they did believe it, for while these old stories were being repeated, hailstones came down thick and fast, weighing from two to eight ounces, and measuring from three to four and a-half inches in diameter. Some were round and looked like white door-knobs; some were ragged and had the appearance of broken geodes; others looked like quartz, and many were egg-shaped; some had the appearance of three or four hailstones having been frozen or melted together-and when they fell on the house, awnings or sidewalks, some would bound like a "Star" ball, and others would break and fly like glass into a thousand pieces. One hailstone came down on the head of an old gentleman, who was standing on

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his porch, and started the" claret," but without waiting for further ceremonies he retired into the house, fully persuaded that he could see just as well by standing a little back.
     "During this time two c1ouds were seen-one above the other darting hither and thither, backward and forward, upward and downward, like one bird darts at another in the air, when suddenly, with a whirl, the two came together, and then sailed forth in an easterly direction at the rate of about twenty-five miles an hour, on an errand of death and destruction.
     "It bore the resemblance of a funnel, with the small end down, or, perhaps, shaped like the hopper of a grist or coffee-mill, but with this distinguishing difference: In this whirlwind hopper the grist came in at the bottom and went out at the top.
     "When it had broken in pieces and almost ground to powder everything it gathered in its march, the centrifugal force carried the contents to the outer rim, and it boiled over like soda-water. Sometimes it went up like a rocket fifty or sixty feet high, and moved with the current for a mile, and then like a hawk, with one fe1l swoop it came to the ground, and swept everything in its onward march from the face of the earth.
     "Rev. Mr. Coffman, who resided in Cedar township, says he heard a rumbling sound similar to the noise made by a passing train, the heavens growing continually more threatening and a brisk breeze blowing from the south. In the course of about an hour the storm burst with a1l its force and Coffman hurried his family into the cedar. The house did not lie directly in the track of the storm, but some out-houses which did were taken into pieces. W. P. Craven's stacks were taken from the ground and disappeared. The house of A. McKee was twisted entirely out of shape, his granary and stable destroyed.
     "The house of John Mauglin was unroofed, while his stable, wood-shed and smoke-house were swept away; his. buggy was twisted to pieces and all the fences destroyed.
"The house of George Gilchrist was tota1ly demolished and the foundation ground swept as clean as if with a new broom. Mr. G. was not at home and just as the rest of the family were about to make their way to a cave near the house the storm struck them. Silas Ross, with a small boy in his arms, was hurled several rods away, and was knocked senseless by a flying fragment. A boy by the name of Job was lifted into the air and carried southward. A three-year-old girl was carried five rods northeast and half buried in the earth. Mrs. G. was thrown onto a bed with a bureau and other rubbish piled upon her.
     "J. W. Baker was badly injured in front of his house, the buggy he was in was upset and he was dashed against the fence. He seized a fence-post and endeavored to anchor himself there; rails and other rubbish were driven against him, and after the passage of the storm he found his right shoulder blade and his left arm broken.
     "Wm Caldwell's house was lifted up some twenty feet in the air and again dashed down about five rods from the place where it originally stood. There were six persons in the house at the time, none of whom were much hurt. A two-year-old heifer was lifted up and dashed head foremost into a slough, where she remained imbedded in the earth. At this point the swathe was not over two hundred yards wide.
     "The house of Thomas Walters was torn into fragments, and the large maple trees which stood in front of it were wrenched off. Mr. Walters

