WILLIAMS 
 BROTHERS
 
 TWICE OUTLAWED 
 
 A PERSONAL HISTORY OF 
 
 ED AND LOIN MAXWELL 
 
 ALIAS THE 
 
 WILLIAMS BROTHERS 
 
 IX) WHICH IS ADDED A DETAILED AND GRAPHIC ACCOUNT 
 OF THE 
 
 ARREST AND LYNCHING 
 
 OF EDWARD MAXWELL 
 AT DURAND. WISCONSIN. NOVEMBER 19. 1881. 
 
 BY 
 ADRIAN PERCY 
 
 CHICAGO 
 W. B. CONKEY COMPANY
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 OHAPTKB. PAGE. 
 
 I. THE MAXWELLS OF ILLINOIS 7 
 
 II. BROTHER FOLLOWS BROTHER 17 
 
 III. A FULL HAND AT OUTLAWRY 26 
 
 IV. FAST AND LOOSE 36 
 
 V. RUN INTO JOLIET 44 
 
 VI. REFORMATION 54 
 
 VII. LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM 61 
 
 VIII. MARRIED AND DOING WKLL 66 
 
 IX. AN EVIL GENIUS REAPPEARS 71 
 
 X. WAYS OF WICKEDNESS 76 
 
 . XL OUTLAWED ONCE MORE 84 
 
 XII. DESOLATION AND DESPAIR 92 
 
 XIII. THE GREAT CRIME 100 
 
 XIV. THE CALAMITY OF TWO COMMUNITIES. . . 112 
 XV. A BIT OF BIOGRAPHY 117 
 
 XVI. THE BIG WOODS 124 
 
 XVII. IN HOT PURSUIT 130 
 
 XVIII. THE LUDINGTON GUARD 144 
 
 XIX. EXPERIENCES OF SERVICE 156 
 
 XX. THE GREAT FRAUD 167 
 
 XXI. THE PURSUIT ABANDONED 17?
 
 LIFE OF WILLIAMS BROTHERS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 < 
 
 THE MAXWELLS IN ILLINOIS. 
 
 SOUTHERN REFUGEES PEACE AND PLENTY THE 
 
 THREE BOYS ED'S CRIMINAL CAREER LON AS 
 
 A CLERK ED SELECTS A NEW SUIT A HOT 
 
 CHASE ON A COLD TRAIL THE ROBBER'S 
 
 ROOST A FAMILY'S SHAME. 
 
 Hardly had the first report of the firing on Sumpter re- 
 verberated throughout the length and breadth of a sore 
 stricken land before the flight of Union refugees from the 
 South commenced in serious earnest. Among the number 
 of those who either loved the stars and stripes too well, or 
 feared too much the dangers of a civil conflict calculated to 
 call for a general conscription, for them to remain longer 
 than absolutely necessary below the cotton belt of a divided 
 country, were the Maxwell family, with whom this history 
 proposes to deal impartially. The Maxwells, at the time a
 
 8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 family of five, consisting of father, mother and three male 
 children, the youngest of whom was an unweaned babe 
 were said to have come from Arkansas, and settled in Ful- 
 ton county, Illinois, during the summer of 1861. 
 
 Captain Maxwell, as he came somehow to be called 
 perhaps from his excellent command of the discretionary 
 part of valor rented a small farm in Fulton county, and 
 remained throughout the war uninterrupted in the tranquil 
 possession of peace and plenty. The boys grew up as finely 
 as fond parents could desire, though the incipient inclinations 
 of the elder two were apparently averse to following the 
 plow for their own future, as yet bright as the blue of a 
 cloudless sky, with no suspicion of the darkness and despair 
 to follow in the wake of a wrathful storm cloud rising on 
 the far horizon, and destined years on to enshroud and final- 
 ly entomb their lives, and that fairer, purer life of another 
 she, whose romantic history and sad fate may be said to 
 adorn this tale and to point its moral. The Maxwell family 
 continued to reside on the Fulton county farm until 1868. 
 Edward, the eldest son, was then about eighteen years old; 
 Alonzo, the second and favorite child, being in his twelfth 
 year, and Charley, the youngest, a lad of seven. 
 
 For several years previous to this date, Edward's dispos- 
 ition had been frequently shown to be in a state of unhealthy 
 development. His growing assumption of the manners of 
 an overbearing and unscrupulous leader, accustomed to be 
 blindly obeyed without questioning, plainly betokened that
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 9 
 
 the time was not far distant when he would deliberately re- 
 sort to the methods by which men of that class seemingly 
 succeed but too well, ere the race run by each with the law 
 is brought to an end. Edward would try to bully his 
 brothers when he could not make them do his bidding by 
 means of a fairer form of persuasion. Alonzo, or Lon, as 
 he continued to be called in after years the same as in his 
 boyhood days, was bright and brave from his birth, frank- 
 spoken and fi ee-hearted. Fond of fun, he was led for the 
 sake of a frolic into many a piece of mischief planned or 
 suggested by Edward's fertile brain. Charley was an ex- 
 ceedingly mild mannered child, given more to assisting his 
 parents in work about the house and farm and less to " hav- 
 ing a good time," according to a popular notion among 
 American youth, than his brothers could either approve or 
 appreciate. 
 
 It was a natural consequence, as the boys progressed to- 
 ward manhood, that Ed. and Lon were thrown much 
 together, and generally alone, the greater part of the time, 
 while Charley remained the home boy. As is generally the 
 case, however, the affections of Captain and Mrs. Maxwell 
 were not bestowed as lavishly upon the child whose deport- 
 ment and demeanor caused them the least trouble, as upon 
 his dearer head, whose intelligence was the keener and ap- 
 pearance indicative of a higher ambition and greater prom- 
 ise, even while his footsteps seemed to wander the least bit 
 astray.
 
 io Life cf Williams Brothers. 
 
 Lon was naturally in his youth the pride and joy of his 
 parents. Partaking of none of his older brother's offensive 
 braggadocio, which at times gave way to a strange taciturn- 
 ity, afterwards becoming more marked in Edward's inter- 
 course with strangers, and with so much more vim and dash 
 about him, on the other hand, than his younger brother 
 possessed, it is not at all surprising that Lon should have 
 been regarded as he was, the fairest flower of the family. 
 In the fall of 1868, Captain Maxwell gave up an extended 
 lease of his farm in Fulton county, and moved to Woodford 
 county, Illinois, near the village of Washburn. 
 
 It was here that Edward was first detected in crime. His 
 debut in this direction was made in the character of a sneak- 
 thief. He became quite noted among a certain class in the 
 community presumably prone to the unlawful taking by one 
 of another's small valuables, for the dexterity with which he 
 could pick up and walk off with any little trifle belonging- 
 to some one else that he happened to fancy. Farmer Max 
 well seemed to have grown dissatisfied on leaving Fulton 
 county, for he stayed but a twelvemonth in Woodford coun- 
 ty, going next to McLean county, where he managed to 
 pass another year or two, at Lexington. His next removal 
 was to Colchester, McDonough county, where the family 
 remained until Ed.'s criminal propensities had developed to 
 a degree that led to the destruction of domestic ties and a 
 separation of the different members of a once happy house- 
 hold.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 11 
 
 During the few years which elapsed between the date of 
 the removal from Fulton county and the family break-up in 
 McDonough county, Ed. Maxwell followed nothing in par- 
 ticular for a living, and daily became fonder of the evil asso- 
 ciations that fast were dragging him onward and downward 
 He did not appear to be so fond of dissipation simply, and 
 the mere society of disreputable companions of both sexes. 
 What he seemed to crave was the unrestrained indulgence of 
 a growing appetite for the theft of things he desired to ap- 
 propriate for his own use, profit or sport. Lon, meanwhile, 
 was encouraged to enter mercantile life at the stepping-stone 
 of the humble under clerk, whose duties include the dusting 
 and sweeping of the store, the taking down in the morning 
 and putting up at night of the outside shutters, and such triv- 
 ial but necessary things as always remain to be done by the 
 person lowest in authority about an establishment of the 
 kind. In this capacity Lon served several terms of employ- 
 ment in different stores and in course of time came to be 
 promoted to the post of salesman proper. Charlie became 
 more the right-hand assistant of his father on the farm, as 
 he increased in years and size, and gave early proof of his 
 liking and aptitude for a farmer's life. 
 
 The petty thievery practiced chiefly as a pastime by Ed, 
 while at Washburn, grew correspondingly with the time 
 bestowed upon it as an art, and it was not long before he had 
 cultivated in his own way the acquaintance of the good peo- 
 ple of Colchester, and before his reputation as a robber was
 
 12 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 made to rest upon the most conclusive and to his depraved 
 mind the most illustrious grounds. When his true charac- 
 ter could no longer be concealed, Ed. repeatedly approached 
 his brother Lon, and in every imaginable way endeavored 
 to lead him into temptation' Every inducement and hope 
 of illicit reward that the cunning young cracksman could 
 think of was held out to his brother who was made to see 
 a sin so dazzling with the dash and excitement of successful 
 rapine as to appear by contrast with the quiet, humdrum life 
 of a country store clerk, alluring to say the leas,t. To his 
 credit be it said, Lon for a long time firmly resisted his 
 brother in attempts against his own peace of mind and re- 
 fused to have anything to do with Ed.'s various schemes for 
 plunder. 
 
 Occasionally Ed. made a pretense of working on the 
 farm of some simple countryman, whom he generally man- 
 aged to get the best of before leaving his service and roof. 
 One Saturday, while ostensibly hired out to a farmer near 
 Colchester, Ed. rode into the village to do a little shopping, 
 for himself principally, at the stores. Visiting a leading 
 clothing store he carefully selected a suit of the highest 
 priced clothing kept for sale. He tried on the coat and vest 
 and seemed inclined to take the clerk's word about the pants 
 being just his size. 
 
 ** So you think this suit of clothes will just about fit me 
 all around, do you ? " Ed. remarked. 
 
 ** They will, for a fact, and you'll be getting them mighty
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 13 
 
 cheap, too, I tell you," answered the clerk, over-anxious to 
 conclude the sale. 
 
 " All right, young man. You're about right, I reckon. 
 You have them clothes done up in a bundle with my name 
 on and I'll call and get it when I'm better fixed." 
 
 The bundle was done up and laid away as requested. 
 True to his word, and truer to his own meaning, Ed. did 
 call and get the clothes, and got them " cheaper " a good 
 deal than the clerk had the least idea of. It seems he waited 
 until dark before he felt well enough " fixed " to pay the 
 call, and then visited the store through a rear window, the 
 sash and a couple of panes of glass readily yielding to his 
 expert force. The robbery was discovered on Monday 
 morning, and on learning that Ed. Maxwell had carried a 
 bundle out to his employer's place the day before, the pro- 
 prietor of the store started for the farm to identify his prop- 
 erty if it should be found, leaving an officer to obtain a war- 
 rant for Ed.'s arrest and follow on after with it. 
 
 The clothing merchant dismounted in sight of Ed. who 
 evidently recognized him, and in a moment made up his 
 mind as to what course he should pursue. As the merchant 
 passed him, Ed. carelessly unbuttoned his coat, displaying 
 two ugly-looking revolvers in his belt, and the handle of a 
 bowie knife which protruded from the bosom of his shirt. 
 The clothier passed on, in mortal fear and trembling like a 
 leaf, going into the house where it was some time before he 
 could collect his senses sufficiently to proceed to an exami-
 
 14 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 nation of the bundle Ed. had brought home, which proved 
 to be of course that containing the stolen suit. 
 
 In the meantime Ed. had taken and fully improved the 
 chance afforded him, and mounting the mare on which the 
 clothing merchant had ridden out to the farm, he started off 
 at a lively lope in an opposite direction from the road that 
 led to town. On the discovery of his second and greater ' 
 loss, the poor clothier was confonnded completely. Chase 
 was immediately instituted, and within an hour half a dozen 
 men were in hot pursuit. 
 
 Ed. Maxwell knew a thing or two, though that seemed 
 to be beyond the comprehension of his pursuers, for before 
 night he had thrown them completely off the track, and 
 doubling up on that track returned after dark to the farm- 
 er's house. Finding everything quiet here, with only the 
 women folks at home and they abed, Ed. put up his horse, 
 and made his way to the room occupied by the comely 
 young wife of the farmer, where he had evidently been be- 
 fore in the absence of that much-abused head of the house. 
 He remained thus sheltered all night, while the poor clothier 
 and poorer farmer with the officers' posse were twenty 
 miles away on a cold trail. At daybreak, Ed. arose and ate 
 a warm breakfast hurriedly prepared for him, in the kitchen. 
 He concluded to leave the clothier's saddle mare in the 
 stable, and made bold to ask the loan of one of the farmer's 
 ponies, which was readily granted him by the unfaithful 
 wife. Ed. then rode off and was not molested further on
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 15 
 
 this score. He returned the farmer's pony the next week, 
 and likely had an interview with the farmer's worse-half at 
 the same time. 
 
 Publicity of acts like this gave Ed. such a hard name 
 that every member of Capt. Maxell's family came in a man- 
 ner to share it. So great was the grief of the parents at 
 the downward course their eldest son persisted in taking, 
 that a removal from the state of Illinois was finally deter- 
 mined upon as a possible escape from much of the bad odor 
 attaching more every day to their family name and reputa- 
 tion. The old folks went to Kansas, and are understood to 
 reside there still. 
 
 There were some reports afloat a few years after their re- 
 moval west, about the appearance at the time of a " long 
 lost daughter," who had been left in the south during the 
 war and afterward, until coming North with her own means 
 obtained as a sewing girl, in which capacity she had made 
 her living since childhood. It was said this daughter joined 
 her parents in Kansas and became to them the blessing they 
 had expected to find in one of their boys. It is extremely 
 doubtful, however, if Capt. Maxwell's wife ever had a 
 daughter, certainly and nothing definite has been ascer- 
 tained of her whereabouts from her birth up to the 
 present time. Charles, the youngest son, preferring 
 to remain in Illinois, hired out to a farmer in an- 
 other part of the state, and gradually accumulated 
 a competence, which he is said to have turned to
 
 1 6 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 good account in the village of where he now 
 
 Jives. 
 
 Lon Maxwell could not make up his mind to leave Col- 
 chester with his parents and so remained where he was 
 much to the satisfaction of his elder brother, Edward, the 
 evil genius of an unhappy family.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 BROTHER FOLLOWS BROTHER. 
 
 LON'S WEAK POINTS. ED IMPROVES HIS CHANCE THE 
 
 COMPACT BETWEEN BROTHERS. LON LAUNCHED ON 
 
 THE SEA OF CRIME. A DAY'S RAID. MUZZLING 
 
 A MARSHAL. A RECORD EARNED. 
 
 Lon Maxwell was not naturally given to wrong-doing, 
 as his brother Ed seems to have been. Like most other 
 young men outside of the doubtful originals of the characters 
 enjoying an effeminate existence in Sunday School books, 
 Lon had his faults and his weaknesses. He was assuredly 
 over-fond of dissipation to a degree harmful both to health 
 and morals. Gaming, drinking and the society of wanton 
 women were three things he found he could not, or at 
 least did not, go without for many weeks at a time. Be- 
 yond this ordinary debasement of man's moral nature, Lon 
 had not fallen at the time Ed and himself were left in Col- 
 chester, on the family's separation. His occasional spreeing, 
 however, gave Ed many opportunities best suited to the 
 purpose, which were fully improved, and the downfall of a 
 
 (17)
 
 1 8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 brother was finally accomplished, under the following cir 
 cumstances : Lon had been drinking heavily one night, 
 and after losing all his money at the card-table had quar- 
 relled with the woman he visited and regarded as his mis- 
 tress, a browzy-haired blonde he was ambitious to " keep," 
 after the fashion set fast young men of his class by their 
 superiors in point of social station. Ed. met him as he was 
 going into a saloon to drown both his real and imaginary 
 (Sorrows. 
 
 Noticing his brother's half anger and half distress, Ed. 
 treated him at the bar to a couple of drinks, and then en- 
 gaged him in close conversation in a private corner of the 
 room where the two brothers seated themselves. The old 
 subject thus renewed found Lon passively inclined to listen 
 without his usual interruptions. Ed. saw his advantage, 
 and pushed his point. 
 
 " Here, Lon, take this, and brace yourself up for business, 
 Have all the fun you want of your kind, but come with me 
 for real sport. You bet I can show you how to get more 
 the same way this came." So saying Ed. handed his brother 
 a couple of twenty dollar bills. Lon mechanically reached 
 out his hand and after slowly rolling the bills up into a little 
 wad, deposited them in his vest pocket, with an air that 
 seemingly betrayed his consciousness of having accepted an 
 offer, and received the first payment of the purchase money 
 down, for as much of his life as might remain until forfeited 
 to fate with death. Certain it was, that from that hour Lon
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 19 
 
 Maxwell's soul could not be called wholly his own. At 
 length he answered: 
 
 " I know what you mean, Ed., and you know how long 
 I've fought against it. But the luck seems turned the 
 wrong way for me to-night, and I'm with you at last. Here's 
 my hand you know whether you can trust me or not." 
 The brothers parted for the night without further words. 
 There was no mistake about a compact which gave Ed. so 
 much pleasure that before he went to bed he drank deeper 
 than was his wont and became quite hilarious for him at the 
 various bars he visited in company with his busy thoughts. 
 
 It was not long before Lon was given an opportunity to 
 substantiate the sincerity of words beyond his recall, how- 
 ever much inclined he may have been to take them back, if 
 he only could. To a person of his temperament and mind, 
 there was no escape from a fate he had chosen, whether de- 
 liberately and in his right senses or not, for himself. Of the 
 three sons of Capt. Maxwell, Lon had probably profited 
 the most from the occasional terms and limited amount of 
 schooling afforded them. But the trouble was that a taste 
 for dime novel literature had taken up the mental threads 
 where the district school education had dropped them all too 
 soon, which resulted in confusing and clouding perceptions 
 of right and wrong and creating a false standard of personal 
 honor. In Ed.'s case the evil thus wrought was far greater 
 than with Lon, but the latter having taken the first steps
 
 20 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 on the broad road was drawn constantly nearer contaminat- 
 ing influences which it was not in the nature of things as they 
 presented themselves to his mind for him to resist any great 
 length of time. Ed. cautiously paved the way for Lon's 
 entrance on a career of crime, the proper beginning of 
 which occupied his mind to the exclusion of all thought as 
 to where and how it might end. Lon was at first assigned 
 the part of the accomplice on watch, ready to render assis- 
 tance in the event only of its being needed, while Ed. per- 
 formed the more hazardous duties of the expedition him- 
 self. Several minor robberies were committed in this way 
 by the brothers in adjoining neighborhoods, and considera- 
 ble booty of the kind was obtained, which seemed to recon- 
 cile Lon to his new method of making a living. Lon soon 
 found that work in the store by day, when his nights were 
 so often employed in another field of operations, was both 
 irksome and illy-paid, and he thus came to adopt Ed.'s 
 scheme of hiring out to some farmer in the country, as a 
 cover to his real line of business, mainly transacted after 
 dark. 
 
 Both Ed. and Lon had been known from boyhood up as 
 remarkably fine shots. Each was an expert in the use of 
 the rifle, shot-gun and revolver. They were often in the 
 woods, and in the absence of ordinary game they would find 
 amusement for hours at a time in firing at inanimate ob- 
 jects, which served their purpose better than the common
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 21 
 
 target. They became skillful marksmen, and at the same 
 time obtained a knowledge of wood-craft which afterward 
 came to their aid when they were sore pressed to push every 
 advantage they could command, owing to the apparent odds 
 against them. 
 
 Lon's appetite for adventure, on being whetted by his first 
 few experiences under Ed.'s leadership, speedily grew upon 
 him. He told Ed. that he wanted to " take a full hand " in 
 their future depredations. Said he : " If I do get the 
 name, why I propose to have the game ; that's all." 
 
 Ed. was of course only too glad to admit Lon into a full 
 partnership of crime with him, and from that time on, the 
 acts of the Maxwell brothers became bolder, and both 
 " name " and " game " got to be theirs by common report. 
 
 They had just about made up their own minds to quit 
 Colchester as a loafing place, owing to its precincts becom- 
 ing too hot for their comfort, when they were forced to 
 leave in short order to avoid arrest, on warrants charging 
 them with a series of daring highway robberies in different 
 parts of the county committed during the few days previous. 
 These robberies were unparalleled in McDonough county 
 for the coolness and boldness which characterized the 
 young highwaymen. 
 
 Starting out on horseback one morning in the direction of 
 the town of La Harpe, the subject of a big steal with some 
 sport about it came up between the brothers, Lon remarked :
 
 22 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 " It's a fine day for harvesting, Ed. You and I might be 
 in the field working, too. But seeing we've got started for 
 a vacation, suppose we stop in and see the women folks as 
 we go along." 
 
 " Yes, you bet. And we'll look through the houses at the 
 same time, and pick up what we can lay our hands on easy. 
 It's a good scheme, Lon, and we'll have some fun out of it." 
 
 Plans were hastily laid, and on coming to the next farm- 
 house, they dismounted and tied their horses to the fence. 
 Going up to the house, Lon asked the young woman who 
 stood in the doorway for a drink of water. She went into 
 a rear room to get it, and both brothers, not waiting for an 
 invitation, came in the house and seated themselves. The 
 girl returned with the water, followed by her mother and 
 several little children. Lon took the cup and drank as if 
 really thirsty, while Ed. commenced a conversation with the 
 lady of the house. " Where are all the men ?" 
 
 " They're working down in the field. You can go and 
 see them there if you want to, as they won't come up to 
 the house till noon. " 
 
 " That's all right. We haven't any business with them. 
 It's you women folks we come to see. Now don't get ex- 
 cited, but keep quiet and keep those young ones' mouths 
 shut. We are armed and are going to do as we please, but 
 if you do what we tell you, we won't harm you any. We 
 come for plunder, and we want to be quick about it. "
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 23 
 
 Throwing open their coats the Maxwells contented them- 
 selves with simply showing up the formidable little arsenal 
 they carried on their persons, and had everything their own 
 way without drawing a revolver. 
 
 " Now , Lon, I'll stay here with the children and the girl, 
 and you go through the house with the good lady here, and 
 pick up what valuables you come across. And mind that she 
 shows you where everything is. " 
 
 The terrorized women could not but comply, and while 
 Lon was foraging through the rest of the house, under the 
 enforced guidance of the mother, Ed. made the daughter 
 perform a similar service for him in the sitting-room where 
 they were. In a short time Lon and his guide returned, 
 with two watches, a purse containing several dollars in 
 change, and a black silk cravat Lon had taken a fancy to. 
 Ed. having seen nothing around the room that was worth 
 his while to purloin, had only secured a couple of rings from 
 the fingers of the daughter and her pocket-book, which lat- 
 ter he returned to her on opening and finding it empty. 
 At Lon's request the rings were also returned to the 
 girl. 
 