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succeeded in getting to a cave, but his wife, who was a little behind him, was carried into a slough some ten rods distant and was badly hurt.
     "The fine two-story frame house of Alexander Gibson, some six miles north of Washington, was completely demolished in a twinkling; loss, $10,000. Mrs. Gibson was holding a door shut when the floor parted and dropped her into the cellar and two children fell after her. A water bucket was blown into one of Mr. Gibson's trees and lodged about twenty feet from the ground. A woman also was found away up in a tree, whither she had been carried and left by the storm.
     "Ducks were sucked up out of the pond, and their feathers picked off as clean as if they were picked for a barbecue, and they were dumped out 'dead ducks' half a mile away. Down the river bank great elms and hackberry trees were snapped asunder like pipe-stems, and their standing stumps, stripped of their bark, are white and ghostly. Hazel-brush, crab-apple trees, and white thorns are bruised and twisted, and lean to every point of the compass. Fence-stakes, boards, and two by four pieces of every variety and length, are sticking in the ground almost as thick as the stakes in a vineyard.
     "The Puddleford school-house was demolished over the heads of about twenty-five children, some of the children were severely hurt, one of them, Mary Rathmel, being killed; the teacher, Miss Smith, was seriously, but not fatally injured. The house of Henry Walters, near the school-house was demolished, and Mrs. Walters, with an infant in her arms, was killed; the child was also dead when found.
     "The house belonging to J. Major Davidson was torn down and two persons, Mr. Davidson and Laborn Housel, were killed outright.
     "Thus it will be seen that four persons were killed while some twenty-five other persons were badly injured, and the loss of property was estimated to have been $75,000.
     "A gentleman who visited the scene of disaster says: 'We strolled over, say forty acres of the farm, and here is a part of what we saw: The ground was strewn with rails, logs, sills, pieces of roof, studding, pieces of pumps, pieces of work-benches, pieces of walking-plows, pieces of chains, spokes,. castings, hubs, pieces of brick-bats, pieces of stoves, bed-steads, wagon tires, the rims of wagon wheels, with tires and felloes only, chickens, ducks. and turkeys with every feather blown off, rats, rabbits, wool, plow-shares, pieces of clothing, and a piece of every kind of farm machinery and bedsteads sold or offered for sale in this county. The ground itself is literally punched full of holes by falling timbers, and in many places the grass and growing wheat seemed torn out by the roots. One field, planted with corn, is well seeded with wheat, oats and rye, and it is now coming up as thick as it can stand. Apple trees eighteen inches through are twisted off or entirely uprooted, and the grape vines lie broken and bleeding on the ground. From here we drove to another farm, a distance of about three miles to the northeast. On the way we passed a farm where there were twelve head of fat cattle, three and four-year old, taken up into the air with the ease that a strong man would toss up his baby, and after being carried an incredible distance, they were dropped to the ground with broken limbs and broken necks. They were buried the next day in one common funeral pile. The little groves by the road side were stripped of every leaf, and they remind us very much of the bundles of wheat in olden times after' they were used to stop the cylinder of a tumbling-shaft threshing machine.

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     "'We spoke a few words of sympathy, and passed on. Within a few feet of the spot where a family were picked up, we saw in the muddy debris just as the tornado left it, house-logs, pieces of chains, dishes and crockery, pieces of stoves and stove furniture, plane-bits, sickle-bars, bridle-snaps, hoop-iron, wagon-tires curled like shavings, pieces of corn plows and reapers, a cross-cut saw, and a thousand and one pieces of boards and lumber of all kinds, all sizes, and all lengths. Who could go up in a whirlwind with all these things and come down alive! And yet we have said nothing of the fat cattle, wagon wheels and plow-shares, that were in the same mill a part of the time. Immediately south of this the growing oats were blown out of the ground, and shelled corn is scattered sufficient for all pigeons in Iowa for a month. The grape vines were twisted off, and the apple trees, about six inches in diameter, were bruised and broken and twisted and lean in whirls to-day, just as the whirlwind left them. Standing upon the ruins of a house, and looking at the complete ruin wrought, we thought the whirlwind must have been something like a huge augur two hundred yards across the bit, that went driving through the air, whirling as it went.
     "'The tall cottonwood trees that stand like sentinels around the front yard, are stripped of branches, bark and leaves; the house and household goods were probably blown to Halifax, or some other seaport. Rails, sills and muddy debris strew the ground as far as the eye can reach, and the top of the hedge fence is riddled in pieces, and looks like a row of old fashioned split scrub-brooms.
     "'It is said that everything that grows is of some use; and at this place we found out what a wild gooseberry bush is fit for. When the house came down with five boys and one girl in it, one of the boys crawled under the wild gooseberry bush, and by clinging to it was saved. Two others of the boys were found in the cellar with logs on them, and the remaining two boys, one fourteen and the other twelve years of age, were found with their heads in a No.8 Loyal cook-stove, with lumber and trash piled upon them so high they could not get out without assistance. We saw one of the boys to-day kindle a fire in the same cook-stove, and he is as sound as a trout, and happy as a king. At this place three horses, one cow, one yearling calf and five hogs were killed, and other stock seriously hurt.' "
     Major Davidson's house was the last one struck in Washington county. At this point the funnel rose into the air, and it seems not to have descended again till it struck the Mississippi river above. Muscatine. A public meeting was called at Everson Hall in Washington, the Monday following and committees were appointed to canvass the town in order to procure aid for those who were ruined by the storm. In less than two days about one thousand dollars were raised in Washington alone.

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