 " This has been a poor haul, Lon, and if we had the time 
 we'd stop awhile and have our satisfaction out of these la- 
 dies. But we must be moving and perhaps we'll have bet- 
 ter luck next time. " Bidding the women good-day, they 
 touched their hats, Ed. rather awkwardly but Lon with a
 
 2 4 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 careless grace which many a polished society man might 
 envy, and swinging themselves into their saddles they rode 
 rapidly away. 
 
 During that day, ten farmers' houses were visited in the 
 manner above described, and in some instances as much as 
 $100 in bills was secured by the daring freebooters. At 
 several places they met with farmers' daughters so rosy- 
 cheeked and plump as to cause Lon to wish that their busi- 
 ness could be made to wait upon his pleasure occasionally. 
 He did not need to be told by Ed., however, of the folly of 
 wasting precious time, as well as the great and unnecessary 
 danger to which they would expose themselves by going 
 out of their way as gentlemanly robbers to storm the un- 
 protected citadel of a country lassie's virtue. So the women 
 were not harmed in the least, and it is likely enough that, 
 in spite of the raid on the valuable effects of their husbands' 
 and fathers' homes, they were even sensible in a manner of 
 a certain indescribable charm attaching to the character of 
 the polite pillager, such as the dashing Lon Maxwell cer- 
 tainly was at this time. Before dark the officers of La 
 Harpe were on the track of the Maxwells, who had kept 
 on straight ahead, stopping at about sunset at a cross-road 
 saloon. They were overtaken here by the town marshal 
 and a posse of six men. The marshal, accompanied by two 
 men, went into the saloon where the Maxwell brothers sat 
 at a small table with a lunch and beer set out before them
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 25 
 
 Placing a hand on Ed.'s shoulder, the marshal remarked : 
 " You are my prisoner. " 
 
 In the twinkling of an eye, Ed. drew a revolver and cov- 
 ering the officer, exclaimed : Not if I know myself." 
 
 At the same moment Lon drew two revolvers from his 
 belt and pointing them at the two deputies, intimated that 
 they would consult their own welfare by a speedy exit the 
 way they came. The discomfited marshal and his men re- 
 tired precipitately, and the Maxwells, each with a cocked 
 revolver in either hand, had the solid satisfaction of seeing 
 the entire pursuing party remount and take up the home- 
 ward line of march. After finishing their lunch and wash- 
 ing it down with a couple of glasses of beer, the brothers 
 rode off in the darkness. 
 
 This day's exploits advertised their outlawry to the world, 
 and henceforth the Maxwell brothers were popularly re- 
 puted to be among the most fearless and dangerous types of 
 their class.
 
 . CHAPTER III. 
 A FULL HAND AT OUTLAWRY. 
 
 r 
 
 TAKING AN INTEREST IN HORSE FLESH. A SLICK TRADE 
 ALL ON ONE SIDE. HORSE STEALING BY MOON- 
 LIGHT. A NIGHT'S SPORT AND THE NEXT MORN- 
 ING'S PERIL. AN EVEN EXCHANGE. 
 BAFFLED PURSUERS. 
 
 The attention of the Maxwell brothers was next paid 
 particularly to the blooded stock interests of their State, 
 and they were not long in cultivating a mania for fine horse 
 flesh. As stolen fruit is said to be the sweetest, so are 
 stolen horses evidently rated by an outlaw as the fleetest. 
 Ed. and Lon Maxwell certainly made the most of this 
 maxim among thieves, and for several years studied horse- 
 stealing as a science. Their signal success may be inferred 
 from the fact that they evaded capture for so long a period 
 without being compelled to leave Illinois for the more con- 
 genial clime of Texas or New Mexico. 
 
 (26)
 
 Lift of Williams Brothers. 27 
 
 Experience is admittedly the greatest of instructors ; and 
 it may teach evil as rapidly and as thoroughly as it can 
 good. The Maxwells were not long in getting fully initiat- 
 ed in all the arts and artifices of the expert horse-thief, and 
 with the practical knowledge of woodcraft they had picked 
 up, they were rightfully regarded to be as hard game of 
 the kind to bag as the Illinois sheriffs had ever encountered. 
 Like most men of their stamp they were fond of proving 
 their prowess and would frequently go out of their way 
 to display a daring worthy a better cause. There were 
 none shrewder than they, at the same time, when it became 
 necessary to draw an immediate conclusion about the 
 chances which, to use a slang phrase, they were " compelled 
 to take in their business." Ed. Maxwell never was as much 
 addicted as his brother to any of the three small vices 
 wherein Lon was weakest, and when on " business" of 
 recognized importance both brothers kept their heads clear 
 and cool for the emergency liable to arise at any moment. 
 
 Their stolen horses were either disposed of at some 
 county fair in progress in a distant part of the interior, or 
 sold to one of the numerous dealers in that kind of horse- 
 flesh, who generally shipped them from different points, 
 mostly on the river, (Mississippi), to St. Louis. Ed. and 
 Lon changed their own saddle horses quite frequently for 
 obvious reasons. 
 
 At some of these rural fairs they would figure extensively
 
 28 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 as jockeys, under assumed names of course. On one of 
 these occasions, after concluding the sale of two fine horses, 
 stolen only a few days before within 100 miles from where 
 they then were, a dispute arose between Ed. and one of the 
 two purchasers, who were cousins by the name of Court- 
 ney. On counting over the money paid him for the horses 
 while they were all four taking a friendly drink together in 
 a neighboring saloon, Ed. claimed to have discovered some- 
 thing wrong. 
 
 " There is a five dollar bill short here, gentlemen." 
 " I don't see how that comes," said one of the Courtneys, 
 who looked up suspiciously at the remark and the tone in 
 which it was made. 
 
 " There is only one way to account for it," continued Ed. 
 with an oath. " You smart alecks took me for a greeny 
 who couldn't count small bills. I'm up with you, boys, and 
 you shan't forget it soon, I tell you." 
 
 With this Ed. pulled his ready revolver, Lon reluctantly 
 following suit, whereat the bar-keeper and the two Court- 
 neys, being unarmed and probably without much experience 
 in handling weapons, put on a terribly scared look. A five 
 dollar bill was hurriedly produced, and tendered to Ed. 
 through the bar-keeper, the Courtneys fearing to move lest 
 one of those little " pet murderers " should blaze away in 
 their direction. 
 " I don't want your money at all. The trade's off. We
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 29 
 
 didn't draw our revolvers to shoot you fellows. It's only a 
 measure of self defense with us, that's all," saying which 
 he and Lon put up their pops, and Ed. went on to say with 
 a hoarse laugh : " Come, get over your scare, and we'll go 
 outside and change back. You can have your money and 
 we'll keep the horses." 
 
 There was no refusing anything he might propose, and 
 the four went out and crossing the street proceeded to where 
 the two horses had been tied by the Courtneys. On the 
 way Ed. gave Lon an expressive wink, unobserved, and in 
 a moment the brothers understood each other and with- 
 out a word being spoken had laid their plans. Lon walked 
 to where their own or the horses they were then riding 
 were hitched, and untied them. Ed. meanwhile engaged 
 the Courtneys in conversation, and seemingly was being 
 persuaded by them to let the bargain stand. 
 
 " I'll let my pardner, here, decide it, gentlemen, and then 
 we must be going, as we've got a little business to attend to 
 around town. Here he comes now with our horses." 
 
 Lon came up with the ready saddled horses, and was ap- 
 pealed to by the Courtneys. Ed. stood by, with the halters 
 of the other two horses in his hand, and in almost less time 
 than it takes to tell it, he had handed one of the halters to 
 Lon, and they had both mounted in their saddles. 
 
 " Gentlemen, good afternoon. Remember the Maxwell 
 brothers !"
 
 3Q Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 With this dare-devil's speech by Lon, the Courtneys saw 
 the last of the horses they had bought and the money they 
 had paid for them. The Maxwells dashed down the road 
 at a hard gallop, the two led horses having all they could do 
 to keep up with the animals under bit and spur. Pursuit 
 was organized at once, but on learning from the marshal in 
 the place who the Maxwell boys were, it is not strange that 
 the pursuing party allowed a full hour to pass before getting 
 started. It is needless to add, that the bold bandits were 
 not caught this time. 
 
 On paying a second night's visit to a neighborhood they 
 would change their tactics as completely as possible, in order 
 to throw people off their guard and to effect both what they 
 came for and an easy escape. If they stole a few horses in 
 a certain locality on a dark night, they would make sure of 
 a bright moonlit canopy o'erhead when they wished to make 
 another raid thereabouts. Moonlight nights were general- 
 ly preferred by them, for the reason that it was only on 
 dark nights, as a rule, that extra precautions were taken to 
 prevent horses from being run off by thieves. They would 
 wait until the stillness of past midnight, and then securing 
 only as many horses as they could manage to take care of, 
 they would ride off at their ease. When surprised, or when 
 put to the necessity of shooting a dog or two and thus alarm- 
 ing a somnolent household, the Maxwells would get away 
 with but one horse apiece, in addition to the ones they rode.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 31 
 
 Wiien convenient, and the risk was not too great, they 
 would come on foot, with a bridle and blanket each, in the 
 expectation, generally realized, of obtaining both horses to 
 ride and others to lead. It was seldom, at this exciting 
 period of their lives, that they had occasion to hire out to 
 anybody. Continually on the go, from one place to an- 
 other, they found the few friends they cared to have among 
 the dissolute and depraved classes, to be met with every- 
 where. 
 
 Visiting one evening a town in Tazewell county, where 
 they were unknown, Ed. and Lon were attracted to a low 
 den, where a dance was in progress. On occasions of this 
 kind Lon always took a leading hand, and joined every set 
 on the floor as well as responding to the drawling call of 
 " Choose your partners for the next waltz." Ed. posed, not 
 very gracefully, as a wall-flower, deigning now and then to 
 chaff some blear-eyed "belle" and perhaps accept her invitat- 
 ion to step up to the bar and pay for two drinks of the devil's 
 own fluid dealt out recklessly at these places. On this 
 evening Lon imbibed rather too freely of the miserable 
 adulteration of whisky, and wishing to go to bed and sleep 
 off the effects of his debauch, proposed to Ed. that they 
 pass the night where they were. To this Ed. readily as- 
 sented, and after seeing their horses made comfortable in 
 the small stable attached to the place, he followed Lon's ex- 
 ample, and select'"'" rompanion from among the " ladies"
 
 3 2 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 of the establishment retired for the night. At the early 
 hour when " day begins to break and night is fled," Ed. was 
 awake and lying quiet amid the stillness unbroken through- 
 out the house save by the deep breathings of its inmates 
 sleeping off their stupefaction with liquor, he heard unusual 
 sounds without, which his ear, ever quick to catch the like, 
 told him were the stealthy footsteps of men. Rising, he 
 stepped on tip-toe to the window, and drawing aside the 
 curtain a trifle, peered out on a group of armed men, in se- 
 cret consultation, near the house. Dressing himself hurried- 
 ly and quietly, Ed. went to the room where Lon lay sound- 
 ly sleeping, and shaking him up to consciousness, bade him 
 dress and "fix" himself for business. The brothers returned 
 together to the room which Ed. had just left, and held a 
 whispered council of war. 
 
 "We're trapped, Lon, but not caught yet, by a jug-full. 
 Those fellows are as near their game right now as they ever 
 will be." 
 
 Ed's surmise that the party outside was a Sheriffs posse, 
 in search of his brother and himself, was correct. Learning 
 of their whereabouts the day before, the officers of the law 
 had managed creditably enough to track the Maxwell's to 
 their present lair. Arrived at the house where the despera- 
 does were as good as known to be quartered, the SherifFs 
 men were debating on how next to proceed with the 
 dangerous business in hand. While the perty outside hesi-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers* 33 
 
 tated before adopting the offensive, the Maxwell brothers, 
 who were wider-awake on the inside than their would-be 
 captors had any idea of, resolved to make a break of some 
 sort, and rousing up the woman in whose room they were, 
 then questioned her about the different modes of egress from 
 the house. Pointing a revolver at her aching head had the 
 combined effect of keeping her still and getting a satis- 
 factory answer. She informed them that there was a side 
 entrance opening at one side of a private parlor, which was 
 situated in the rear of the building. This entrance was 
 rarely used save by certain prominent citizens of the town 
 who were not above visiting the bagnio when their presence 
 could be concealed. At Ed's command the woman led the 
 way to the private parlor and unbolted the door leading 
 into the passage which terminated in the alley, at a short 
 distance from the street running parallel with that on which 
 the dance-house fronted. Fearing to trust her to keep 
 silence five minutes after their departure, the Maxwells led 
 the woman back to her room and tearing one of the sheets 
 into strips tied her arms and legs together and put a gag in 
 her mouth. Then telling her not to attempt to release her- 
 self under penalty of being killed some time for it, and to 
 lay quiet where she was until she was set free, they stole 
 away from the house with stealthy steps, and gaining the 
 other street were so fortunate as to find themselves near by 
 a livery stable. The stable had just been opened by a lad,
 
 34 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 who was alone at the time. Accosting him with drawn 
 revolvers, the brothers ordered him to saddle two of his best 
 horses on the instant. The boy did as he was bidden, with 
 the assistance of Lon, and in about three minutes the Max- 
 wells were mounted on every bit as sound steeds as those 
 they were compelled to leave behind them. The exchange, 
 under the circumstances, was not disagreeable to them, and 
 inasmuch as they never rode anything but stolen horses, it 
 mattered but little in their minds in whose name a bill of 
 sale might be made out. Riding off at a right smart pace, 
 with no one the wiser at the time to hinder their departure, 
 they were inclined to be jolly. 
 
 " I wonder how the the old gal feels by this time. She's 
 welcome to her life now if she turns herself loose and raises 
 the whole town," and Ed. gave a prolonged chuckle. 
 
 " I'd like to be around, in somebody else's clothes, when 
 those greenhorns outside spunk up courage enough to enter 
 the house. They'll take on a heap when they find out that 
 we've skipped, but you bet your boots they won't feel as 
 sorry as they make out." Lon laughed outright at the scene 
 he pictured to himself, and on the brothers rode right mer- 
 rily. They had stopped for breakfast at a farm house some 
 three miles away, before their flight was known to the 
 sheriflfs squad, which had just been ordered to move on 
 the house, when a messenger from the livery stable came to 
 them with news of the daring robbery of two horses that 
 had taken place a half hour before. The inmates of the
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 35 
 
 dance house were aroused, and a useless guard was stationed 
 at each door, until it was ascertained beyond all doubt that 
 the birds of prey had flown. The chagrin of the sheriff 
 was exceeding great, though it is probable that the majority 
 of the men with him were secretly glad of their own escape 
 from a dreaded encounter, Lon Maxwell having " sized " 
 them up pretty accurately. While the sheriff had secured 
 two stolen horses, he had indirectly caused the theft of two 
 others equally as valuable, and it is little wonder that he re- 
 turned home with his posse very much crestfallen and out 
 of spirits.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 FAST AND LOOSE. 
 
 WELL-EARNED FAME. VISITING MINNESOTA AND WIS- 
 CONSIN. LON'S HALF-WISH. AN EXTENDED 
 
 FIELD OF OPERATIONS. A COOL "CALL*' 
 ON THE HIGHWAY. THE TIME 
 
 A SHERIFF GOT LEFT. A 
 
 CLEVER RUSE. 
 
 The fame of the Maxwell brothers was not long in 
 spreading all over the State, and with warrants out for their 
 apprehension in a number of Illinois counties, the boys be- 
 came convinced that it would be to their interest to absent 
 themselves every now and then and enjoy a spell of rest and 
 recreation in other commonwealths. For some reason they 
 had never fancied Texas and the Southwest very much, and 
 besides did not feel the need, as yet, of making straight for 
 that part of our civilization's end familiarly known as the 
 " murderers' paradise." When they left Illinois, it was only 
 for a fortnight or so, and their favorite pleasure resorts were 
 sought and found in the beautiful States of Minnesota and 
 Wisconsin. Their early visits to these States were made 
 
 (36)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 37 
 
 solely with the view of exercising what might not so very 
 inappropriately have been called their " right of asylum," 
 and with no evil designs on the equinal property of the 
 farmers of the Northwest. Immediately following some 
 bold escapade down among the " Suckers," credited to the 
 renowned Maxwell brothers, the population of Wisconsin 
 or Minnesota would be temporarily increased by two young 
 men, appearing sometimes in the guise of raw country work- 
 ing-hands, and at other times dressed and behaved like well- 
 to-do young gentlemen of considerable means and some 
 education. Lon much preferred the costume and character 
 of a gentleman, while Ed. was generally indifferent, with a 
 slight predisposition, perhaps, for the coarser garb and ruder 
 station in life. 
 
 It was during one of their visits to Wisconsin that Lon's 
 fancy was taken by a certain charm about life in the lumber 
 districts of the Badger State, and an attachment was half- 
 way formed by him for a mode of existence wonderfully 
 placid and peaceful by contrast with his own roving life of 
 desperate adventure, which afterward ripened, for a brief 
 while to blossom like a summer's rose ! If ever Ed. was 
 sensible of receiving impressions of this sentimental charac- 
 ter, while in Wisconsin or Minnesota, he kept his thoughts 
 to himself, and treated Lon's confidences of this character as 
 extremely childish. Ed. formed a liking of his own for 
 Minnesota, but it was most assuredly not on account of the 
 matchless scenic beauty of its " laughing waters," its crystal
 
 *8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 cascades, and its mirroring lakes. The oftener he visited its 
 towns the more persuaded he became that here lay a fruit- 
 ful field, awaiting industrious cultivation of the peculiar kind 
 he felt himself to be fully competent to undertake. The 
 brothers were frequently at Stillwater, and it is thought 
 planned there many an expedition after plunder. 
 
 While horse-stealing was unquestionably their forte, the 
 /Maxwells were not by any means above robbing stores by 
 night, or when opportunity offered of relieving travelers 
 on the highway of any extra money or valuables they 
 might have in their pockets. They grew restive of the re- 
 straint which their good behavior while away from home 
 put on them, and it came to pass very naturally, therefore, 
 that before many months from the date of their first appear- 
 ance in the Northwest they began to ply their criminal 
 trade there with as much confidence as in Illinois. Sev- 
 eral horses stolen near Stillwater, and never heard of again, 
 are now believed to have been run off, on the bright moon- 
 light night they were last fed and watered by their owners, 
 and disposed of effectively some time after, by the Maxwell 
 brothers. 
 
 Shortly before this a party of four farmers, two of whom 
 were in a wagon and the other two mounted, were stopped 
 on the highway in the same neighborhood, at about dusk, by 
 two armed men, whose long black beards were plainly false 
 ones. With four six-shooters pointed at their heads, the badly 
 non-plused grangers were at the mercy of their captors.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 39 
 
 " Gentlemen, oblige us by * shelling out ' at once, and 
 you won't be detained long. " Eyeing the black gelding 
 and brown mare which the two mounted men rode, the 
 speaker who was none other, probably, than Ed. Maxwell, 
 continued : " As for you gents in the saddle, we'll have to 
 trouble you to dismount. " 
 
 The farmers on the wagon-seat handed over their pocket- 
 books, which v\ ere inspected by one of the outlaws, while 
 the other stood guard. Only $65 was found in both purses, 
 and a levy was next made on the horsemen who had dis- 
 mounted and obediently held their horses by the bridles. 
 The second collection only produced $20 more, whereupon 
 the spokesman of the occasion remarked : " Not enough 
 cash, my friends. We'll have to take your horses to get 
 paid for our pains. " 
 
 One of them thereupon got down from his horse and ad- 
 vancing to where the two men stood at their horses' heads, 
 was allowed without a protest to take the bridle of each in 
 his right hand, while significantly flourishing in his left a 
 cocked revolver. Mounting one of the horses thus easily 
 obtained, he stood his turn in guarding their four powerless 
 prisoners, while his comrade, or brother more likely, ex- 
 changed his seat likewise from the back of one stolen horse 
 to that of another. Leading the horses they had themselves 
 dismounted from by their halter straps the highwaymen 
 sang out a " Good Evening, Gents ! " and rode away at a 
 rapid pace. The horses they were riding just previous to
 
 40 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 this exploit, were found a few days afterward in the stable 
 of a widow, who carried on the business of farming on a 
 small scale with the assistance of two sons. She was inno- 
 cent of any knowledge of the horses beyond the fact that 
 two strange men had left them in her keeping for a few 
 days and had paid her liberally for the feed and care they 
 bargained for. 
 
 Although this daring piece of highway robbery by day- 
 light was never brought home direct to the Maxwells, the 
 opinion is general among the best informed in the matter 
 that they were responsible for this among the numerous 
 acts of lawlessness of a similar and of other kinds with 
 which their names were intimately interwoven at the time. 
 Of a truth, things came to such a pass, in certain portions 
 of Illinois and Minnesota, that whenever an unusually bold 
 robbery of any kind was committed, and the perpetrators of 
 it were not positively proven to be other parties, the same 
 was credited in full to the Maxwells. 
 
 Revisiting their old haunts about Colchester, McDonough 
 county, the Maxwells were recognized and reported as hav- 
 ing been seen in the neighborhood, to the sheriff. They 
 were not without friends, on their side, and were warned 
 that the officers were on their track. Nothing daunted, 
 and little fearing, Ed. and Lon told their old associates that 
 they proposed to take their own time about leaving the 
 county. Their words were repeated with the usual exag- 
 eration to the sheriff and that officer made ready to act as
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 41 
 
 if in response to a challenge from the desperadoes to come 
 on and take them if he could. Now the Maxwells were 
 not the kind of men to needlessly invite the interference 
 with their plans by officers of the law, and as a matter of 
 fact had sent the sheriff no direct message at all. The lat- 
 ter officer, however, proceeded with his arrangements to 
 capture, if possible, a couple of hardened and desperate 
 criminals, who had openly defied him to arrest them. A 
 large posse was sworn in and preparations made for a " fell 
 swoop" down upon the Maxwells, who were understood to 
 be harbored at the house of a notoriously hard character re- 
 siding on the outskirts of Colchester. An " unlucky " Fri- 
 day night was chosen as the time, and the members of the 
 sheriff's company, numbering twelve men in all, rendez- 
 voused at nine o'clock, at a place about four miles distant 
 from the supposed point of attack. The cunning Maxwells 
 were not to be trapped so easily, for they had kept posted 
 thoroughly during the few days previous, as to the Sheriff's 
 impending movements. Informed that they were to be sur- 
 rounded and taken at whatever cost as sure as Friday night 
 came, the brothers coolly received the intelligence as a good 
 joke " too bully good to keep long," Ed. is said to have 
 told their host. After eating their supper on the Friday 
 night, which Lon, with a laugh, " reckoned would be the 
 last seen of the Maxwell boys " for some time, but not for 
 the reason the sheriff would have unhesitatingly stated, the 
 brothers remained in conversation with their friend and his
 
 42 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 wife until the clock struck nine. At the sound they rose to 
 their feet. 
 
 " In one hour this house will be surrounded by a parcel 
 of fools, and we will be never mind where, but 
 out of reach of their kind, you bet your life," Ed. re- 
 marked. 
 
 Their saddle horses were brought out of the stable, and 
 bidding the people of the house a pleasant " Good-night !" 
 Ed. and Lon Maxwell rode away as yet free as the wind 
 that lightly played with the rustling leaves overhead. After 
 proceeding about five miles they turned and doubled on 
 their track, a favorite trick of theirs when pressed, halting 
 every little while for sounds and signs. They were reward- 
 ed for their skilful pains, before long, by hearing the clatter- 
 ing noises made by an approaching cavalcade. Hastily 
 making for the timber at one side of the road, and rubbing 
 their horses' nostrils with hands wet in whiskey, to prevent 
 their neighing, the Maxwells remained securely hidden 
 while their pursuers rode past almost within reach of them. 
 
 When the sheriff's party had ranged their " stone-wall" 
 about the suspected house, a loud " hello!" was sounded, 
 which brought the owner of the dwelling to the door with 
 a candle. It did not take long for the officers to satisfy 
 themselves that their game was gone, and on plying the 
 man and woman of the house with questions at the mouth 
 of revolvers, the only satisfaction afforded was the intelli- 
 gence that the Maxwells had indeed taken supper there
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 43 
 
 but had departed a half-hour or so before, in a certain 
 direction, which was pointed out under compulsion. 
 
 The Maxwells made their way back cautiously to the 
 house they had left hardly an hour earlier, and quietly 
 : aroused its inmates. 
 
 " We changed our mind down the road a piece, and 
 thought we'd come back and stay the night out with you," 
 Ed. explained to the woman who admitted them at the door. 
 Early the next morning they departed for good, but in an 
 opposite direction from that taken by them as a blind the 
 night before.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 RUN INTO JOLIET. 
 
 BAD AND BOLD. BLOOMINGTOX's DISTINCTION. PROS- 
 PECTING. A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE. UP IN A 
 
 HAY MOW. WORSTED IN THE WOODS. 
 
 BAD LUCK PREDICTED. CAPTURE 
 
 AND CONVICTION. LAWLESS 
 
 LAURELS. " THE LAST OF 
 
 THE MAXWELLS." 
 
 The ease with which they had heretofore managed to elude 
 the over-reaching grasp of the law, had a natural tendency 
 to make the Maxwells over-confident as to their personal 
 prowess in particular. Reckless they frequently became, to 
 a degree barely justified on any grounds, owing to the odds 
 always against the outlaw. On the heels of the unsuccess- 
 ful attempt to take them at Colchester, the sheriffs of half 
 a dozen different counties put themselves in readiness to re- 
 ceive the fleet fugitives if they should happen to pay one of 
 their respective bailiwicks the honor of a visit. 
 
 On leaving McDonough county, the Maxwell brothers 
 threaded their way by a circuitous route in the direction of 
 
 (44)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 45 
 
 Minnesota. Before quitting Illinois this time they resolved 
 on having some further sport. 
 
 Among the towns which may lay claim to having had a 
 share in the nurture of these striking specimens of the bud 
 and bloom of bravado, was Bloomington, where there re- 
 sided, also, at one time the Coleman family, the life-paths of 
 two of whose most promising members were, years after- 
 ward, by a strange and sad spinning of the web of fate, to 
 arrest for a moment fatal to them the criminal course of the 
 two desperadoes, born a second time in the womb of in- 
 iquity. 
 
 Near Bloomington the Maxwell brothers had previously 
 figured a little in the role of house-breakers, and had become 
 acquainted with the lay of the land well enough to " locate" 
 a promising point for any piece of deviltry they might un- 
 dertake. It occurred to them while on the " long way 
 around " which they had taken to get to Minnesota, that it 
 was getting to be, " a long time " not " between drinks,'* 
 but since they had swapped horses ! They resolved, there- 
 fore, to be on the look-out for fresh animals, and happening 
 to think of Bloomington, at the same time, they were not 
 slow in deciding on a flank movement of the sort for which 
 they were reputedly famous. Heading their horses in that 
 direction, a day's ride brought them conveniently near the 
 designated point of plunder. The farmer with whom they 
 stopped for supper, little dreaming of the revolvers and 
 knives stuck in the belts underneath their buttoned-up coats,
 
 46 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 and of the true character of his guests, afforded them some 
 valuable information about the fine stock of his section. He 
 was not willing that his neighbors should have all the credit 
 of raising and owning prize cattle and horses, but expatiated 
 eloquently upon his personal treasures of the same kind. 
 Doubtless he had an eye to business, as well, for on the 
 strangers making themselves known as prospective settlers 
 in that part of the country, he insisted on showing them 
 what he possessed. 
 
 The Maxwells were particularly interested in a couple of 
 high-bred colts, the offspring of a fine brood-mare by a sire 
 that had been honored previously by more than one trotting 
 record of 2 140. These colts had lately been broken to the 
 saddle, so the farmer said, but were soon to be put in the 
 hands of a jockey for the trotting course. The Maxwells 
 had seen enough to determine on their plans for that night, 
 and on returning to the house took their departure at once. 
 They rode leisurely along for several miles, when they be 
 took themselves into the open timber handy, and tied their 
 horses to a tree, after having unbridled them. They re- 
 turned on foot, each with a bridle in one hand and a revol- 
 ver in the other. Access to the stalls where the coveted 
 colts were safely housed, however, was more difficult to 
 gain than had been anticipated. The stable -door was im- 
 pregnable against a noiseless assault, and a ladder had to be 
 procured and an entrance sought through the door of the 
 hay-loft above. The latter attempt proving successful, the
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 47 
 
 next step was to secure the colts and obtain a mode of egress 
 from the stable. The colts were bridled without very 
 much trouble, but there was no way of rinding a way out 
 for them. The stable had two doors they found, but these 
 were both provided with superior locks, instead of being se- 
 cured with the ordinary latch, staple and padlock, for which 
 only they had come prepared. While deliberating on what 
 to do Ed. heard faint footsteps approaching from without, 
 and no sooner had the brothers darted under cover behind 
 some convenient feed barrels, than a key turned in the lock 
 of the smaller door, and on its being cautiously opened, the 
 rustle of skirts betrayed the presence in the stable of a 
 woman, the nature of whose visit at that unseemly hour was 
 soon made apparent. 
 
 Drawing tfie door to, but not locking it behind her, 
 she groped her way gradually toward the steep stair- 
 steps leading to the loft, and called out in a loud whis- 
 per, "Are you up there, Charley?'" The crouching 
 Maxwells held their breath, and on no answer being re- 
 turned, the female party to an assignation in the hay-mow 
 became petulantly convinced that she was alone. 
 
 " Of course he ain't here yet. He never is on time," she 
 said, in an impatient, half-suppressed tone of voice. " I 
 might as well go on up and wait for him. He'll find me 
 asleep probably." 
 
 So saying, she begun the ascent of the stairs, and in anoth- 
 er minute she was heard overhead moving about in the hay.
 
 48 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 " Let's skip out of here before ' Charlie* comes, unless 
 you want to lay for him, while I go up above and tackle the 
 girl," whispered Lon, in whose mind a fast horse and a 
 fast woman were two things hard to choose between. 
 
 " We aint got any time for your monkeying. We've got 
 to make tracks as quick as we can or we'll get ourselves in- 
 to trouble," replied Ed., whose authority was rarely ever 
 questioned. 
 
 While Lon went to the door and watched, Ed. proceeded 
 to make sure of the colts. They were as quiet as possible 
 though well aware that it would take a pretty big fright to 
 cause the woman in the hay loft to give herself away by 
 raising an alarm. They were balked again, however, by 
 the appearance of " Charley," whose tardiness they would 
 have prolonged indefinitely, without any regard for the out- 
 raged feelings of his forlorn mistress, awaiting his coming 
 quite in a hay-fever of impatience. Lon returned to his 
 former place of concealment, and Ed. stood still at the head 
 of the colt he was caressing. Charlie pushed open the door, 
 turned the key on the inside after closing it softly, and went 
 straight on upstairs. It was " now or never," certainly, and 
 with as little noise as possible the colts were led out of the 
 stable, and the road having been gained, were mounted bare- 
 back and urged on at a fast pace. It was to be expected, of 
 course, that the guilty pair in the hay-loft were made aware 
 of the mysterious movements underneath them, and that on 
 discovering the great loss to which the master of the house
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 49 
 
 had been subjected through their criminal carelessness, ex- 
 perienced a chilly change from their previous state of ama- 
 tiveness to a sense of sickening fear. The woman was likely 
 packed off to her proper couch, while her lover bethought 
 him as speedily as possible of some way to rouse up the male 
 members of the household without attaching any suspicion 
 to himself. Whatever plan he determined on, he lost little 
 time in putting it into execution, and within half an hour the 
 farmer, his elder son and two field hands were in pursuit of 
 the horse-thieves. When the Maxwells had ridden about 
 as far as where they thought their saddled horses would be 
 found, they turned off the road, and dismounting, led the 
 colts through the timber. The young, high-strung ani- 
 mals, unused to this procedure, became exceeding!/ hard to 
 manage, and after holding on to them a much longer time 
 than less experienced persons could have done under similar 
 disadvantages, their captors suddenly found themselves the 
 victims of a forcible desertion, Lon lying sprawled out on 
 the ground, and Ed. rubbing his eyes at seeing the stars that 
 fell in a shower consequent upon the concussion produced 
 by his being violently hurled against the body of a tree 
 There was no help for it, curse as roundly as they might at 
 their confounded luck, and they made their way slowly to- 
 ward the best horses they were just then able to command. 
 Ed. was the loudest in the condemnation of their folly, 
 in trying to lead the fiery young colts through the woods, 
 simply to secure a pair of common horses such as they could
 
 50 Life of 'Williams Brothers. 
 
 obtain almost anywhere without the asking, and predicted 
 a change in their hitherto uninterrupted streak of good 
 luck. Not long afterward, Lon had occasion to refer to his 
 brother's words in the woods that night as unconsciously 
 prophetic. Their luck, certainly, seemed to have changed 
 from that time. 
 
 The farmer's party met the colts coming up the road 
 towards home, at an easy canter, and had Ijttle difficulty in 
 securing them, much to the relief, in particular, of the farmei 
 and the amorous couple who very likely found thereaf 
 another mating-place than the hay-mow. The Maxw 
 remained in the woods an hour's time to satisfy themselves 
 that the pursuit had been abandoned, and then resumed 
 their journey, which they pursued in an uneventful manner 
 until its end in Minnesota was reached. Bridles were bought 
 the next day at a way-side store, and to all appearances it 
 didn't improve their tempers much to have to pay for any- 
 thing, even though with money dishonestly obtained. 
 
 Arrived in Minnesota again, and in hard lines according 
 to their notion, the Maxwells took somewhat more kindly 
 than their wont to dissipation. Drinking, gambling and asso- 
 ciating with vile women, they passed several weeks of time, 
 which officers of the law were quietly making the most of. 
 A deputy sheriff of McDonough county had been sent to 
 the part of Minnesota where the desperadoes were reported 
 to be stopping for awhile. On his arrival at the town near 
 where they were last heard from, he was given the assist-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 51 
 
 ance of officers who volunteered to assist at making an arrest 
 so often attempted in vain. 
 
 Accounts of the capture of the Maxwell brothers are con- 
 flicting. One report, published in an Illinois paper, states 
 that "the outlaws were overpowered by the numerical 
 odds against them. Encountered and surrounded in a saloon 
 by half-a-dozen officers, as well armed and as determined as 
 themselves, they surrendered at discretion." 
 
 The more accurate, or else imaginative correspondent of 
 a St. Louis paper furnished the following graphic descrip- 
 tion of the event: 
 
 " The services of a detective indispensable in cases of 
 emergency it must be admitted were secured, and the 
 Maxwells were shadowed completely. One night, at a 
 late hour, the waiting officers were apprized by the detec- 
 tive to hold themselves in readiness. It was explained by 
 their " silent partner" that the Maxwell boys were in a cer- 
 tain house of ill-repute, beastly intoxicated. They were 
 with a party consisting of six women and two men besides 
 themselves, and with an utter disregard for consequences 
 were enjoying themselves in an uproarious fashion. The 
 officers were stationed near the house, and the detective 
 went inside to await developments. An hour passed, by 
 which time the two other men in the room where the de- 
 bauch was being carried on, had staggered off, each in com- 
 pany with one of the women. The Maxwells had grown 
 maudlin and were oblivious of everything except their more 
 
 4
 
 52 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 immediate surroundings. The four remaining women were 
 rapidly passing from the noisy to the sleepy stage of drunk- 
 enness. 
 
 "The time had come to act. The officers were sum- 
 moned, and were no little relieved at rinding the job of dis- 
 arming and hand-cuffing the celebrated Maxwell brothers 
 an easier one than they had expected. Of course liquor 
 had the most to do with affecting their capture so satisfac- 
 torily, for both brothers were stupefied with drink, and 
 would have been unable to hold * their end ' up, even if 
 not as completely taken by surprise, as they were in this 
 case. " 
 
 The noted prisoners were jailed to await a requisition 
 from Springfield. Before that highly important document 
 came to hand, Ed. broke jail, by prying out a couple of 
 bars in his window, and climbing out, wristlets and all. His 
 flight was soon discovered and he was retaken before he 
 had enjoyed his freedom long enough to obtain the full use 
 of his hands. 
 
 Taken back to McDonough county, the Maxwell 
 brothers were tried separately for horse-stealing, on a charge 
 the most easily " proven up" at the time. Ed. was given 
 five years, and Lon but three. 
 
 The prosecuting attorney, Mr. W. H. Neese, was not 
 disposed to show any greater leniency towards Lon than 
 with Ed., and did his best to have Lon's time fixed at five 
 years at least. Lon registered a mental vow to be even
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 53 
 
 with the lawyer on this score, and it remains to be seen, 
 further on in this history, whether he remembered and how 
 well he kept his word with himself. 
 
 The belief exists in the minds of many that the Maxwell 
 brothers whose fortunes we have followed and the brothers 
 of that name who are said to have served in several cam- 
 paigns of the James and Younger brothers, are the same 
 parties. It is the opinion of the best informed among 
 authorities that this identity is far from being complete. The 
 single fact going to establish an identity, which, did it exist, 
 ought to be more easily apparent, is that both pairs of men 
 have shed a luminous lustre of its kind upon the same family 
 name. So far as reputation goes, at any rate, Ed. and Lon 
 Maxwell have nothing particularly to gain from any noto- 
 riety this alleged identification might add to their laurels of 
 lawlessness. 
 
 The removal of the Maxwells to Joliet took place in the 
 Spring of 1876. Their disappearance behind the walls of 
 the Illinois State Penitentiary marked the finale of the 
 criminal career of the " Maxwell brothers," who doffed a 
 family name for which they had no further use, on the divesti- 
 ture of their striped suits, on being set at liberty at the end 
 of their respective terms.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 PREFATORY. LON WILLIAMS, OF WISCONSIN. THE LIFE 
 
 OF A LUMBERER. THE INTEMPERANCE PROBLEM, 
 
 AND KNAPP, STOUT A CO. LON's HAZARD 
 
 IN DRINKING. A BETTER LIFE. 
 
 HEART HUNGER. 
 
 Penitentiary penitence has been likened to the total ab- 
 stinence pledge of the fellow whose last night's spree has 
 soured on his stomach and who stands ready the next morn- 
 ing to "swear off" without any reservation whatever as to 
 the "once more time" that " a true gentleman" never thinks 
 of counting. To make use of a hackneyed expression there 
 is probably more truth than poetry about the above, yet 
 there certainly appeared in the case of the younger of two 
 brothers incarcerated at Joliet during our Nation's centen- 
 nial year, fairly hopeful signs of a reformation. Without 
 having much conversation with any one on the subject, and 
 but rarely ever, it is likely, holding an introspective inter- 
 view with himself, the young man nevertheless profited by 
 many a practical reflection on the evident error and real mis- 
 fortune of his former ways. 
 
 (54)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 55 
 
 His resolve to reform may have been brought in great 
 measure by his self-acknowledgment that as a freebooter 
 he had been u failure, from thr principal point of a view in 
 which he had been taught by a brother to look at life. He 
 may have passed three years in prison without feeling once 
 at his heart an emotion which some one has described in 
 verse as being in memoriam of a mother's voice in days of 
 childhood. His moral nature may have been so blunted by 
 a few years of crime as a following, that he was rendered 
 insensible of any inner-consciousness of wrong doing, and 
 deaf to all inward appeals to turn to the right for the right's 
 sake. This may be all so, and still the fact remains, that 
 the seed of a reformation had been sown in this younger 
 brother's breast. We shall see how it took root there, and 
 that it thrived and gave promise of a healthy development 
 and permanent growth and how the fair flower hope had 
 tended so carefully was withered by the blight of the con- 
 taminating touch of an evil hand. 
 
 In the fall of 1879 a young man of about twenty-three, 
 who gave his name as Alonzo Williams, appeared at Her- 
 sey, St. Croix county, Wisconsin. From previously formed 
 impressions of the lumber district, the new-comer had several 
 years before, so it setems, contemplated the possibility of his 
 taking up his residence there with feelings of much inward 
 relief and secret satisfaction. Accustomed as he had been 
 to assimilate himself to conditions and surroundings as he
 
 56 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 found them, Alonzo Williams Lon" he soon came to be 
 called by his familiars was not long in drifting into the life 
 and falling into the ways of the mill hand in summer and 
 the wood chopper in winter. He was as full naturally of 
 animal spirits as an egg is of meat, and on becoming 
 acquainted thoroughly both with others and with his own 
 new self in the fresh existence he had entered upon, it is not 
 at all surprising that his inner nature should have strangely 
 warmed and rapidly expanded under the benign influences 
 around and upon him. The boys, generally, grew to esteem 
 Lon Williams as one of the best of companions, whether in 
 the mills, when in town, or in the camps when the rigors of 
 a Wisconsin winter are laughed to scorn by hardy wood- 
 men at whose hands the grand old forests are despoiled 
 ruthlessly of their kingliest specimens. 
 
 Like every other labor class in this country, the lumber- 
 ers of the Northwest furnish their proportionate quota of 
 hard drinkers, and generally speaking are addicted to the 
 habit of tippling neither more nor less than any other body 
 of workingmen wherever found and at whatever employed. 
 There are exceptions, of course, to this common rule, in the 
 lumber country as elsewhere. There is no question but 
 that the employers of a large number of laboring people 
 can, if they will, exercise a great influence for good in this 
 direction on the part of their employes. Drunkenness and 
 drinking can be made to be odious on more than one account, 
 by the adoption of a policy and the enforcement of a princi-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 57 
 
 pie, that will not countenance in the least wrong conduct of 
 this sort. A notable instance of the successful treatment of 
 the intemperance problem, is afforded in the case of the 
 Knapp, Stout & Co. Company, one of the wealthiest and 
 most liberal lumber and mercantile corporations in the entire 
 Northwest. The employes of this company are among 
 the best citizens of the various towns they inhabit, and it is a 
 very rare occurjence for one out of a hundred of their number 
 to be guilty of the " breach of contract," which " drunk- 
 enness or the introduction of intoxicating liquor on the 
 premises" is considered to be and so stipulated in express 
 language. 
 
 At Hersey and Knapp, the two towns where Lon Wil- 
 liams chiefly resided during the interim of peacefulness and 
 hopefulness between his two checkered careers, there was 
 considerable spreeing done by the younger men, after hours 
 during the week and on Sundays. In company by no means 
 considered as bad or vicious, L.ott occasionally drank rather 
 freely, but abstained from carrying a frolic of this kind to 
 the excess his companions would often reach after he had 
 left them. Getting drunk for the alleged fun of the thing 
 was something he had lost all desire for, and it was more 
 for the sake of conviviality that he tasted of liquor at all. 
 Herein Lon Williams made the mistake of so many, better 
 reared and higher gifted, far, than he. The old enemy can 
 never be trusted, and it is treason to one's self to harbor it 
 for an instant, no matter in which of the many guises, as-
 
 58 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 sumed for occasions, it may knock for an admittance. Re. 
 instated, the fiend incarnate of the "bottomless cup" which 
 the inebriate quaffs in vain to quench a burning thirst, will 
 wreak a greater ruin than escaped before. " Lay not that 
 flattering unction to your soul," ye, who would institute a 
 reform half way, that human will is able to give odds in a 
 contest of this character to human weakness. 
 
 The danger Lon ran in drinking was not that ordinary 
 one of becoming a u frightful example " for some temper- 
 ance lecturer. He was hardly " cut out " for an occupation 
 of that half pitiable and half despicable description. The 
 risk he took in yielding to the influence of liquor was of 
 having his mind and soul tampered Tvith> when in that con- 
 dition, by another person, bent on accomplishing his satanic 
 purpose at whatever cost and for the sake solely of sin's sat- 
 isfaction. So long, let it be understood, as he was left free 
 to follow out his own inclinations, whether good, bad or in- 
 different, Lon's hazard, even on repeated intoxication, could 
 not be called his jeopardy. 
 
 For the company of abandoned and vile women, Lon ex- 
 hibited hardly a trace of any former liking. It was true of 
 him, but only so far as it is true of the large majority of un- 
 married men and too many bland Benedicts, that he did, 
 more or less frequently, resort to the companionship of frail 
 and fallen persons of the opposite sex, but he was known to 
 be averse to indulging in disgusting indecencies of a semi- 
 public nature which commonly are part and parcel of aa
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 59 
 
 "evening out's" fund of entertainment for men men who 
 are often pillars in the flimsy fabric of society and the church, 
 that see in the social evil, woman's degradation, but are 
 blind beyond. 
 
 " Come on, Lon. We're out for sport, " was an invita- 
 tion he accepted mostly to please some friend. His repug- 
 nance, at times seemingly greater than at others, as if due 
 to an inward resolve to do and be better, to wanton dissipa- 
 tion, not infrequently subjected him to good-humored chaff- 
 ing by an intimate. Said one of his confidental associates 
 to him one day: 
 
 " Why, Lon, the first thing we know you'll be getting 
 tiecl to some woman for life. " 
 
 " Maybe that's what I need more than anything else," re- 
 plied Lon with a half perceptible sigh, continuing as fol- 
 lows: "And if I do ever marry the right sort of a girl, I'll 
 behave myself. " 
 
 " It wouldn't trouble you much to settle down, seeing 
 that you aint much of a hand now to run around with the 
 boys." 
 
 " If you had known me once a good many years ago 
 it seems like you wouldn't have had such a good opinion 
 of me perhaps, " said Lon. 
 
 "When was that?" asked his companion. 
 
 " Oh, never mind, But I tell you, old fellow, that I 
 never felt so much like getting along the way every man 
 ought to, as I do right now. "
 
 60 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 Who can doubt but that he spoke the truth? a truth 
 not less eloquent upon his lips than in the grandiloquent 
 utterance of speech set in more polished phrase. His 
 words proceeded from a heart as yet hardly conscious 
 of its own hunger.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM. 
 
 IN GOOD SOCIETY. REFINING INFLUENCES OF FEMALE 
 
 LOVELINESS AND VIRTUE. A NEW YEARS EVE 
 
 PARTY. FANNY HUSSEY MET. AT LOVE'S 
 
 CONFESSIONAL. CUPID CONDUCTS 
 
 A COURTSHIP. 
 
 The main portion of the winter of *79-'8o was spent by 
 Lon in and around Hersey and Knapp. In common with 
 his associates, as a means of pleasant relaxation, he attended 
 the various neighborhood dances, so popular in these parts, 
 and none more than he enjoyed the innocent diversion thus 
 afforded. 
 
 The companionship of virtuous young women, upon whose 
 cheeks the glow of health was painted, and with whose 
 buxomness of figure and of manner, there was an absence 
 of all affectation, was to Lon a source of pure delight. 
 
 It does not make a male person of the right stamp one 
 
 whit less manly to be a trifle fonder of female society of an 
 
 (61)
 
 62 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 elevating character than of himself, or of some personal 
 pastime or pursuit of happiness in another direction. 
 
 At these assemblages of the young people, Lon moved 
 in an element admirably calculated to develop both a pure 
 sentiment and a moral strength within his breast. He 
 breathed a pure moral atmosphere, and was the better, more 
 hopeful and more contented man for it. 
 
 A ball was given at Knapp on New Year's Eve., and 
 among the lightest hearted of those in attendence to dance 
 the old year out and A. D. 1880 in, was Lon Williams. Lit- 
 tle did he dream, however, as he adjusted for the last time 
 with great care his cravat, and put the finishing touch to his 
 simple toilet just before starting for the gay scene of mirth, 
 of the great New Year's gift which that night had in store 
 for him. 
 
 There had assembled early a bright array of sweetly 
 smiling female faces, opposed demurely to huddled groups 
 of young men, a bit bashful and a trifle awkward, perhaps, 
 at first, but " the ice of ceremony being once broken," the 
 evening's festivities were speedily under full head way. On 
 Lon's arrival the second dance had been reached and he 
 plunged at once into the pleasure before him. 
 
 Of the fairest-featured of the girls of Knapp, in form 
 rounded out to symmetrical curves, in style inviting and in 
 speech engaging, was counted to be by common concurrence, 
 Fanny Hussey, the sunshine of whose presence had been 
 lent to this occasion. To Lon Williams, who had only seen
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 63 
 
 her casually a time or two on the street before, she was daz- 
 zling at the short distance at which he was now permitted 
 to behold her. 
 
 Approaching nearer to obtain the introduction he had 
 craved, he stood " puzzled with mazes" and all on fire with- 
 in from the electric flash of love-light that followed the ar- 
 row Cupid sent straight into a quivering heart. He hardly 
 heard and " at a loss to comprehend the question " would 
 have been, had he been asked what words they were that 
 suffered him to take the hand of her whose heart his own 
 in love desired from that first moment of ecstatic revelation 
 and resolve. 
 
 The homely bit of conversation attendant upon what 
 very soon afterward proved to have been an interchange 
 of wild love and wilder hope, was so very commonplace 
 that it would have been indeed strange had the newly -made 
 lovers " stooped to conquer " it. 
 
 "Miss Fanny, this is Lon Williams." 
 
 That was all there was said of it. 
 
 Lon bowed very low, by a mechanical effort, but as ft 
 machine cannot be made to talk, he said not a word. 
 
 Miss Fanny smiled sweetly, looked, and blushed a deeper 
 red at the crimsoned cheeks and tell-tale air and attitude of 
 him who stood in silence, a suppliant at love's confessional ; 
 then she experienced the same sensations which had in a 
 manner quite overwhelmed poor Lon, and upon moving 
 her lips as if to articulate, said nothing !
 
 64 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 In the meantime, having performed his duty by his friend, 
 Lon's benefactor had quietly withdrawn. 
 
 A few moments of a golden silence that spoke volumes, 
 sufficed to recall the lovers to a consciousness of present 
 time and place, and on Lon's finding the language in which 
 to frame an invitation to join in the next dance, Fanny 
 found the words for an acceptance in reply. 
 
 Time fairly flew with them. Lon, selfish but happy 
 fellow, put in his first claims on the affections and attentions 
 of his lady-love by coolly proceeding to monopolize her 
 society for the entire evening, and Fanny, selfish from 
 sympathy and quite as happy, gave up all her dances and 
 every intermission to him with whom she shared equally 
 every fleeting moment of their time together. 
 
 The infatuation of a couple so thoroughly absorbed by 
 and absorbing each other, could not escape being noticed, 
 but the laughing banter at their expense was mingled with 
 many an honest compliment bestowed upon her beauty 
 and lovable character and upon his handsome face and 
 manly bearing. 
 
 As the evening lengthened, mutual confidences were ex- 
 changed at every opportunity, and a troth being plighted 
 that admitted of no delay, an engagement to be married the 
 very next (New Year's) day, was made before midnight. 
 
 On the new year's being ushered in with a lively reel, the 
 party broke up, and sweethearts were taken home under 
 the starry canopy of heaven, and made love to with a
 
 Life oj Williams Brothers. 65 
 
 warmth so sweet as to neutralize the bitter in the cold 
 night-air. 
 
 Repeating for the last time their good-night kiss, Lon 
 and Fanny parted with love-like reluctance, for the night 
 their first together and their last apart before being mated 
 in marriage. Each retired to rest in the company of fond 
 thoughts that took them together from the arms of Mor- 
 pheus on a pleasant journey adown the flower-edged paths 
 of dreamland. 
 
 Thus it was Lon Williams wooed, and thus was Fanny 
 Hussey won theirs a courtship that had been conducted by 
 Cupid in person, whose magic wand had never been moved 
 with celerity more charming before, by the record kept 
 above of pages printed and unwritten of the romance of 
 love's young dream.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARRIED AND DOING WELL. 
 
 A READY CONSENT. AT HYMEN'S ALTAR. "A HAPPY 
 
 NEW YEAR." CONNUBIAL BLISS. HOUSEKEEPING 
 
 AND HAPPINESS. AN ACCIDENT. IDLE- 
 NESS. A TOUCHING EPISODE. 
 
 The hour appointed for the wedding was 12 o'clock, noon. 
 They were to meet an hour or two earlier at the residence 
 of Fanny's mother, where Lon was to attend as became an 
 obedient lover to the formality of requesting a hand which 
 no power on earth could have easily prevented his taking as 
 he desired. Miss Hussey's mother was the wife of William 
 Thompson, whom she had married not long after laying 
 aside the widow's weeds worn for Fanny's deceased father. 
 Mrs. Thompson had her consent all ready for her future 
 son-in-law, ere he called for it, having been just previously 
 made acquainted with the interesting affair by her daughter, 
 whose wishes she wisely refrained from thwarting one trifle, 
 in a matter of such chief concern to Fanny's own happiness 
 
 and welfare. 
 
 (66)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 67 
 
 The services of Elder Donner, of the Methodist church, 
 an old-time acquaintance of the Thompsons, and one of 
 those who had watched Lon Williams' career since coming 
 to St. Croix county with feelings of the greatest interest 
 and heartiest gratification, were readily secured, he being in 
 town at the time. 
 
 The marriage ceremony was performed promptly at the 
 hour of noon. The simple but expressive and sincere words 
 being said that made them man and wife, Lon and Fanny 
 Williams, thus united, under Hymen's altar, standing in the 
 sunlight showered down upon them by the smiling God of 
 Marriage, made a picture for a painter, and to a poet would 
 have lent an inspiration. Heart to heart, and soul to soul- 
 the old, sweet story, coupled thus : 
 
 " Two souls with but a single thought, 
 Two hearts that beat as one." 
 
 A New Year's dinner worthy the undivided attention of 
 all others beside the bride and groom in whose honor it was 
 prepared, was partaken of next at Mrs. Thompson's, the 
 afternoon brought calls and congratulations from as many 
 friends and neighbors as had been let into or themselves 
 found out the sweet secret. 
 
 The happy couple were cosily installed in a cheerful room 
 in the house occupied by the Thompsons, with whom they 
 lived for several months prior to the departure of the latter 
 for Arkansaw, a small town in Pepin county. Lon and 
 
 Fanny began their married life under the brightest of aus- 
 5
 
 68 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 pices. All accounts agree that the devotion of this young 
 married and mated pair was exhibited to an unusual degree 
 on every occasion of their appearance together in public and 
 exceedingly demonstrative in their own home. 
 
 Lon remained at work and was regarded at this period to 
 be as steady and industrious as one would wish to see a 
 young man. He found amusement always in the good com- 
 pany of his wife, with whom he attended dances and even- 
 ing entertainments. It was observed that his attentions to 
 Fanny on these occasions were as many and marked as are 
 only looked for by society in a lover before marriage. Lon 
 was a lover ever after, and unlike most men, he never tired 
 of his wife's company, or left it for that of another among 
 women, to whose charms he was henceforth decently in- 
 different. 
 
 When the Thompsons removed to Arkansaw, Lon Wil- 
 liams rented the house they vacated and his wife proved to 
 be an excellent housekeeper. They had comparativelyx lit- 
 tle of this world's goods, yet were well-to-do in that which 
 constitutes contentment, the most substantial of all happi- 
 ness. 
 
 In the natural course of time, the young wife became 
 enceinte, and a happier fellow than Lon it would have been 
 hard to find. The thoughts and hopes of paternity thus 
 kindled within him gave his mind and heart that to feed 
 upon which is calculated to develop the higher stages of 
 manhood's self-enfranchisement from the slavery of sins ot
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 69 
 
 the flesh. At parties they attended, when his wife was 
 compelled to abstain from dancing much, and was forbidden 
 by Nature's law, more particularly, to indulge in the waltz, 
 polka and other round dances, Lon would wait upon her 
 every want and remain constantly at her side. 
 
 During the next winter after their marriage, Lon had the 
 misfortune to cut his right foot while out chopping wood, 
 and on account of this accident was left without employ- 
 ment until spring. Through inattention or carelessness the 
 wound became worse, and after it had caused him no little 
 pain and annoyance, an amputation of the large toe was 
 performed from necessity. 
 
 Idleness is noted by the Church of Rome as the seventh 
 sin among the deadly or mortal ones to which flesh is heir 
 to according to the creed of a Christian. Proverbially among 
 all people, it is one of the roots of evil. The condition or 
 quality of being idle remains to be taken, as a matter of 
 course, in any of the various senses of that word ; there be- 
 ing, for instance, an enforced idleness such as Lon's was on - 
 first being laid up with his sore foot; to which the animad- 
 version of the papal church and of people in general is not 
 intended to apply. 
 
 There was some danger, nevertheless, for one of Lon's 
 temperament in his position. He could illy brook the re- 
 straint upon his physical liberty, and the loss of time and 
 money which he felt the less able to afford in view of the 
 prospective " increase of his house " on the approaching
 
 70 Life of 'Williams Brothers. 
 
 accouchement of his wife. He grew to be exceeding restive, 
 and a bit blue and down-hearted at times. He used to tell 
 his wife that he was both ashamed and afraid to stay idle so 
 long. 
 
 " Fanny, this will never do for me. I've got you to look 
 after as well as myself, and it won't be long before 
 
 Here he hesitated, his voice taking a tender tone, and his 
 manner becoming abashed all in a moment. 
 
 " Yes, Lonnie dear, I know what you mean. But don't 
 get to feeling bad, and everything will come out all right." 
 
 Advancing to her, Lon clasped his arms lovingly about 
 his wife, and drawing her gently within a close embrace, 
 whispered : 
 
 " God bless my darling ! She must help me keep my 
 spirits up and be a man. "
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AN EVIL GENIUS REAPPEARS. 
 
 A HARD WINTER. THE BLUES. A MYSTERIOUS WHISTLE. 
 THE OLD "CALL" TO LON. THE BROTHERS' MEET- 
 ING. EDWARD WILLIAMS. THE CHANGE 
 IN LON. A GRIEVING WIFE. 
 
 The winter of 1880-81 will long be remembered as one 
 of exceptional severity throughout the country. Between 
 the time of Winter's actual departure and that of Summer's 
 arrival on the calendar, there was scarcely enough seen of 
 Spring to give the usual amount of " inspired ""employment 
 to the languishing poets and poetesses of rural America. 
 
 Lon Williams, being idle, naturally saw the darker side 
 of things, and brooded a good deal over the extra expense 
 of living incurred in many ways on account of the pro- 
 tracted spell of cold weather on into the spring months. 
 Then, again, there would be times when he would cheer up 
 as bidden by his sunny-haired and sunnier dispositioned help- 
 meet, and his laugh would ring out as clear as a bell at some 
 jest they were enjoying in common. It was one night in
 
 72 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 the fore part of what should have been in fact Spring, while 
 they were seated around a blazing fire, with whose warmth 
 and light their spirits were in sympathy, that Lon experien- 
 ced, on a sudden, sickening sensations attributable to Fear 
 and Doubt, the hand-maidens of Despair. 
 
 " What is that, Lon? " asked Fanny, straining her ear to 
 catch a possible repetition of something that had sounded 
 above the wail of the night wind like a shrill whistle. 
 
 Again it sounded, clearer and more distinct, during a pause 
 by the sighing breeze as if for breath a long, loud whistle, 
 plain enough in her ears and in Lon's heart, piercing the 
 latter as with a sharp steel instrument. 
 
 Another whistle, long and loud as before, followed by 
 two short, sharp signals of the same sort the signs a hu- 
 man call-bird gave of his presence and purpose. 
 
 "Do you hear, Lon? " said Fanny, breaking the silence 
 that had followed her first unanswered question. 
 
 " Yes, I hear, Fanny my God, only too well!" and Lon 
 aroused himself by an effort and left his seat. 
 
 " Where are you going Lonnie what is the matter?" 
 anxiously asked the young wife, greatly disturbed by what 
 she was at a loss to understand. 
 
 "I'll tell you all about it, Fanny, when I comeback. Per- 
 haps I'm mistaken, but I must go outside and see. Help 
 me on with this overcoat, Fan, and don't be frightened." 
 
 Submitting to a few fond caresses, and promising to be 
 back soon, Lon bade his wife not to be uneasy and to lemam
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 73 
 
 where she was, and then opening the door went out 
 into the darkness whence the strange signals had pro- 
 ceeded. 
 
 Lon had recognized the notes of a call familiar to him in 
 a dead past that it seemed to have resurrected in a second 
 from a ghastly grave. 
 
 On leaving the house, Lon walked as rapidly as his lamed 
 foot made comfortable in a moccasin would permit, toward 
 where a man stood, tapping his feet on the ground to keep 
 them warm, within a few rods of the house. 
 
 " You wasn't in a hurry at all. I'd just started to draw 
 up a little nearer and see if I could get a peep inside o' your 
 snug nest. It's a cold night this, and I've done some trav- 
 eling on foot since morning." 
 
 " And so you've come back to life, have you, Ed?" said 
 Lon, taking, almost reluctantly, as it seemed, his brother's 
 proffered hand. 
 
 " Well, I should remark, and a few months in advance of 
 my time, owing to my * good behavior' they said. I found 
 out my new name this morning over at Knapp. ' Wil- 
 liams,' I believe?" 
 . ' That's my name," said Lon, rather hesitatingly. 
 
 " Yes, and seeing as how it has done you so much good, 
 why, if it's all the same to you, I'll just go in partnership 
 with you, like the brothers we used to be." 
 
 " No, Ed., not the old way. You can take my name if 
 you like, and I'll not disown you for a brother as long as
 
 74 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 I've got a home of my own, but there musn't be any more 
 devilment." 
 
 " Oh, I heard all about your pretty wife and what a quiet 
 fellow you had become, before I knew it was my brother 
 Lon they were talking about," said Ed., with the slightest 
 suggestion of a sneer. 
 
 " Well, you heard what was so, and you'll find it out for 
 yourself if you stay about here long," said Lon, whose 
 words were braver than he felt at heart, where he was 
 sorely troubled with secret misgivings. 
 
 " We won't quarrel about it to-night, anyway. Have 
 you any room in there and a couple of blankets for me?" 
 rejoined Ed. 
 
 " Why of course, and you're welcome to it. But mind 
 you, Ed., not a word to her about what's past." 
 
 Ed. promised compliance, and the Williams brothers en- 
 tered the house together. 
 
 " Fanny, this is my brother Edward. You have never 
 heard of him because he was away out of this part of the 
 country and I didn't know as I'd ever see him again." Then 
 turning to his brother, he said : ' 
 
 " Edward, this is my wife." 
 
 While it was some time before Fanny Williams came to 
 know anything of the former history of her new brother- 
 in-law, glimpses of his true character were ere long obtained 
 by her. She first observed, with a painful heaviness of 
 of heart, that he took up the most of Lon's time and that
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 75 
 
 he was by degrees, and stealthily as it seemed, committing 
 the theft of the latter's peace of mind. They would go out 
 for long walks together, and on returning, Ed would be the 
 nearer to cheerfulness, while Lon appeared depressed to a 
 degree that plainly betokened the cause of an effect. 
 
 Lon had introduced Edward Williams to Hersey people 
 in pretty much the same words used by him in the presen- 
 tation of a brother-in-law to his wife, and it was not many 
 weeks before the private opinion entertained by Fanny 
 came to be shared by a community, as to the character of 
 the new-comer and the weight and nature of his influence 
 over Lon. The brothers were seen in saloons more frequent- 
 ly than Lon had been known to visit such places, in Hersey 
 or Knapp, even before his marriage, and a frequent theme 
 for town talk was afforded by the great change coming upon 
 Lon Williams. He got to be slovenly in his appearance 
 and was either sullen or strangely boisterous in his de> 
 meanor. 
 
 Lon tried less and less, as if tired of further feigning, to 
 maintain a cheerful composure in Fanny's presence, but at 
 the same time avoided all her approaches toward the con- 
 fidence she invited. 
 
 The young wife grieved greatly at the alteration rapidly 
 taking place in Lon, but bore her burden bravely, exhibit- 
 ing the patience and fortitude chiefly characteristic of wo- 
 man's mission here on earth.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 WAYS OF WICKEDNESS. 
 
 LON's PERIL. WHY HE DRANK. A WIFE'S WANING IN- 
 FLUENCE. CRACK REVOLVER SHOTS. WIN- 
 CHESTERS. BROTHERS AGAIN IN CRIME. 
 STILLWATER. A THICKENING PLOT. 
 
 The danger to which Lon Williams was exposed by 
 drink, and which had almost entirely disappeared on his 
 marriage the culminating point of his reform had now 
 returned, and an hundredfold worse it was. What had 
 been his hazard, only, when among the young men of the 
 mills, became his imminent peril, in the presence of the 
 arch-enemy of his peace and better nature. Ed. knew his 
 brother's failing of old and craftily led him on to the brink 
 of a precipice, where to slip and to fall was to be plunged 
 headlong in a pit botomless save to the dead. Out of pre- 
 tended respect for Lon's words to him on the night of his 
 reappearance, Ed. allowed a little time to elapse before 
 broaching the subject nearest his own heart a seat of 
 blunted sensibilities. Drink, however, was an accomplice 
 
 (76)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. ff 
 
 he called to his aid at the earliest opportunity. Lon drank 
 on Ed.'s pressing him to adopt a popular mode of relief, if 
 not cure, for the blues, but became lower-spirited in conse- 
 quence. He drank to be social, and was saddened. He 
 drank to kill time, and found that it had never hung so 
 heavy on his hands before. He was depressed and despon- 
 dent, but though he might know why, he lacked the moral 
 courage of convictions to meet his danger like a man, and 
 inspired by the thought of the wife of his bosom soon to be 
 mother of his child, make the good fight against a lowering 
 fate. 
 
 Fanny looked on with an aching heart, and exerted her 
 iufluence to the utmost to restore and revive an ambition 
 fitfully flickering in Lon's breast. Always tender and af- 
 fectionate with his wife, Lon was more than once drawn 
 by her into making a half-confession of the cause of his 
 present trouble. So great, however, was the influence his 
 mind exercised over hers, in the " melting moods" of their 
 intercourse, that as a result of their partial confidences,Fanny 
 was irresistably brought gradually nearer the inevitable con- 
 clusion that Lon must fall, and (fiat her fortunes were to 
 follow his, life-linked as they were. 
 
 It was during this period that the remarkable pistol-prac- 
 tice of the Williams brothers, for which alone they would 
 have been famous in the eyes of their acquaintances, took 
 place in the woods around Hersey and Knapp. They would 
 go out in the timber and entertain the boys at dinner time
 
 78 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 with free exhibitions of a skill in handling a revolver, the 
 like of which the amazed lumberers had never witnessed 
 before. In conversation with many of the mill-hands at 
 Hersey, The Chicago Times correspondent dispatched to 
 obtain the full particulars of the life and career of the Wil- 
 liams brothers in Wisconsin, was highly entertained on this 
 head. He writes: 
 
 "I could fill a column with the marvelous shots both broth- 
 ers made in sport of this kind last spring. Among the 
 many in my rough notes are the following: At a distance 
 of forty paces Lon would shoot off a revolver in each hand 
 hitting together a couple of sweet potatoes tossed up by the 
 hands of a person seated on the ground. At eight rods Ed. 
 would knock an oyster can off a fence-post with a shot from 
 his right-hand revolver, and before it reached the earth 
 would put a ball through it from the " navy " in his left 
 hand. Coming up the railroad track together at one time, 
 they drew two revolvers each, and at a distance of sixteen 
 rods sighted a mark on a log at one side of the track. 
 Walking leisurely along, they put the twenty-four shots of 
 a couple of pairs of Colt's navy sixes within the space cov- 
 ered by the palms of one's two hands. One of the brothers 
 would hold in his hand a clay pipe, and the other, at twelve 
 yards, would break the bowl. This shot required a steadi- 
 ness of aim rarely reached with a revolver." 
 
 Both Ed. and Lon shot equally as well with the left as 
 with the right hand. When practicing with their favorite
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 79 
 
 Winchesters, weapons which it was noticed they came to 
 possess shortly after Ed. Williams* appearance, they fired 
 from the hip with an aim few shots are sure of from the 
 shoulder. Their familiarity with fire-arms and intimate ac- 
 quaintance more especially with the deadly Winchester rifle 
 cast a great many doubts in the minds of Hersey people, 
 which were not long afterward more than confirmed. 
 
 When Ed. ran short of funds, and Lon was unable to sup- 
 ply him with more, the time to strike in the former's mind 
 had fairly arrived. One day, seated in a saloon, a trifle mel- 
 low with liquor, charged at the bar to Lon's account, Ed. in 
 an off-hand way addressed his brother: 
 
 " I say, Lon, it ain't very pleasant to get out of money. 
 I don't know how you feel about it, but I would like to go 
 to work. Why, it's getting to be a matter of necessity." 
 
 " There's only one kind of ' work ' you can do," said Lon, 
 gloomily. 
 
 " That's all right for me, brother; but I'm a thinking that 
 you used to be no slouch yourself at it. And now, it looks 
 like, we might better go at that, just a little anyway, rather 
 than starve, which you'll come to, along with a wife and 
 baby directly, if you keep on much longer the way you are 
 now." 
 
 " Well, Ed., I don't know my own mind hardly, since 
 you've come here. I feel all broken up, and I can't tell 
 what's the matter with me." 
 
 " You brace up and listen to me, and I'll promise to put
 
 8o Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 some life in you. I've got a scheme here that's a dead sure 
 thing, with no risk to speak of, and you bet it will bring 
 money in the camp." 
 
 Lon listened, half listlessly and half impatiently, while 
 Ed. unfolded the plans he had sketched out in a busy brain 
 for " earning a little money." He had fixed an evil eye on 
 the cash-drawers of certain stores in several small towns 
 across the river in Minnesota. Horses were to be "bor- 
 rowed" at the first chance that offered, in the adjoining state 
 where he proposed to strictly confine his plundering. He 
 seemed to think the latter fact would go somewhat towards 
 mollifying such resistance as might still be encountered in 
 Lon. 
 
 " We won't soil our hands in Wisconsin, and by keeping 
 shady and doubling up on our tracks the way we used to, 
 we can take to the river again after the job is finished over 
 there, and none of your Wisconsin friends will ever be the 
 wiser nor your wife, either, for that matter." 
 
 Lon had suffered himself to be led a second time into 
 "the terrible temptation"of his life, and as a drowning man 
 catches at a straw, he held to a last hope that his evil-doing 
 might somehowbe hidden from the public gaze. He would 
 endeavor, he thought, to keepFanny in the dark as long as 
 possible, but should the worst come to her ears, he felt sure 
 that her love and devotion would stand the test and trial, 
 even at the cost of bitter anguish of spirit. It was 
 of the most importance, in his eyes, to save his "bub-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 81 
 
 ble reputation" in the eyes of new found friends in 
 Wisconsin. 
 
 Again the two brothers " understood" each other, and 
 before going home to Lon's fireside, that afternoon, they 
 had arranged the details of an expedition to Minnesota in 
 accordance with the plans already formed in Ed's mind. 
 
 The associates at Hersey whose company Ed. preferred, 
 and with whom Lon therefore became thrown, were of a 
 morally low character, the best dressed of them belonging 
 to that class in every community which is held in suspicion 
 on general principles, as bearing, outwardly, the faint semb- 
 lance of a respectability it would be hard to find, on a fail- 
 presumption, within the walks of their private lives. Among 
 these semi-respectable people, with whom the Williams 
 brothers maintained cordial if not confidential relations were 
 the De Wolfe brothers, of Hersey, whose actions later on 
 were certainly confirmatory in a great measure of the doubt 
 and distrust entertained of them. 
 
 Frequent long excursions came next to be made by Ed. 
 and Lon Williams, and no one knew of their whereabouts 
 during the intervals of their absence. They were some- 
 times, when thus " called away on business" as Fanny would 
 say to neighbors if they questioned her, merely on prospect- 
 ing tours, while at others in search of plunder at designated 
 places. As Ed. expressed it, " enough to live on" was in 
 this manner obtained. 
 
 The scheme to rob a number of stores in different towns
 
 82 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 across the Mississippi, which Ed. had for some reason de- 
 ferred, was finally put into partial execution during the first 
 part of May, 1881. A couple of horses were stolen in the 
 country near where they crossed the river in a skiff, and the 
 cracksmen headed for Stillwater, their designs as to the other 
 towns on the way having been abandoned as involving too 
 great a risk at one time. The " steal" at Stillwater lacked 
 the elements of peril and excitement which go to make up 
 the romance of outlawry. It was quite a common-place 
 affair, as contrasted with episodes of a similar sort in the 
 former criminal careers of its perpetrators. A store was 
 broken into during one night and some money and goods 
 were taken. The haul was not a large one, but yielding to 
 Lon's wish to return home again before pursuing the path 
 of pillage further, Ed. consoled himself with the reflection 
 that it was worth going after at any rate, and that it would 
 keep them in spending money until the next raid. When 
 ready to cross the river again, Ed. wanted to swim their 
 horses over, and keep them for their own use. To this Lon 
 would not consent, for fear the animals would be found in 
 their possession or traced to them if hidden in the woods 
 near Hersey, and so the horses were turned loose, and not 
 long afterwards recovered by their rightful owners. 
 
 The muddy Mississippi was recrossed in the skiff, and the 
 stolen goods were conveyed to a hiding place within a few 
 miles of Hersey. The brothers then returned to Lon's 
 house, and resumed their occupation of killing time.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 83 
 
 The fresh plot of the criminal history of the " Williams 
 brothers" was fast thickening, " like the storm that flies."
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OUTLAWED ONCE MORE. 
 
 A CONFIDANTE OF FANNY. THE LOYAL WIFE'S DEVO- 
 TION. A WARRANT FOR THE WILLIAMS BROTHERS. 
 
 SHERIFF KELLY ENTERTAINED. A SCENE. OFF 
 
 FOR ILLINOIS. A SAD PARTING. TWO HORSES 
 
 WORTH HAVING. AN OLD SCORE PAID. 
 A LIVELY CHASE. HOMEWARD. 
 
 On their return from Stillwater Lon told his brother that 
 he intended to take his wife into their confidence, so far at 
 least as letting her into the secret of their present mode of 
 life. Ed. had no objections to offer, provided Lon would 
 be responsible for Fanny, to the necessary extent of seeing 
 that she kept her mouth shut. 
 
 The young wife, then nearing confinement and in conse- 
 quence drawn closer than ever to her mate on his return to 
 the home nest, had been prepared by the much she had 
 seen and the more she had surmised, for the confession Lon 
 made to her one night. A devoted wife, with whom joy 
 is duty and love is law, may it is said, forgive where she 
 can not forget, and will as it proved to be the case with 
 
 (84)
 
 f Williams Brothers. 85 
 
 Fanny Williams, invent excuses for very much of that to 
 the error and sin of which she can not be blind, and which 
 the while preys gnawingly upon her peace of mind. "With 
 all his faults, " she not only " loved him still, " but yet re- 
 mained the constant and true soul, sealed to his as sincerely 
 pledged " for better, for worse. " 
 
 The Williams brothers were not long permitted to plun* 
 der at their pleasure without an exposure which sooner or 
 later follows every crime, big or little, and in their case it 
 was an early one, putting them to many inconveniences. 
 They had been seen across the river and in Stillwater, and 
 the detectives followed up the clues so skillfully as within 
 two weeks' time to determine the fact of the robbery 
 having been committed by the Williams boys. A warrant 
 was placed in the hands of Sheriff Kelley of St. Croix 
 county, and that officer undertook without any uneasiness 
 whatever, the arrest of the two alleged thieves. 
 
 No trouble was apprehended by the officer, who set about 
 his task without " fixing " himself further than to put in his 
 belt the ordinary six-shooter carried by sheriffs. He went 
 alone, armed only with his revolver and the authority of 
 the State. He had had, of course, no previous means of 
 knowing how extremely fond the men he was after had be- 
 come, again as in that past of which as yet their Wisconsin 
 acquaintances were ignorant, of challenging that same au- 
 thority of the law when opposed to them in all its moral
 
 86 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 majesty, but in a numerical minority on noses and revolvers 
 being counted. 
 
 Proceeding to Lon's house Sheriff Kelley knocked at the 
 door which was opened by Lon, whom he knew slightly 
 and with whom he shook hands. 
 
 The officer was invited in and given a chair in the room 
 where Lon rejoined his wife and brother. The "business 
 of the meeting " was called up, after a few preliminaries of 
 conversation. 
 
 " Gentlemen, Pm sorry to disturb you, but you're wanted 
 across the river and a warrant for your arrest has been put 
 in my hands to serve. " 
 
 At his words both Ed. and Lon rose to their feet, and the 
 sheriff following suit, all three drew their revolvers. 
 
 u We don't intend that you shall disturb us much, Mr 
 Sheriff, and you may as well make up your mind right away 
 than you'll have to go back alone," said Ed. 
 
 At this juncture Fanny, trembling with fear, and next to 
 sobbing with emotion, the greater because of her delicate 
 condition, excitedly threw herself upon her husband and 
 implored him not to shoot. 
 
 "Come, it's time for you to be making tracks out of 
 here, " said Ed.,watching Sheriff Kelley narrowly. Throw- 
 ing on a sudden two revolvers down upon the officer he 
 added: 
 
 ** Put up your pop, and get out of that door or I'll make 
 a c blood pudding ' out of you in no time at all."
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 87 
 
 What could the Sheriff do ? Let those who will condemn 
 an officer for backing down under such circumstances. The 
 odds were against him, " the drop " was on him, and life 
 was too sweet to throw away in such a manner. 
 
 Sheriff Kelley, therefore, made the best of a perilous pre- 
 dicament, and retired with a discretion sans grace, sans 
 glory, sans everything that he came for. 
 
 Ed.'s derisive, mocking laugh followed the officer out. 
 
 " Send to Stillwater for a Minnesota sheriff, and let him 
 try his luck with the Williams brothers. Ha ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 The sheriff of St. Croix knowing that the Williams 
 boys had a great many friends in Hersey, and fearing that 
 another attempt at the time to arrest them would be disas- 
 trous to him, left for his home in Hudson, with stinging 
 cheeks conspicuously betraying his sense of shame at the 
 fiasco that had fallen upon him, whether through his ignor- 
 ance or imprudence it mattered not so far as a public, fond of 
 its laugh at anybody's expense, was concerned. 
 
 As it would have been the height of folly to remain much 
 longer where they were, after the cool piece of imperti- 
 nence to which they had treated the High Sheriff 
 of their county, the Williams brothers completed their 
 arrangements to leave Hersey and the country a few days 
 later. 
 
 The parting between Lon and Fanny was indeed sad. 
 She felt instinctively that it was for the last time on earth.
 
 88 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 To her this was a final separation, one of the partings such 
 as Byron says 
 
 -press 
 The life out of young hearts. 
 
 He was sorrow-smitten to an almost equal degree, if he 
 did not secretly share her superstition. Locked in each 
 other's arms for upward of an hour they remained, he pow- 
 erless to console, and she inconsolable. 
 
 The brothers traveled southward and crossing the Mis- 
 sissippi struck down into Illinois, where Ed. had a piece of 
 work mapped out to perform. A couple of good saddle 
 horses were wanted by them more perhaps than anything 
 else at the time, and Ed. had resolved to obtain them in Il- 
 linois, a state that had furnished two brothers, of another 
 name but of about their build, some years before, many a 
 steed none the less sounder for being stolen. On reaching 
 Henderson county on opportunity offered, and two valuable 
 horses, a bay gelding and a brown mare, were secured on 
 the night of May 3Oth. The stars were out but there was 
 no moon they couldn't afford to wait for that talisman of 
 success. They rode their new horses through the old haunts 
 of the Maxwell brothers to whom they bore such a striking 
 resemblance that there were people who saw them on this 
 visit to Illinois who never took them to be the brothers by 
 the name they bore in Wisconsin. They went next to Col- 
 chester, McDonough county, and spending a part of one 
 day and night there, proceeded to Macomb, a village in the 
 same county.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 89 
 
 Macomb was the residence of Mr. Neese, the lawyer who 
 had prosecuted Alonzo Maxwell for horse-stealing, and 
 against whom the younger Maxwell had made a threat to 
 get even some day. On the first and last night of their 
 stay in Macomb, they paid a visit to the stable of Attorney 
 Neese, and stole a double harness, a single harness and a 
 fine top buggy. Hitching their well-mated team to the 
 buggy, they drove off through the woods. After going a 
 distance of about thirty miles the buggy was run into a 
 stump and completely ruined, and the two sets of harness 
 were left in a mutilated condition. 
 
 They then remounted and rode to Smithfield, near where 
 they camped in the woods. On the next morning they were 
 seen by a boy, too quick-witted to swallow their stories 
 about being out hunting. The boy on going to town told 
 the officers, and his description of the men and horses tally- 
 ing with that furnished only the day before by Sheriff An- 
 derson, of Henderson county, the latter was promptly tele- 
 graphed. The wily Williamse*, however, had made many 
 a mile on their journey, going by way of Peoria, before 
 sheriff Anderson had reached Smithfield. Their tracks were 
 readily taken up by the Anderson county sheriff, and the 
 pursuit urged on with all alacrity. Just above Peoria the 
 brothers crossed the Illinois river, and night coming on they 
 stopped for shelter in a school-house, stabling their horses in 
 a coal shed near by. A man passing along the road at an 
 early hour next morning saw the horses' heads sticking out
 
 90 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 of an aperture in the shed, and raised an alarm. An inves- 
 tigation was made by several parties and the school-house 
 was found to be locked. One of the school trustees was 
 sent for, and with a dozen men at his heels walked up to 
 and unlocked the door. Entering, the trustee was terrified 
 beyond expression at finding himself facing four revolvers, 
 held in the hands of two men. 
 
 " Good morning to you. We had to climb in a window 
 last night, seeing you had the key," spoke up Ed. 
 
 The trustee smiled a sickly smile and on Lon's nodding 
 him permission, backed himself into the chilly bosom of a 
 crowd that allowed itself, as it were, to quietly disperse. 
 
 The Williams brothers leisurely mounted their horses 
 and rode off. After making four or five miles they turned 
 and doubled on their track an old trick of the Maxwells, 
 oddly enough and experienced the great satisfaction, later 
 in the day, of lying by in the woods while sheriff Anderson 
 and posse, in hot pursuit passed within a few rods of them. 
 
 It was over a week before their trail was again found, 
 when it was discovered, to the great astonishment of the of- 
 ficers, that the Williams brothers had turned back, going as 
 far as Washburn, Woodford county, where they were re- 
 cognized under another name. Sheriff Anderson only 
 reached Washburn to learn that they had been gone several 
 days. It was ascertained that they had taken a northerly 
 direction, and becoming satisfied that they were bound for 
 Wisconsin, sheriff Anderson sent postal-cards giving a des-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 91 
 
 cription of the " Maxwell brothers," and announcing the re- 
 ward of $200 which Henderson county had offered for their 
 capture, to a number of points including Hudson, Hersey, 
 Arkansaw, Durand and Menomonie. 
 
 While working their way up toward Wisconsin, Ed. was 
 full of glee at their eluding so cleverly as keen an officer as 
 sheriff Anderson, but Lon's mind was full of forebodings 
 he could neither apprehend the portent of nor shake off.
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 DESOLATION AND DESPAIR. 
 
 FANNY AT HER MOTHER'S AN OFFICER'S VISIT. THE 
 
 CRISIS. THE DELIVERY OF DEATH. SUFFERING AND 
 
 RELEASE OF THE YOUNG MOTHER. AT HER 
 
 GRAVE. LON'S RETURN AND REMORSE. 
 
 THOUGHTS OF REVENGE. A 
 LETTER OF DESPAIR. 
 
 The day after Lon's departure with his brother, Fanny 
 Williams set off for Arkansaw, it having been arranged with 
 her husband that she should seek the shelter of her mother's 
 house while undergoing her approaching ordeal. The 
 oppressed state of her spirits, together with the secret appre- 
 hensions naturally aroused within her breast on about becom- 
 ing a mother for the first time, threw her into a nervous, 
 fevensh illness. Mrs. Thompson, whose heart was racked 
 to see the cruel lines of poignant and uncontrollable sorrow 
 in her daughter's face, wept over and waited on her with a 
 mother's thoughtful tenderness and deep devotion. 
 
 Sheriff Anderson's postal cards, and the promise of the 
 
 (92)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 93 
 
 $200 reward, had the effect of stimulating to a degree the 
 Wisconsin authorities, who were not slow in putting 
 together the aliases of the desperadoes as duly described. 
 An impression existed in the mind of Under-sheriff Knight, 
 then in charge of affairs in the office of the Sheriff of Pepin 
 county, that the Williams brothers had come into his county 
 and had not gone any further north. The opinion was 
 based on the knowledge of the removal to Arkansaw, in 
 that county, of Lon's wife, and the belief that Lon would 
 remain near her side as long as he was not directly disturbed. 
 Acting upon this theory, Under-sheriff Knight, in company 
 with a deputy, proceeded one day to Arkansaw and rode out 
 to William Thompson's place, with some idea of earning a 
 fatter fee than he had made in many a day. Knight failed 
 to find either the Williams brothers or any traces of them, 
 but succeeded admirably in frightening a helpless young 
 wife, lying in the most delicate condition known to her sex, 
 and agitated beyond measure at the nature of the noisy visit 
 paid the house by the officers. 
 
 The crisis in the case of the confined wife came about the 
 middle of June, and laid Fanny Williams at death's door. 
 During the delivery of a still-born child, she suffered the 
 most excrutiating agonies, at the hands of her physicians^ 
 who were powerless to save either life. For a few dragging 
 hours, during which her physical misery was hardly greater 
 than her mental torture resultant from a heart breaking on 
 its utter abandonment in a gulf of grief, she lingered.
 
 94 Life of Williams Brothers, 
 
 Then the angels of Death, in mercy, settled down upon her 
 in their " hovering mist" of supernatural light, and bore 
 away the stricken spirit to the realms of rest and peace 
 eternal. 
 
 The funeral sermon, over the remains of mother and child, 
 was preached by Elder Donner. The good man's words 
 were simple and earnest to a touching degree, bordering 
 upon that rare eloquence, "out of the abundance of the 
 heart." Recalling the fact that a year and one-half ago he 
 had pronounced the blesssing upon the marriage by him oi 
 Fanny Hussey to Lon Williams a "perfect union" that had 
 promised the best fruits only of the matrimonial state the 
 preacher recounted brief portions of the sad story of her 
 wedded life, whose damask bloom had faded beneath 
 the crushing weight of the curse she in her loyalty took up 
 as her cross, bearing it until death, without once, even while 
 in the depths of her distress and despair, murmuring his 
 name save in the tones of love. 
 
 Elder Donner thus conducted the second service he was 
 called on to perform, wherein he saw the hand of a cruel 
 fate that had raised up and for a while tended with nurtur- 
 ing care the love-branch consisting of the entwined lives of 
 two young and happy hearts, only to destroy the tender 
 vine, killing outright its principal root and the tiny shoot 
 that had but just started to appear upon the bearing stem. 
 
 Sad though his heart, his peace of mind was as yet free 
 from any consciousness of the nature and occasion of the
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 95 
 
 third service curiously connected with a sad history not 
 yet half spun out from the wheel of that fate which had 
 only numbered the first of its victims he should feel him- 
 self to be called on to perform. 
 
 The 4 Williams brothers returning from Illinois, reached 
 the river, which they crossed below the mouth of the Chip- 
 pewa, on the date of the death of Lon's wife. The spirits 
 of the younger brother were in mysterious accord with the 
 great sorrow soon to overwhelm him, on the intelligence ot 
 the funeral of his Hope. 
 
 Making their way through Buffalo county, the brothers 
 gained the northeastern strip of Pepin county and then 
 changing their course they rode west, swimming their 
 horses across the Chippewa above Durand,aud took the di- 
 rection of Arkansaw. The Thompsons were unexpectedly 
 awakened from sleep one night, and on rising and going to 
 the door Mrs. Thompson was met by Lon Williams, who 
 greeted her with the impulsive affection of a child, as he 
 anxiously plied her with inquiries about Fanny. Gently 
 disengaging herself from his embrace after returning it in 
 a motherly manner, Mrs. Thompson broke the awful news 
 to Lon, as best as she could command her words between 
 spells of sobbing, in which she was joined by her son-in- 
 law, who shed hot, scalding tears of keen remorse and ex- 
 treme bitterness of spirit. 
 
 Ed. and Lon remained at William Thompson's house 
 several days, on one of which Lon drove his mother-in-law
 
 96 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 in a buggy over to Hersey. When at Hersey Mrs. Thomp- 
 son and Lon were seen and spoken to by no few of their 
 friends. 
 
 To those with whom he conversed freely on the subject 
 of his wife's death, and of his own probable future, Lon ex- 
 pressed himself in the same strain. He said that with the 
 IOSF of his wife, the only incentive in his life to reform had 
 gone and forever and that he didn't care to live any 
 longer except for revenge upon those he fancied had 
 injured him. He had somehow got the idea that his wife 
 might have been saved, if he had not been driven away 
 from her side at the time he was needed or wanted there 
 the most, and he had brooded over his troubles, real and 
 imaginary, to an extent that left him an exceedingly des- 
 perate and dangerous man. He said, to one of his old com- 
 panions among the mill-hands: 
 
 " I've got the * name' again, and I'll have the * game.' 
 Since Fanny's death I've got nothing left worth living for, 
 and I'll die first before they'll ever take me." 
 
 Driving to the telegraph office, Lon called the operator 
 out, and after telling him how he (Lon) felt, threatened to 
 shoot him if he sent a message during the day to the Sheriff, 
 informing that officer of Mrs. Thompson's and Lon's pres- 
 ence in Hersey. Among other acquaintances accosted on 
 the street by the occupants of the buggy, was Mrs. Adams, 
 a former next-door neighbor to Lon and Fanny Will- 
 iams. Mrs. Adams stated afterwards that Lon spoke to
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 97 
 
 her most feelingly and reverently of liis departed wife. 
 
 The true state of Lon's feelings at this time is accurately 
 ascertained from his own words, penned in an impulsive 
 outburst of a bosom " inly raging" with its desolation and 
 despair, in the form of a letter to Elder Donner, the firm 
 friend to Fanny and himself. This letter read as follows: 
 "SUNDAY NIGHT, June 26, 1881. 
 
 Mr. Donner Sir: I have been wanting to speak with 
 you ever since I came back, and not having the opportunity 
 I will have to transfer my thoughts to paper. I want to 
 say this (although it isn't much), that what few of the neigh- 
 bors and acquaintances of mine that respected me in the least 
 when I was first married, I want to keep their respect. I 
 know at the present time that I have very few sympathiz- 
 ing friends. The majority doubtless say, * I pitied his wife, 
 but him let him go to the dogs.' Now, as far as I am 
 concerned, I want to say this that what the folks say about 
 me I don't care so much for as this : The talk was started 
 that I married Fanny with the intention of leaving her. I want 
 to say that no man was ever more honest in his dealing with 
 or profession to a woman than I was with her. Circum- 
 stances placed me in such a position that I could hear noth- 
 ing of the way things were a-going up here till I finally 
 came up. But too late. She was dead. Oh, this has been 
 a terrible shock to me, although iew would believe it. They 
 doubtless say this, * He is glad of il. but, Mr. Donner, you 
 had better buried me than her, for 1 now am a ruined man.
 
 ^8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 My life is wrecked, and I care no more for it. I was always 
 alone in the world till I got her, and now 1 stand alone 
 again, with nothing to live for, and no object in view* It 
 almost sets me crazy when I hear of any one saying, * He 
 intended to leave her in the spring anyway,' but, Mr. Don- 
 ner, if my word is good for anything, believe what I have 
 said. It can now make no difference to me what people 
 say, only it seems as though I had ought to say it for her 
 sake but not my own. I know she was too good a woman 
 for me ; I knew it, but still I knew as well how to appreciate 
 her as any one could, and now that she is dead I want to 
 clear her memory of every chance of reproach because she 
 was innocent as any angel could be; and now, Mr. Donner, 
 she has been torn from me. It might have been the will of 
 God, but I think it was the doings of men, and my desire to 
 retaliate is fearful strong, nothing but respect for her holds 
 me back; but now, if they come for me again I won't run 
 from them. I have nothing to keep out of their way now 
 for. When Fanny was alive I kept out of their way for her 
 sake, but now they have done all they could ; they have 
 driven me away from her and I'll never see her again now. 
 All they can do is to come and take my life, they can take it 
 easy if they know how. Mr. Donner, my life is so wrecked 
 that I almost want them to come on to me that they can see 
 what a desperate wreck they have left. Now, Mr. Donner, 
 I simply tell you all this because I know you to be a man of 
 principle. I mean this just for yourself, and if justice were
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 99 
 
 done me, no charge could be brought against me. I merely 
 wanted to help my brother, and that ruined me. If it is not 
 asking too much of you, I wish you would pray for me. A 
 petition to God from some one, it seems, would do me good, 
 for I can't do it myself. Farewell, 
 
 Respectfully, LON WILLIAMS." 
 
 He had turned to that friend, as if in a moment of hesita- 
 tion pausing to ask of another an assistance he could not 
 recruit within himself, before casting all to the winds and 
 burning every bridge behind him.
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 THE GREAT CRIME. 
 
 BUGGY-RIDING TAKING IN A CIRCUS THE SAFE-KEEP- 
 ING OBTAINED FOR A STOLEN HORSE VENGEANCE 
 VOWED A TRIP TO DURAND THE COLEMAN 
 BROTHERS THE OUTLAWS CROSS THE CHIPPE- 
 WA PREPARATIONS FOR AN ENCOUNTER 
 "INTO THE JAWS OF DEATH" DESCRIPTION 
 IN DETAIL OF A BLOODY BUTCHERY. 
 
 The Williams brothers were next seen together near a 
 small farm clearing in the " big woods," in Dunn county, a 
 short distance from the St. Croix county line. They were 
 then driving one of their Illinois horses in a top buggy, 
 leading the other. Where they stole the buggy has never 
 been known, but that addition to their outfit was made most 
 likely somewhere in Wisconsin. 
 
 On Thursday, June 30th, the brothers visited Menomonie. 
 Great numbers of the country people for miles around had 
 flocked in the county seat of Dunn county, allured by the 
 flaming show-bills of a circus, which had pitched its tents 
 there on that date. The presence of the Williams brothers 
 
 (100)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 101 
 
 was due to Ed.'s desise to " take in " the show. Both Ed. 
 and Lon were recognized several times on the ground, but 
 even if the officers had been put upon their track it would 
 have been by no means an easy task to pick out thieves from 
 among the sea of faces in the crowd. 
 
 Leaving Menomonie as quietly as they had come, the 
 brothers hitched up one of their horses, which they had left 
 with the buggy in the woods just out of town, and still 
 leading the other, drove off in the direction of Pepin coun- 
 ty taking the Eau Galle road. They concluded that it 
 would be policy to leave one of the horses in good hands, if 
 such could be found, and on coming to a farm-house several 
 miles below Eau Galle, they stopped to see who lived there. 
 On learning from the lady of the house, Mrs. Sands, that 
 she was a widow and lived pretty much alone, Lon asked 
 and obtained her permission to place the led horse in her 
 stable, promising to pay liberally for its care and feed. They 
 told her they would be back in a few days to get the horse, 
 and after thanking her for her kindness and a drink of cool 
 water, they drove away in the buggy. 
 
 A day or two after undersheriff Knight, of Pepin county, 
 happened along that way, and on learning that a fine look- 
 ing horse had been left with the widow Sands, by two 
 strange men he called at the widow's place to see the ani- 
 mal. As soon as he saw the horse, the officer recognized i* 
 as the bay gelding stolen in Illinois, from the description 
 furnished him. He told the widow what he knew of the
 
 102 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 horse and informed her that he .would be compelled to re- 
 cover it for the owner, as stolen property. He added, as he 
 was about to leave, that if the two unknown parties should 
 return for the horse, she might tell them that " Sheriff 
 Knight would be responsible " for its safe-keeping in Du- 
 rand. Knight was told by Mrs. Senz, who respected his 
 authority as a matter of course, that the men who had left 
 the horse in her keeping had said they would be back for it 
 in a few days. It is the opinion of a good many that Under- 
 sheriff Knight should have either acted on this information 
 and obtaining a posse surrounded the premises and lain in 
 wait for the desperadoes, against their return, or else have 
 not taken the horse at all. It certainly seems that an excel- 
 lent opportunity offered itself here to effect a capture which 
 had it been thus accomplished, by means of stratagem and 
 force of numbers, would have spared an unnecessary slaugh- 
 ter and the sorrow and and suffering entailed in consequence* 
 However, Knight may not have put any faith in the asser- 
 tion of " the strangers " that they intended to return for the 
 horse, valued as high, perhaps, as $500, and have thought 
 best to secure the animal first, without paying much regard 
 to the thieves at that time. 
 
 Agreeably to their word, the Williams brothers reap- 
 peared at the widow Senz's place, after the lapse of a few 
 days. They asked for their horse and wanted to know how 
 much they owed the lady for its safe-keeping. On learning 
 to whom and how the gelding's " safe-keeping " had been
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 103 
 
 entrusted of a necessity by Mrs. Senz, the strangers (to the 
 widow) waxed wroth. 
 
 " So Mr. Knight said he would be responsible for that 
 horse, did he? It's mighty hard to lose a fellow's horse, 
 right in haying time, too, don't you think ? " asked one of 
 the " injured parties." 
 
 " Well, we'll go down and settle up with Knight. I've 
 got a personal grudge against him myself," said the other. 
 
 The widow was almost led to believe in the virtue of in- 
 dignation so great as that exhibited by the unknown parties 
 who might, for all she knew, be the hard-working young 
 farmers they professed to be, and watched their departure, 
 in an angry mood, with some failing of confidence as to the 
 course of the officer. 
 
 The Williams brothers drove off in the direction of Du- 
 rand, but had only proceeded a few miles on their way 
 when they turned aside from the main road into the woods. 
 Driving in amid the brush, a distance of several hundred 
 yards from the highway, they unhitchad their horse and 
 left the buggy. The mare was led a short distance further 
 on and there tied to a tree. Making their way on into the 
 woods, the brothers soon came to a house, where they were 
 welcomed by its tenant and owner with a warmth that 
 showed them to be in possession of a friend in this locality 
 one among their many familiars residing in different por- 
 tions of the big woods. The outlaws partook of a rude 
 repast here, and then prepared themselves for their journey
 
 104 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 and business below. Their belts were refastened over their 
 vests, so that the ready revolvers would be handier to get 
 at, and their Winchesters were brought out and examined 
 with a critical eye. 
 
 Armed, truly, to the teeth, the Williams brothers set out 
 on foot for Durand. 
 
 Milton Coleman, under-sheriff of Dunn county, and 
 Charles Coleman, an ex-sheriff of Pepin county, were 
 among those officers- into whose hands the postal cards of 
 Sheriff Anderson, of Illinois, had fallen, and who had 
 formed the brave and honorable resolve to earn the reward 
 of $200 by personally effecting the arrest of the Maxwell- 
 Williams brothers. Milton Coleman arrived in Durand, 
 where his brother Charles resided, on Sunday, July loth, 
 in charge of a prisoner named Walker. The man Walker 
 had been arrested early that day in Wabasha, Minn., hav- 
 ing in his possession a number of watches stolen from 
 Toft's jewelry store in Menomonieon the night of July 1st. 
 The jeweler, Toft, accompanied the officer in order to 
 identify his property, and bore Under-sheriff Coleman and 
 his prisoner company on their return to Menomonie. They 
 reached Durand at about 6 o'clock, and it was agreed by 
 the officer and the merchant that they should stop for sup- 
 per and an hour's rest. 
 
 At about 7 o'clock in the evening several persons on the 
 Durand bank of the Chippewa descried a skiff, in which 
 were seated two men, put forth from the shore opposite.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 105 
 
 The prow of the boat was turned toward a point across the 
 Chippewa just above the village, and on drawing nearer its 
 two occupants were seen to be armed with a rifle and re- 
 volvers each. The Durand parties were persuaded that the 
 men in the skiff were bent on serious mischief, and on the 
 boat's coming within better sight one of their number de- 
 clared that he recognized Ed. and Lon Williams. Before 
 leaving the skiff, on running it ashore, the two men put on 
 false beards, very long and black, and their assumption of 
 this disguise served to confirm the belief of the watchers 
 on the bank in their identity with the twice outlawed des- 
 peradoes of Illinois and Wisconsin. The armed and dis- 
 guised men disappeared in a piece of timber on the out- 
 skirts of Durand, while the spying villagers betook them- 
 selves with all haste to spread the great news they had to 
 tell. It was not long before a considerable number of peo- 
 ple in Durand knew of the Williams brothers' approaching 
 visit to the village. Strange, though, it was, that among 
 the daring denizens of Durand, with whom stories had been 
 common of late as to what " Big I " would do should the 
 chance to make a couple of hundred dollars offer on the ap- 
 pearance of the men wanted, only a few a very and a 
 precious few were to be found on this Sunday evening 
 who showed any real desire to meet the Williams brothers 
 at least half-way, on their manifestation, in a manner, of a 
 wish to be neighborly. Those few were Milton and 
 Charles Coleman, principally if there were any more,
 
 Io6 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 their names are not known ro tnis history, which aims but 
 to give the impartial fact. No reflection is cast, or intended 
 to be cast, on the ordinary quality of bravery and usual 
 quantity of courage of the men of Durand, when it is stated 
 that on the Coleman brothers making known their inten- 
 tion of meeting the Williamses, they were not called on to 
 share the glory and reward of an expedition " sore beset " 
 as this was. The Colemans, who laughed at the common 
 dread and scorned the common fear, had not the least 
 difficulty about dissuading the more curious than brave in 
 the small crowd congregated near the jail from a purpose 
 to accompany not to assist them. 
 
 The officers made their preparations for the encounter all 
 too hastily and with an undue amount of " zeal, the blind 
 conductor of the will," Milton having but a single re- 
 volver with him, and Charles being unprovided with any 
 weapon, a couple of double-barreled shotguns and an ad- 
 ditional pistol were borrowed from the first hands to offer 
 them. When it was learned that both barrels of each gun 
 were loaded with small bird shot, some one had his senses 
 sufficiently about him to make the suggestion that the 
 charges of small shot be drawn out and duck shot substi- 
 tuted on reloading. Probably this would have been done 
 had the Colemans dreamed of the danger they were about 
 to run into all at unawares. But they anticipated nothing 
 of the sort. 
 
 " The guns will do as they are. We only want them for
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 107 
 
 company's sake anyhow," said Charles Coleman,who vouch- 
 safed to explain further that it was the firm expectation of 
 his brother and himself to effect their object without firing 
 a shot. The desperadoes were to be compelled to surren- 
 der at the discretion of " the drop. " 
 
 " Remember they are known in Illinois as desperate men," 
 spoke up Under-sheriff Knight, whose proposition to de- 
 putize a large posse to accompany the Colemans had been 
 declined by the latter. 
 
 " Yes, we'll keep that in mind. We won't take any 
 more chances than necessary. We know the kind of game 
 we're after, and we propose to bag it the best way we can," 
 responded Milton. 
 
 Thus the Coleman brothers set out upon their undertak- 
 ing, hazarding their lives upon what proved to be a fatal 
 error in judgment. Their experience and fate recall the 
 words of Shakespeare : 
 
 I see men's judgments are 
 A parcel of their fortunes. 
 
 The officers proceeded toward the upper edge of Du- 
 rand, where the Williamses were expected shortly to ar- 
 rive on emerging from the woods. Milton assumed com- 
 mand by virtue of his office, with a good second in Charles, 
 acting in the capacity of special deputy. 
 
 The Williams brothers had meanwhile crossed the main 
 road at a point where it was skirted on both sides by brush 
 and timber, and were directing their steps by a circuitous
 
 io8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 route toward the town. A long village street ran quite into 
 the timber belt, merging itself finally in the principal high- 
 way. The residence of Mr. Dorchester fronted on this 
 street, and was situated at a distance of two hundred yards 
 from the main road. Behind the Dorchester place was a 
 patch of the timber through which the highway took its 
 course, and the triangular plot of ground bounded by the 
 main road and village street on two sides and Dorchester's 
 side fence and the timber patch on the third side, was cov- 
 ered with sumac bushes and clumps of smaller undergrowth. 
 The outlaws made their way through the timber behind 
 Dorchester's residence with the evident intention of gaining 
 the village street just beyond. They had entered the sumac 
 bushes when they heard the sounds of voices in conversa- 
 tion and stopped to listen. 
 
 The voices were those of the Coleman brothers and two 
 small lads, sons of Mr. Dorchester. The officers had 
 walked up the street from town, and had stopped in front 
 of the Dorchester place to make inquiries of the boys, en- 
 gaged in play within the door-yard. The little fellows had 
 seen nothing of the two armed men described by the Cole- 
 mans, whose words were borne on the still air to the ears of 
 the human hyenas, lurking privily close by. The latter 
 heard enough to instantly conjecture the errand of the 
 officers, and their resolve to come out and try the issue of 
 the drop was doubtless due to Lon's determination not to 
 be trifled with or thwarted in their prosecution of his plan
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 109 
 
 to get even with Under-sheriff Knight. If they could get 
 and hold such an advantage of the officers as to compel the 
 latter to abandon a useless undertaking, and allow them to 
 proceed without further interruption on their way, why 
 then so much the better. If not they, at least, were fully 
 prepared to take the chances, at whatever cost to innocent 
 lives. 
 
 The Coleman brothers, a bit undecided whether to go on 
 or retrace their steps, stood side by side on the walk. The 
 hour was about passing its first quarter after eight. Be- 
 tween dusk and dark the gathering gloom, presageful, en- 
 veloped them as in the shadow of the valley of death. 
 
 On a sudden the Williams brothers strode out of the brush 
 and came forward. 
 
 Recognition was mutual between officers and outlaws. 
 
 Milton Coleman, generous to the fault of giving up his 
 own life rather than to take without warning the life of 
 another, insisted upon the performance of what he conceived 
 to be his duty, and held out to the Williamses the fair 
 chance to surrender peaceably. 
 
 " You are-my ." 
 
 " The word, " prisoners," was not spoken. He, upon 
 whose life the unfinished sentence found utterance in mercy, 
 had said his last. 
 
 Four loud reports rang out upon the stillness of the Sab- 
 bath evening. In a cool head a correct ear would have 
 distinguished between the sharp crack of a repeating rifle
 
 no Life of Williams Brothers* 
 
 and the explosive discharge of a shot-gun, and noted that 
 two of the shots were of the former and two of the latter sort. 
 
 Three more shots followed in startling succession. Of 
 these reports, but one came from the muzzle of a shot-gun. 
 
 Another " seven" and another " eight" were count- 
 ed. These, the last two shots, were rifle reports. 
 
 At the first round Milton Coleman fell, dead, shot by 
 Lon Williams in the neck, the assassin's bullet breaking 
 both branches of the jugular vein. The contents of one 
 barrel of his gun had first been discharged. The small shot 
 took effect mostly in the branches of the one of a row of 
 shade trees under which Lon Williams stood. A few of 
 the shot grazed the desperado's forehead, speeding on harm- 
 lessly, but a majority of the bird-balls pin-holed the leaves 
 above his head. Had the officer's gun been loaded with 
 duck -shot, a life for a life would have paid the penalty on 
 both sides of an affray such as this. Charles Coleman fell 
 upon his knees with a mortal wound in his left breast, 
 inflicted by the bullet from Ed. Williams' Winchester. He 
 had missed his human mark, and had he hit it, the petty 
 pill-dose could hardly have accomplished anything 
 
 The Dorchester boys noticed, despite their terror, that 
 while the sheriffs had drawn their guns up to the 
 shoulder, the desperadoes had fired their rifles held at 
 the hip. 
 
 The second round was shockingly one-sided and brutal. 
 Lon Williams put a ball into the left cheek of his slaughtered
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. in 
 
 victim. Charles Coleman, by an almost superhuman 
 effort nerved himself to hold his gun in position and pull the 
 trigger at an aim, while in the throes of his final struggle. 
 The dying officer's second shot struck the left hand of his 
 murderer, who flirted the bleeding fingers with an impatient 
 motion, that left traces of blood on the fence and side-walk 
 near where he stood. Ed. Williams fired his second shot 
 into the prostrate body before him, which completed the 
 round. 
 
 The seventh and eighth shots were repeated rifle reports, 
 being the third and fourth times that Ed. Williams, with 
 the deliberation of a fiend, fired at the bleeding corpse of the 
 man he had massacred. 
 
 The Williams brothers withdrew from this spot with the 
 blood of two noble lives upon their heads. The commission 
 of this, their capital crime, had fixed from this time on their 
 rank among the deepest-dyed of desperadoes.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 THE CALAMITY OF TWO COMMUNITIES. 
 
 EFFECT OF THE TRAGEDY IN DURAND A PARALYZED 
 PEOPLE STREET SCENE THE NEXT MORNING. ARRI- 
 VAL OF SHERIFF PETERSON. SOMETHING DONE 
 
 AT LAST. THE NEWS IN MENOMONIE. 
 
 CAPT. DOOLITTLE HEADS A POSSE. 
 
 THE REWARDS. 
 
 Parties at the jail and on the streets of Durand, who were 
 informed of the Coleman brothers' movements, and of the 
 whereabouts of the Williams brothers at the same time, 
 instantly divined the cause of the rapid firing and betook 
 themselves to the scene, there to have their worst fears con- 
 firmed as to the result of a fatal encounter. News of the 
 terrible tragedy was conveyed from mouth to mouth on 
 breathless tongues, and an awful gloom " overspread the 
 minds" of all. Congregations were dismissed without a 
 benediction, and dispersed in fear to their homes. The 
 
 (112)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 113 
 
 ousiness streets were deserted, doors were shut and locked, 
 lights extinguished, but no one dared to go to bed for hours. 
 A hush so great and perfect had fallen on the town, that 
 the air seemed doubly hot and close, and people breathed 
 hard and deep between spells of intensive listening for 
 strange sounds. 
 
 The bodies of the murdered men were removed and 
 taken care of, though it is related that the effort required 
 to stay long enough in personal proximity to the dread 
 spot to place the bleeding remains on stretchers seemed 
 possible only out of respect for common decency and 
 humanity. 
 
 Not a man in the appalled and frightened town stirred 
 that night in the important matter of pursuing and overtak- 
 ing the murderers. A patrol, it is said, was established by 
 Under-sheriff Knight along the river, but of what earthly 
 use that was does not appear, since the patrolman had 
 learned that the Williams brothers had recrossed the Chip- 
 pewa. It is extremely probable, if the outlaws had 
 known the state of fear and consternation into which the 
 villagers as a whole were to be thrown by their supreme act 
 of red-handed deviltry, that Lon Williams would riot have 
 left town without paying his call on and having his satis- 
 faction out of Under-sheriff Knight, whose visit to the house 
 where his wife iay sick and miserable Lon could not soon 
 forget. Anticipating, on the contrary, an immediate and 
 resolute organization of armed citizens, determined to lose
 
 n^ Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 no time in an exhaustive effort to effect their capture, the 
 Williams brothers had made for the river with all haste. 
 Finding the ferry handier than their own skiff, they forced 
 the old boatman to row them over with his quickest strokes. 
 Lon, who had pushed back his hat from his wounded fore- 
 head, lost it in his hurry. The hat, a soft black felt, medium 
 brim, with a double mourning band of crape, was afterwards 
 picked up and identified. 
 
 The next morning all was hubbub and excitement among 
 the men, and women wrung their hands and ran crying 
 through the streets. 
 
 The wife of Charles Coleman, at the time just recovering 
 from a severe sickness, suffered a dangerous relapse. She 
 was taken with fits of the most agonizing description and 
 alarming character. The mother of the Coleman brothers, 
 and a married sister, who also resided in Durand, wer? 
 stricken with great grief likewise. 
 
 The arrival of Sheriff Peterson, who had been summoned 
 from his farm at Stockholm, put a different and practical 
 aspect on the face of affairs. It should be explained here 
 that the office of sheriff of Pepin county is a non-pay ing one 
 to its incumbent during the greater part of the year, on 
 account of the small population, circumscribed extent, and 
 sparsely settled state of the county. It is a wise high 
 sheriff, therefore, who provides himself with an outside 
 occupation to fill in his time profitably between terms of 
 court.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 115 
 
 Sheriff Peterson went to work at once, and organized the 
 pursuit according to the best of his ability at the hour it was 
 undertaken. Scouting parties were sent out in different 
 directions through the woods, where it was most likely the 
 Williamses would seek refuge. The sheriff took the field 
 in person and remained there, on duty, until the last liope of 
 a successful issue had been abandoned. Intelligence of the 
 direful calamity which had fallen upon two communities, the 
 State, and law and order, only less than upon the bereft 
 mother and her remaining sons and daughters, a widowed 
 .wife, fatherless children, mourning relatives and dear friends, 
 reached Menomonie on Wednesday morning. A scene 
 similar to that previously described as taking place at Du- 
 rand, was enacted in Menomonie. The chief mourners who 
 lived here were the betrothed wife of Milton Coleman, and 
 a married sister, widowed, whose devotion to her brother 
 Charles had always been especially marked. 
 
 The part performed by Sheriff Peterson at Durand, was 
 assigned by common consent in Menomonie to Capt. Doo- 
 little, an ex-sheriff and an officer of high ability. Doolittle's 
 posse lost no time in getting to the field. Provisions were 
 prepared in short order by the noble women of Menomonie, 
 whose bake-ovens were kept taxed to their utmost by their 
 hands, anxious to render all assistance in their power, until 
 a regular plan of securing supplies was adopted by Sheriff 
 Severson. 
 
 The rewards now offered for the Williams brothers were 
 8
 
 u6 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 as follows: By the State of Wisconsin, $500; Dunn county, 
 $500; Pepin county, $500, and the original reward of $200 
 offered for the " Maxwell brothers, horse-thieves," by Hen 
 derson county, Illinois. 
 
 Thus began a pursuit which, in many respects, before its 
 close justly came to be regarded as the most remarkable on 
 record.
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 A BIT OF BIOGRAPHY. 
 
 SKETCHES OF THE SLAIN. MILTON ASA COLEMAN. HIS 
 
 LIFE AND CHARACTER. HIS LOVE. IN MEMO- 
 
 RIAM. CHARLES G. COLEMAN. THE SOLDIER, 
 CITIZEN AND OFFICER. A TOUCHING INCI- 
 DENT IN HIS ARMY LIFE. 
 
 A SISTER'S DEVOTION. 
 
 Milton Asa Coleman was, at the time of his death, twenty- 
 five years of age, " as flush as May" in the hopes of a grand 
 young manhood. Personally he was beloved by all with 
 whom he came in contact, and deservedly so to a degree, 
 being of exemplary habits and elevated character as a man, 
 and as an officer all that is comprehended by the three 
 words, " dutiful, faithful and fearless." 
 
 Milton was engaged to be married but one short month 
 later, to a most charming and estimable young lady, Miss 
 Rose Nott, one of the acknowledged belles in Menomonie's 
 best society. She, who was " a dearer one still and a nearer 
 one yet than all other," sustained a loss greater than the 
 bereavement of a community in common. 
 
 ("7)
 
 Il8 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 In a sketch of the deceased, published by the Mcnomonie 
 Times, the following words of tribute to his memory occur: 
 
 " Milton Coleman was, at the early age of twenty-four 
 years, raised to the responsible position of under-sheriff of 
 Dunn county, by Sheriff Severson, he having previously 
 served nearly two years as deputy sheriff under ex-Sheriff 
 George. He was made under-sheriff because he had made 
 himself familiar with the duties and powers of the sheriff's 
 office, and because of his general intelligence, sagacity, 
 courage and integrity. All the people hailed his appoint- 
 ment with approval. Alas, they could not look forward a 
 few short months to see him perish at the hands of an 
 assassin, and it is well they could not. But it will be long 
 before the people of Dunn county forget the name and 
 memory of the man and officer who sacrificed his life in the 
 defense of law and order. Milton was brought to Menom- 
 onie that he might be buried amid those he served so 
 faithfully, and who loved him so well. On last Tuesday 
 afternoon, at 5 o'clock, the funeral cortege from Durand 
 entered the streets of Menomonie, with the tolling of bells, 
 silent business houses, and a mourning people giving testi- 
 mony to the swelling tide of woe. Sunday morning he had 
 left home full of life, ambition and hope ! He was brought 
 back and carried by that home a cold en-coffined corpse. 
 The remains were taken to the court-house and placed in 
 the hall the casket opened, and the people looked on the 
 unconscious face of their defender, and then the sad proces-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 119 
 
 sion the largest funeral procession ever seen in Menomonie 
 wound its way to Evergreen Cemetery, where dust was 
 remitted to dust, and the grave hid from our sight forever 
 the form and features of Milton A. Coleman." 
 
 Charles G. Coleman had lived to be forty years old when 
 struck down by the assassin's bullet. His had been a battle- 
 scarred existence, reflecting high honor upon his character 
 and conduct as a citizen, a soldier of the Union, and an 
 officer of the law. 
 
 An interesting sketch of his life was published in the 
 same paper quoted above, from which the following extract 
 is made: 
 
 " Charles Coleman was among the old settlers, and was 
 one of the most prominent citizens of Pepin county. During 
 the war of the Rebellion he served the country as a volun- 
 teer soldier in Company B, Tenth Wisconsin regiment. 
 While in the service he received a shot in the forehead that 
 fractured his skull, and for that injury he was twice 
 trepanned. He never recovered from the effect of the 
 wound, and he retired from the service to bear to his grave 
 an honorable scar, and suffer, ever and anon, the terrible 
 effects of epileptic fits. But notwithstanding this, four years 
 ago his fellow-citizens elected him sheriff of Pepin county, 
 and he proved a most efficient officer, and vacated the office 
 at the close of the term to be appointed undersherifF by his 
 successor in office. His failing health compelled him some 
 months ago to surrender the appointment, and the last few
 
 120 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 months of his life were passed without regular employment. 
 The feeble condition of his body, however, did not prevent 
 his prompt acceptance of Milton's request for assistance in 
 the prospective encounter with the criminals whose arrest 
 was sought, and the sad sequel all know. He leaves a wife 
 and several children, and an humble homestead in the pleas- 
 ant village of Durand. Surely the good people of that 
 county will see to it that neither wife nor children of one 
 who lived in their midst so long, who served the county, 
 the State and the Nation so faithfully, suffer for any of the 
 necessaries of life. An immense concourse of the people of 
 Pepin county attended his funeral which was solemnly 
 conducted with Masonic honors thus testifying their high 
 appreciation of the deceased as a man, a citizen, an officer, 
 and a maimed soldier of the Republic, and their profound 
 sorrow for his violent and premature death. It is not for 
 us to seek to lift the vail and behold the sorrow that wrings 
 the heart of the iged mother, bereft of two such sons and in 
 such a manner. In this hour she may well exclaim, * Was 
 ever sorrow like my sorrow ?' and we may well give to her 
 and to the mourning relatives our sympathies and our tears." 
 A touching incident in the army life of Charles Coleman, 
 related by Col. J. A. Watrous, is taken from the Dunn 
 County JVeivs t and will be found to be highly interesting in 
 this connection. The sister alluded to is Mrs. S. J. 
 Andrus of Menomonie. The relator's words were as 
 follows :
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 121 
 
 ' There is something inexpressibly sad in the reflection 
 that a man can pass through such dangers as Coleman did 
 during the war and then be shot down by a fiendish mur- 
 derer. When he enlisted in the Tenth Wisconsin his sister 
 made him promise that if he was wounded he would inform 
 her by dispatch, and that he would have it arranged with a 
 comrade to send her word in case of his death. ' Twice a 
 week he received a good, long, loving, sisterly letter. At 
 the battle of Perryville he received his bullet and was 
 reported dead. The next morning's paper had his name in 
 the list of the dead. The sister was at Waukesha when she 
 read the list. In half an hour after seeing the name she 
 was on her way to Perryville. Reaching the field, she lost 
 no time in entering upon a search for the body of her late 
 brother. All day long, with eyes full of tears and a heart 
 ready to break, she searched among the dead and dying 
 searched in vain. After dark she heard of a hospital that 
 had not been visited. Going there, she was informed that 
 he had been mortally wounded, was brought to the hospital 
 t\\o or three days after the battle, and had just died and was 
 with the other dead, awaiting burial. Alone, aided by the 
 flickering light of a candle, the weary, sad-hearted, loving 
 sister hunted among the long rows of the dead patriots for 
 the one most dear to her. She was rewarded ; and as she 
 knelt down to kiss the white face, she found that it was still 
 warm. Was it possible that the dear one was still alive? 
 Placing one hand over his heart and with the other holding
 
 122 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 his emaciated wrist, it required but a moment to convince 
 her that the last spark of life had not taken its departure 
 that the Death angel had not wafted his spirit to the great 
 unknown. In an instant she flew to the surgeon and fairly 
 dragged him to the side of the dying man. He was tenderly 
 conveyed to a tent, supplied with the most powerful stimu- 
 lants at hand, cared for as only a loving sister, wife or 
 mother can care, and the next morning there were unmis- 
 takable signs of returning consciousness. Day after day and 
 night after night the sister remained at his side, ministering 
 to his every want, and each day witnessed an improvement 
 in his condition. At the end of a month or six weeks he 
 had so far recovered that brother and sister started for their 
 Wisconsin home. It was many months before the man 
 who had been laid aside to be buried was able to walk, but 
 he finally recovered his strength, or most of it, and it was 
 with great difficulty that he was prevented from enlisting 
 again and returning to the field. Poor Coleman presented 
 a most remarkable case of recovery from a gunshot wound, 
 for he was unconscious for five days after being shot, and 
 during three of those days he was alone on the battle-field, 
 with no care whatever; and when found and taken to the 
 field hospital, his case was considered so hopeless that he 
 was given no food or medicine; nothing but a hasty bathing 
 of his shattered head, was given. The recovery seems 
 miraculous. To that loving sister he owed his life." 
 
 The murdered brothers were survived by two more sons
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 123 
 
 of the widowed mother, Harry Coleman, the junior of Mil- 
 ton, and Edward, whose age was between that of Milton 
 and Charles. The remaining pair of brothers were promi- 
 nent among the pursuers of the assassins, and ren- 
 dered valuable service, not only at councils in camp, but in 
 the performance of hard work in the field.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 THE BIG WOODS. 
 
 THE OUTLAW'S PARADISE. THE WILDS OF WISCONSIN. 
 TOPOGRAPHY AND POETRY. WIERD SCENIC BEAU- 
 TIES. THE ROADS. POOR FARMERS. EVIL 
 CHARACTERS. FLYING RUMORS. WHERE 
 THE WILLIAMSES WERE "SEEN" 
 DURING ONE WEEK. 
 
 The fugitive from justice who could not be satisfied with 
 the asylum afforded by the wilds of Wisconsin would be 
 hard to please and might be termed an Oliver Twist among 
 outlaws. 
 
 The " big woods " begin on the banks of the Mississippi, 
 and are brought to an end upon the shores of Superior. In 
 extent they vary from ten to twenty-five miles in width, 
 and have a running length of perhaps one hundred and fifty 
 miles. The topographer assigned to the pains-taking sur- 
 vey demanded by his science would meet with untold dis- 
 couragements in a surface, which to poet and painter would 
 present a picturesqueness and possess a charm indescribable 
 
 if not unknown to others. 
 
 (124)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 125 
 
 Bold bluffs, crowned with chaplets of tall timber, suc- 
 ceeded one another, broken in piece-meal in places where 
 the force and fury of the storm had angrily been spent 
 anent the earth. The sides of the ridges were covered with 
 a thick growth of miscellaneous timber and tangly brush. 
 Here were ravines, choked up with an impenetrable mass 
 of scrubby forest vegetals. There, great coolies, clothed 
 in the green garb of the wild-wood, where paths are track- 
 less when the leaves fall among the natural brush heaps. 
 Rock deposits were traceable at frequent intervals. In lo- 
 calities stony sided chasms would yawn forth frowningly. 
 At their mouths these fissures would sometimes be seen to 
 recede into caves, running back into the earth from one to 
 two hundred yards. Streams of all sorts in size from the 
 tiny brooklet of Longfellow to what were called creeks 
 or rivers, take their serpentine paths in and about the valleys, 
 at the feet of high hills. Springs in refreshing plenty come 
 bubbling up whithersoever they will out of the fulness of 
 Nature's bosom delighting the most where their dancing 
 waters burst forth through rocky ledges, forming crystal 
 cascades as they fall. 
 
 To relieve the solitude, clearings for farms which are 
 tilled with toil and trouble, occasionally peer out, a more 
 than welcome sight to benighted travelers seeking signs of 
 civilization. For the most part the roads through this re- 
 gion are as bad as the character, generally speaking, of its 
 inhabitants. New roads are made, under compulsion and
 
 126 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 after a fashion, where old ones on being storm-ravaged have 
 disappeared in crumbling ruins of rock and earth. The 
 streams are forded often-times perforce, where the rude 
 timbers of log bridges have been torn asunder by the flood 
 and such of the debris as freshets have not carried away re- 
 main to mark the spot. 
 
 Following a zig-zag course, up and down hill, sometimes 
 directly ascending or decending the sharp elevations, at 
 others winding about and around, hugging the steep sides, 
 the traveled road frequently becomes hardly less impassa- 
 ble than the thickets themselves. 
 
 The dense shade in the heart of the forest effectually re- 
 pels the direct influence of the sun. Riding through the 
 woods if one is so fortunate as to approach the edge of a 
 clearing at sunset, he will see in tha gold-and-crimson col- 
 oring given the leaves and the illumination carried a little 
 distance into the oppressive gloom by the last rays of the 
 sun-blazoned beams a sight to feast upon. 
 
 Raising small crops of wheat, corn, oats and hay among 
 the stumps in one of the clearings, which like oases appear 
 now and then in the big woods, is farming under difficulties, 
 and it stands to reason that the poor living in this instance 
 determines the poor farmer. With some exceptions, the 
 farmers in these wilds are of this description, " not much 
 account." Then there reside in log cabins, on the wooded 
 land, another class, less in estate but advanced in general 
 cussedness, from whose combined poverty and prowling
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 127 
 
 instincts, travelers with money on their persons in these 
 parts after nightfall have much to fear. 
 
 Rumors that the Williamses had "been seen" in dif- 
 ferent neighborhoods and by various parties, began to 
 come in before noon on the first day of the pursuit, and 
 speedily got to flying so thick and fast that it became 
 impossible for the authorities to distinguish between 
 the confusing and conflicting rumors without end. It 
 will prove interesting to review these reports in the 
 order they came, for the first week. 
 
 The next (Monday) morning after the murder, about 
 nine o'clock, while a Mrs. Pericol and her little boy were 
 walking along the road, on the west side of the Eau Galle 
 river on their way to Carson & Rand's store at Eau Galle 
 to trade, and when about three-fourths of a mile from the 
 store, two men came up the bank from the river, into the 
 road. On seeing her, one of them jumped into the bushes 
 by the roadside, and the other walked slowly along until 
 she and her boy passed them. The latter was carrying two 
 guns, but she could not tell whether the one in the bushes 
 had a gun or not. Mrs. Pericol did not know of the 
 tragedy the night before, and heard it for the first time when 
 she reached the store. She then told her story about the 
 two men she had met, and her description of them answered 
 to the appearance of the Williams brothers. Word was at 
 once sent to Durand, but it was late in the afternoon before 
 a posse reached Eau Galle, and the probable course of
 
 J28 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 the murderers for they it was could only be conjectured. 
 
 On Monday evening, at about seven o'clock, two men, 
 armed with guns, were seen by a young man at the ford 
 three miles above Eau Galle. An hour later two armed 
 men passed four German boys from Durand on the road 
 about four miles above Eau Galle. 
 
 On the same evening, at about half-past ten o'clock, a 
 guard stationed by Sheriff Peterson in an old school-house 
 near the mouth of Knight's creek the very building where 
 the Williams brothers had more than once established head- 
 quarters on their expeditions saw two men come out of 
 the brush and approach the house. Three of the four guards 
 were positive that they recognized the Williams brothers, 
 whose faces they saw in the moonlight, and who carried 
 rifles in their hands. Dr. J. R. Branch was in command of 
 the squad, and instead of taking the advantage of a position, 
 "bold in close ambush," and letting the outlaws get within 
 reach, he blazed away with a revolver, whereat the Wil- 
 liamses if they it was dropped to the ground and regained 
 the cover of the thicket. 
 
 On Tuesday afternoon, two men were seen in the bushes 
 by a woman who was picking berries in the vicinity of Pine 
 Tavern. 
 
 On Wednesday, on Thursday and on Friday, the reports 
 of different persons at different places who were privileged 
 to see the outlaws without endangering themselves, agreed 
 in their material and meagre points. It had now got to be
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 129 
 
 the case that the sight of two armed men anywhere in the 
 woods promptly " settled it," so far as a fresh rumor about 
 somebody's having seen the Williams brothers, who were, 
 moreover, recognized as a rule by persons who had never 
 had the slightest previous acquaintance with so much as a 
 photograph of either Ed. or Lon. 
 
 On Saturday morning, two men were seen by John 
 Adsit, entering the woods near Jack Allen's place near 
 Waubeek, and on the same night at the hour "when 
 churchyards yawn" and a person's imagination plays hob 
 with his fears, two armed men, believed to be though not 
 accosted as the Williams brothers, were seen crossing a field, 
 in the same neighborhood, by a young German. 
 
 The horse which the outlaws had tied to a tree, had been 
 left by them to starve, owing to the new complication of 
 their affairs. The brown mare was fastened with two 
 halter straps, and had evidently been without anything to 
 eat or drink for several days, when it was found and rescued 
 from a cruel death by one of Sheriff Peterson's scouting 
 parties. The buggy was found near by where its last 
 occupants had left it.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 IN HOT PURSUIT. 
 
 BRAVE MEN BROUGHT TO FAME. SHERIFF PETERSON IN 
 THE KIND HANDS OF "THE CHICAGO TIMES " CORRES- 
 PONDENT. ELDER DONNER'S THIRD SERVICE. 
 PROGRESS OF THE PURSUIT. REVIEW OP 
 DOOLITTLE'S CAMPAIGN. NEWSPAPER 
 ACCOUNTS. A "PIONEER PRESS RE 
 PORTER'S SUMMARY. " ARE 
 THEY IN THE WOODS?" 
 
 The pursuit of the Williams brothers, while it was strictly 
 speaking and despite the thrilling interest centered in its 
 every incident barren of results, served to introduce to 
 something more than local fame a number of brave men 
 who distinguished themselves by the ardor and ability by 
 which their connection with the chase was marked through- 
 out. The names of these new " aspirants for applause, " 
 the which, let it be said, they neither sought nor particu- 
 larly cared for, will duly appear in the pages to follow de- 
 scriptive of the progress of the pursuit. Prominent among 
 them stands A. F. Peterson, sheriff of Pepin county, in 
 whose case the exceptional distinction is made of prefacing,
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 131 
 
 here, the account of his part on the field of duty and action, 
 for reasons that are left to unfold themselves to the reader. 
 The Chicago Times correspondent on the ground had oc- 
 casion and sought opportunity to become well acquainted 
 with this officer and gentleman and his characteristic opinion 
 of the individual in both capacities is gladly made use of in 
 this connection. 
 
 " Sheriff Peterson is a man with whom an acquaintance 
 cannot be had in an hour, and for whom a friendship is 
 something to be cultivated let me add, something, I am 
 assured, that will richly repay careful cultivation. I was 
 unusually impressed on the start with his personal appear- 
 ance an 1 carriage. He stands a trifle above medium height, 
 is well built, has broad and square shoulders, and for being 
 firm and erect on his feet is not, as so many similarly built 
 men are, without a graceful stature and step. His fair face, 
 full featured, is smooth shaven, and with blue eyes and short 
 curling hair of a light shade next to golden, unmistakably 
 proclaim the Swedish parentage of which he may properly 
 enough be proud. He was only twenty-five years of age 
 when his fellow Republicans honored themselves by nomi- 
 nating him for the office of Sheriff, to which his fellow citi- 
 zens of Pepin county elected him by a handsome majority. 
 The duties of the sheriff of Pepin county are very light, 
 ordinarily, and mostly of a civil character, performed during 
 the terms of court. At other times the sheriff is expected 
 to provide himself with private employment. Sheriff Pe- 
 '
 
 132 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 terson, who is yet unmarried, unfortunately for himself and 
 another a fair unknown resides between the times of 
 holding court in Durand, with his parents on his father's 
 farm, situated on a pretty spot at Stockholm, on the shore 
 of Lake Pepin. What I regard about him and see in him 
 as exciting the greatest interest and worthy the highest ad- 
 miration is the fact and the manner of the development 
 within him of the personal force and executive ability 
 needed in one in his position for the emergency which had 
 on a sudden and unexpectedly arisen before him. Courage, 
 sound sense, proper reserve, and excellent discretion plainly 
 have been his from youth. Experience as an officer of the 
 law, and familiarity with its execution and the ways of evil- 
 doers, he was without, his selection as a candidate for sher- 
 iff being based solely on his personal character and bravery. 
 An opportunity had thus offered itself, for the first time, 
 for him to comprehend and grasp, if he could, the widest 
 possible range of what were the duties, the dangers, the 
 responsibilities and the cares of his office. That he proved 
 himself to be equal to the occasion, is attested most conclu- 
 sively, in my judgment, by the manner in which he has 
 conducted himself and managed his part of the pursuit." 
 
 The posse raised by little Pepin county to assist its sher- 
 iff was a small one, after the first few days of more intense 
 excitement were over, and Sheriff Peterson made the most 
 of his men by distributing them into small squads which 
 were scattered through the woods between Durand and Eau
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 133 
 
 Galle and to the north and west of the latter place. Under- 
 sheriff Knight was left at Durand in charge of the sheriff's 
 office and entrusted with the important duty of superintend- 
 ing the arrangments for victualing the forces in the field. 
 Sheriff Peterson divided his time between the temporary 
 camping-places of the parties on picket and guard duty, 
 until placed by the Governor in command of the force con- 
 tributed to the body of pursuers by the State. 
 
 The number of men under Capt. Doolittle, of Menomo- 
 nie, varied during the first two weeks of the pursuit, from 
 three hundred to thirty. Owing to superiority of numbers, 
 and supposed proximity of position to the lair of the human 
 game being hunted down, Doolittle's company was 
 expected to do the most in the field, and its movements 
 were accordingly watched with the closest attention and 
 interest. Sheriff Severson remained in Menomonie, where 
 private business interests detained him, in charge of the 
 commissariat, and saw that the brave men comprising Doo- 
 little's command were kept well supplied with provisions. 
 The untiring attention shown by him to their needs was 
 fully appreciated by the members of the different camps 
 established by Capt. Doolittle. 
 
 Foremost among prominent citizens to join Capt. Doo- 
 little was Elder Donner. He had watched Lon Williams' 
 career at Hersey and Knapp, and rejoiced to see the progress 
 in the right direction of one who seemed to him to be an 
 industrious and upright young man. He had known Fanny
 
 134. Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 Hussey and her parents for years, and when called on to 
 unite the young people, in every way so worthy of each 
 other, he had pronounced his fervent blessing under the 
 approving smiles of Heaven. He had observed with great 
 pain and keen disappointment the blasting of fair young 
 hope, and had officiated at the funeral of a broken-hearted 
 young wife and mother. Two services in his ministerial 
 character had he performed. A third was one that he 
 had been brought to do, however much against his heart, 
 by his own convictions of right and sense of justice. He 
 felt that the third service was due to society, to law and to 
 order, and with a sad heart and reluctant spirit Elder Don- 
 ner shouldered his rifle and went out to hunt down Lon 
 Williams the young man he had befriended, whom he had 
 married, whose wife he had laid away to an eternal rest by 
 the side of the babe that had come into the world not of it. 
 The elder was reputed to be one of the best shots in the 
 State. When asked if he would shoot Lon Williams, he 
 replied that he would not hesitate to do his duty, and that 
 he would feel it his duty to protect both himself and society 
 by shooting any one who had voluntarily put himself in an 
 outlaw's place such as Lon had done, in the event it came 
 to close quarters. Elder Donner remained in the field 
 several weeks. It is not unlikely that he returned from a 
 fruitless pursuit convinced that inasmuch as he had bravely 
 done his duty, it was no sin in him to experience a strange 
 sense of relief to have been spared a terrible trial.
 
 Tl 
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 135 
 
 The progress of the campaign underwent by the Doolittle 
 party, can be followed best by a perusal of extracts taken 
 from newspaper articles published at the time. 
 
 Reviewing the work performed with signal ability and 
 clear-headedness by Capt. Doolittle during the first fort- 
 night, the Dunn County Nevus says: 
 
 " The pursuit of the Williams desperadoes has been 
 vigorously pushed during the past two weeks, but thus far the 
 chase has been fruitless. There is every indication that they 
 are still in the woods along the Little Missouri creek west 
 of Eau Galle. Sheriff Doolittle, who started out with the 
 first squad the next day after the murder, has been in com- 
 mand of the pursuing party ever since, and the number 
 engaged in the hunt has ranged from twenty-five to several 
 hundred well-armed men. The section of country to which 
 the party have mainly devoted their attention is along the 
 Eau Galle river, and Little Missouri and Knights' creeks, 
 its tributaries. All the region between these points and as 
 far west as Maple Springs has been as thoroughly patrolled 
 as the nature of the country would permit. Early in the 
 chase Mr. Doolittle established a camp at the school-house 
 near the mouth of Knights creek, and placed Capt. Dan. 
 Harshman in charge. Another was established at a desert- 
 ed mill on Little Missouri creek, about six miles south of 
 the Knights' creek camp, in charge of Capt. Frank Kelley. 
 The headquarters were at Eau Galle mills between the two 
 camps. From these points scouting parties were sent every
 
 I3 6 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 day to find some trace of the fugitives. At night pickets 
 were placed at various points to keep a constant watch of 
 roads and paths. Whenever any report came in that was 
 deemed reliable, a posse of men would be sent to investigate 
 it with all possible haste. In this manner the hunt has been 
 kept up nearly two weeks." 
 
 The Pioneer-Press, an excellent paper printed at St. 
 Paul for the joint benefit of that " Little Giant" among 
 cities of the future and its twin sister, Minneapolis, had an 
 expert correspondent in the field at an early day. His 
 review of the principal ground covered by Capt. Doolittle's 
 forces, will afford the reader an excellent synopsis of events 
 in this connection. Under date of July 2ist, the Pioneer- 
 Press man writes from the front as follows: 
 
 " I cannot imagine a country better suited for a hiding 
 place, or one that presents so many difficulties to the pur- 
 suers. The surface is a constant succession of hill and bluffs, 
 broken by deep, dark ravines, and coolies, with creeks and 
 brooks running in every direction, some dashing over 
 ragged rocks, and others flowing placidly beneath the over- 
 lapping trees. The entire region, with the exception of 
 the openings redeemed for farms at an immense cost of 
 labor and patience, is covered with a thick, ragged growth 
 of trees and underbrush, in some places so close and inter- 
 woven that it would seem impossible for even a squirrel to 
 make its way through. Such a brush country affords a 
 perfect shelter for men like these desperadoes, who are
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 137 
 
 skilled in wood-craft and have long been familiar with the 
 intricacies of the trails and the gloomy secrecy of the innu- 
 merable ravines. Those best acquainted with the country 
 acknowledge the hopelessness of rinding these two alert 
 men, who are seeking to save themselves from the terrible 
 fate which they know awaits them if captured, and they 
 can only be secured by some providential accident, as was 
 the Younger brothers' gang. There are fewer chances of 
 taking these red-handed brothers than there were of catch- 
 ing the Youngers, as this country is more difficult to hunt, 
 and the fugitives are as much at home in the jungle and 
 timber as a Pioneer-Press reporter is in the streets of St. 
 Paul, while besides the Williams boys undoubtedly have 
 sympathizers and friends throughout this section. Some 
 will extend them aid through friendship, while others will 
 assist through fear. The Youngers were utter strangers in 
 an utterly strange land. It is impossible to march a picket 
 line through these woods with any hope of their keeping 
 their positions. It cannot be a still-hunt, as the obstacles 
 met would necessitate a series of signals, in order that the 
 men might know the positions of each other. A line of men 
 five feet apart would, in the greater part of these woods, be 
 completely concealed from the right or left guides. In the 
 confusion and displacement, the murderers could easily slip 
 through, and make good their escape in an opposite direction, 
 or they could flank the slow-moving line, and obtain the 
 same result. The pursuit has, undoubtedly, been as thorough
 
 138 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 as possible thus far, and it is obvious that, wVille diligent 
 watch must be continued, some other method must be 
 adopted to insure success, or else an accident must be relied 
 upon. I believe in the latter. Bloodhounds will be useless, 
 or nearly so, as there is no fresh trail to start them on, and 
 no scent to give them. It has been suggested that Lon 
 Williams' hat, which he left at Durand, might prove suffici- 
 ent for the intelligent hounds; but, as the hat has been 
 handled by at least a thousand people, the experiment would 
 prove futile, and perhaps dangerous. Indian scouts, if any 
 were available, might prove useful with their tracking 
 instincts, especially as it is known that Lon is wearing either 
 a moccasin or old rubber overshoe on his left foot, which he 
 cut severely, at Hersey where he chopped wood last winter, 
 injuring the large toe so much that it was amputated, and 
 the wound is badly healed. The hunt is now being con- 
 ducted under the charge of ex-Sheriff Doolittle of Menomo- 
 nie, who has the reputation of always getting his man. 
 There were at least 300 engaged in the search at first, but 
 the number is now reduced to not more than fifty that is, 
 in the Doolittle party. These men can do but little more 
 than picket duty, several squads relieving each other, but 
 occasionally parties will sally out and make a search, 
 generally following the direction indicated by some rumor. 
 At times the discharge of firearms will be heard, when a 
 rush will be made for the point from which the shot pro- 
 ceeded. It is invariably learned, after a tiresome search, that
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 139 
 
 some foolish party has been firing at a squirrel or a bird. 
 Such a case occurred this morning when two men driving 
 through the woods in a buggy fired five shots near the 
 lower, or Little Missouri camp just for fun, causing thorough 
 demoralization. The men who were sleeping after a night's 
 vigil were aroused, and hastened out, equipping themselves 
 as they ran. Pickets on duty deserted their posts to join 
 the fight, and hours were spent in a search, of course fruit- 
 less. 
 
 To-day has been the most unpleasant of the season, and 
 my trip of course anything but pleasant, made as it was 
 over more than forty miles of heavy, hilly, muddy roads, 
 in a loaded wagon, and through a rain, sometimes drizzling 
 and again pouring. We left Menomonie with a load of 
 provisions for the camps. The most of our route lay 
 through forests, by narrow roads where two teams could 
 scarcely pass. We saw but few frame houses, the farmers 
 still occupying the primitive log cabin, but in most all cases 
 having fine, large barns and good corn cribs and other farm 
 buildings. After riding about four hours we reached the 
 town of Eau Galle, a place where much lumber is sawed. 
 Mr. Carson, who now lives on Summit avenue, St. Paul, is 
 the proprietor of the mills here, and I was quite interested 
 in viewing the wildly romantic spot in which he had lived 
 for nearly forty years. The mansion he occupied is of rustic 
 style, and stands in a fine garden, and by its side is a little 
 one-story house, the first ever erected in these wilds, and
 
 140 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 which Mr. Carson built in his earlier manhood. At Eau 
 Galle we left a portion of our provisions, reserving the 
 remainder for the camp at the mill on Little Missouri river, 
 three miles below. This camp is situated in a most 
 picturesque spot, the little creek broadening out into a 
 spacious meadow pond, while all around wooded bluffs arise 
 to quite lofty heights. The mill, whose saws and stones 
 have long been silent, stands dark and gloomy under the 
 shadow of a high hill covered with brush and timber. The 
 mill is completely equipped and ready to start on its work 
 the moment power is applied, but twice the angry waters 
 have rushed down the ravine and swept away the dam, 
 leaving the mill useless, the property valueless. I found 
 about a dozen men here, all glad to see us, and I gladly 
 partook of their hospitality, in the shape of black coffee, 
 graham bread and salt pork. It was a delicious feast after 
 my tedious ride. Hay and blankets deposited along the 
 floor served as beds, a few rough boards answered for the 
 banquetting table, and a concealed hole in the bluff outside 
 was used as a kitchen where a fire for making the coffee 
 and cooking the pork was made. I spent some time with 
 Capt. Scribner, who was in command here, and I am satis- 
 fied that he is doing faithful work. 
 
 ********* 
 
 Returning to Eau Galle we loaded a quantity of provis- 
 ions and proceeded by a narrow road through a dense 
 forest to the school-house camp, about six miles distant.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 141 
 
 Fording creeks and picking our way among the blackened, 
 decayed stumps, with the rain sifting through the trees 
 above us, we, after a slow, dark ride, came out into a spot 
 which had been partially cleared, and discovered A dilapi- 
 dated little log hut, a good sized wall tent, and several 
 smaller tents grouped together and forming the upper camp. 
 
 Our reception here was also hearty. 
 
 * * * * * * 
 
 Starting from the school-house camp, we made our way, 
 with Harry Coleman as a guide, to the new camp. It was 
 at least seven miles, and in a country twice as difficult to 
 hunt as any I had seen. The wooded bluffs were closer 
 together. The ravines were more numerous and the thickets 
 thicker. We would drive along a trail, so rough that the 
 bumps would renew the soreness in our backs, and on each 
 hand would be ravines from thirty to fifty feet deep, where 
 a fugitive might hide, and calmly view his pursuers without 
 fear of being seen. We would pass open places where a 
 thousand men might find shelter behind the black, burned 
 logs and stumps, and innumerable deserted log huts where 
 two determined men could, with plenty of ammunition, 
 hold a score of men at bay. There were river bottoms con- 
 cealed beneath overhanging trees, high bluffs with deep 
 caves at their bases, great boulders behind which a score of 
 men might hide, thickets impenetrable, and tall trees 
 unscalable. How can you hunt men in such a place ? The 
 pursued are alert. They are sure to have the drop on their
 
 142 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 pursuers. And the men we were after are desperate. These 
 fellows have a method : they travel on the crests of the 
 bluffs, one on each side, and they overlook their pursuers. 
 I tried to trace some rumors, but in every case I found that 
 those who had supposed they had seen the murderers were 
 not certain, and I feared lest some of them might identity 
 me with the desperate outlaws and bring a squad of anxious 
 men to shoot me on sight. One woman was sure she had 
 seen the Williams boys, because one of two men who came 
 near her house had a bandage on his head. I afterwards met 
 two anglers, who were fishing in a trout stream near by, 
 and one had his head tied up, a wasp having stung his fore- 
 head. So the stories go. The new camp is in a romantic 
 valley about eighty rods wide, where several fine claims 
 have been deserted owing to the floods of 1879 and 1880. 
 * * * ***** 
 
 We reached Menomonie on our return, that night after a 
 long, dark ride, and as I sit down to think the matter over, 
 after talking with a host of people, I am undecided whether 
 the murderers are in those woods or not." 
 
 The perplexity of the Pioneer-Press reporter, it may be 
 added, was shared by a great many others at this time. 
 
 A serious accident which befell one of the Menomonie 
 volunteers under Capt. Doolittle, remains to be recorded 
 in this connection. While on his way to the woods in a 
 wagon, Mr. Kelley Nott, a brother of the young lady 
 betrothed to Milton Coleman, had the misfortune to acci-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 143 
 
 dently cause the discharge of his gun, the muzzle of which 
 rested against his arm. The gun was a cavalryman's car- 
 bine, and its ball made an ugly wound, penetrating the 
 fleshy part of the arm above the elbow and coming out at a 
 point just below the shoulder blade. Mr. Nott's suffering 
 was intense for weeks, and the loving care of a devoted 
 wife, mother and sister was unremittingly exercised in his 
 behalf.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 THE LUDi'.GTON GUARD. 
 
 THE ATTENTION OF A COUNTRY AROUSED. GOV. SMITH 
 ORDERS OUT " THE LUDINGTON GUARD." A FINE COM- 
 MAND. ITS RANK AND FILE. TO THE FIELD. 
 OLD SCHOOL HOUSE CAMP. RECENT REMI- 
 NISCENCES. CAMP CADY. CONFER- 
 ENCE WITH DOOLITTLE. A TALK 
 WITH THE COLEMANS. RE- 
 SUME OF OPERATIONS 
 AND EVENTS. 
 
 Public attention had been arrested throughout the coun- 
 try by the great crime of the Williams brothers, and their 
 pursuit by the aroused and exasperated citizens of two coun- 
 ties was being watched with thrilling eagerness by readers 
 of the daily press. Gov. Smith kept himself informed of 
 the highly agitated condition of affairs in Pepin and Dunn 
 counties, and was not slow in responding to the call form- 
 ally made upon him for material assistance by the state. In 
 obedience to the request of Sheriff Severson and others, of 
 Menomonie, His Excellency ordered the Ludington Guard, 
 a cavalry company, to proceed to the front and lend its 
 
 044)
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 145 
 
 power to the prosecution of a pursuit which was "not 
 without hope " so long as there was " life " left on the part 
 of the law. Captain George was ordered to report for 
 duty to Sheriff Peterson of Pepin county. 
 
 The Ludington Guard was organized in 1876, and called 
 in honor of Wisconsin's governor by that name. It is the 
 only cavalry company in the state, with the exception of an 
 independent command at Milwaukee, and has been 
 splendidly uniformed and finely equipped. Regularly put 
 through the practice of its elementary tactics, the Guard, 
 while seeing for several years only the bright side of mili- 
 tary life, has remained in readiness, thanks alike to the 
 efficiency of its officers and diligence of its file, for the 
 emergencies of actual service. The Guard had enrolled 
 some sixty-five men in all, but owing to the absence from 
 town of a number, its complement could not be obtained at 
 the time, and the roster and roll of the company showed 
 but forty-three men to have been mustered into the actual 
 service of the state on this occasion. 
 
 The Chicago Times supplied the Guard with an u his- 
 torian," in the person of a special correspondent of reputed 
 familiarity with the particular kind of work to which he 
 had been assigned, and by means of the mail bulletins and 
 dispatches by wire furnished The Times by him, and addi- 
 tional notes from his pen, hitherto unpublished, an account 
 has been preserved in this history of the Ludington Guard's 
 week of work in the woods, and on being " handed down,"
 
 i|f, Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 as below, can hardly fail of arousing as much interest in 
 the mind of the general reader as it will naturally excite in 
 the martial breasts of the young men, of whom, on the 
 morning of their departure, it might have been said, in the 
 blind poef s lines : 
 
 See them, in what martial equipage, 
 They issue forth. 
 
 The Ludington Guard, forty-three strong, as it marched 
 from Menomonie on Monday morning, July 25th, 1881, 
 consisted of the following rank and file: 
 
 Captain, T. J. George. 
 
 First Lieutenant, Geo. R. Brewer. 
 
 Second Lieutenant, H. E. Knapp. 
 
 Surgeon, E. H. Grannis. 
 
 Orderly Sergeant, H. A. Wilcox. 
 
 1st Duty Sergeant, E. H. Wiggins. 
 
 2d Duty Sergeant, S. A. Peterson. 
 
 3d Duty Sergeant, W. J. Nott. 
 
 Quartermaster, W. J. Yates. 
 
 ist Corporal, Wm. Flood. 
 
 2d Corporal, A. S. Ladd. 
 
 Bugler, Jacob Miller. 
 
 Blacksmith, Ed. Witcher. 
 
 Saddler, Byron Rosebud. 
 
 Privates: L. S. Tainter, C. Remington, J. G. Watter. 
 son, H. Campbell, M. A. Farnum, E. Harshman, R. Ves- 
 per, Henry Curtis, R. D. Watterson, Charles West, Charles
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 147 
 
 Anderson, W. B. Ward, John Campbell, A. O. Curtis, 
 John Bull, F. Lewton, F. Campbell, W. Tubbs, W. Chap- 
 pel, E. Morgan, A. L. Curtis, J. C. Phillips, M. Doolittle, 
 Ed. Cornell, John Sales, D. Chapin, D. Lucas, John Kelley, 
 H. Bundy. 
 
 Enough saddle horses could not be obtained on so short 
 notice, and consequently the entire command did not go on- 
 horseback. Between twenty-five and thirty mounted cav- 
 alrymen, however, uniformed for the field, and armed with 
 carbines, constituted an imposing cavalcade. Following the 
 mounted men came two wagon-loads of " cavalrymen 
 afoot, " the conveyance used for transporting supplies for 
 the commissariat which had the aspect of an army ambu- 
 lance in time of war, and a wagon containing the surgeon 
 and historian. 
 
 The story of the Ludington Guard's experiences and, as 
 well, of contemporaneous events occurring during the con- 
 tinued pursuit of the outlawed brothers, will best be told 
 by adopting the style and substance of articles of correspond- 
 ence, as re-written in great measure and altered by liberal 
 additions expressly for this volume by The Chicago Times 
 correspondent : 
 
 OLD SCHOOL HOUSE CAMP, Dunn Co., Wis. July 25 
 " Bulletin No. I " from the shifting headquarters of the 
 organized pursuit of the Maxwell-Williams brothers by the 
 Ludington Guard in the wilds of Wisconsin, is written by 
 the flickering light of a lantern placed on an inverted bar* 
 
 10
 
 148 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 rel the bottom of which serves my purpose better than a 
 drum-head. The Guard arrived here at just about supper- 
 time. As it filed up into a position to receive the order to 
 dismount it presented a fine appearance and behaved in a 
 martial manner. Its members are recruited from the first 
 young men of Menomonie and have readily received the 
 discipline and drilling which have to-day made soldiers of 
 them. 
 
 The situation of the camp is a remarkably picturesque 
 one. The deserted school and the camping ground stand 
 in a valley at the side of the road, immediately surrounded 
 by heavy undergrowth and thick patches of timber, and 
 distant but a few hundred yards from the base of high 
 wooded bluffs that in the background rise in a majesty all 
 their own upon three sides of the scene. The peculiar en- 
 chantment of the locality, however, lies in the fact that the 
 old log school-house, which was never completed, by the 
 way, and within whose walls the first lesson in the three 
 R's has yet to be taught, was a favorite rendezvous of the 
 bold bandits themselves. It was here that the spoils of more 
 than one expedition were divided by Ed. and Lon Will- 
 iams with the confederates on whom they relied, as the 
 monkey did on the cat, in disposing of the stolen goods they 
 had undertaken to sell on the liberal " commission " they 
 appropriated under a del credere of their own construction. 
 
 The history I am charged with keeping records partic 
 ularly the possession of the building on Friday, July \, by
 
 Life of Williams Brothers* 149 
 
 the Williams brothers and two accomplices lesser lights in 
 crime subject to an almost total eclipse in such company 
 who it is thought arrived here during the previous night. 
 A " living witness " to this was in camp this evening. He 
 is a small farmer, by the name of Austin, and exists on the 
 small clearing in the woods just above here. He states that 
 on the Friday morning in question, as he came along the 
 road in search of stray cattle he heard a noise in the school- 
 house and was led by curiosity to approach and quietly open 
 the door. He saw three men busied in sorting over a lot 
 of gentlemen's fine clothing and small jewelry. "Hello!" 
 he ejaculated, when in the twinkling of an eye his eye, for 
 a fact two revolvers were thrust into his face, and a surly 
 demand made upon him for his business there. While the 
 two armed men and their companion were engaged in 
 frightening the poor farmer out of his wits, a fourth party 
 came running up around the house from the thickets just 
 behind. After fully satisfying themselves of farmer Aus- 
 tin's inability to do anybody any particular harm, the out- 
 laws suffered him to proceed on his way to " call the cattle 
 home. " 
 
 Again on the night after the murder at a late hour when 
 the moon had risen, Ed. and Lon Williams were seen to 
 leave the thickets across the road, at a short distance, and 
 approach the school-house as if seeking a shelter for the 
 night. One of the guard of four persons, stationed inside 
 the building, cried out all too soon: "Halt!" and fired al
 
 tyy Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 most at random in his great excitement. The Williams 
 brothers slunk back in the woods and were seeu no more. 
 
 Sheriff Peterson, who had been notified of the action of 
 the governor and of the movements of the Guard, arrived 
 in camp about dusk according to appointment. Capt. 
 George was received by his superior in command with a 
 quiet civility and in a manner betokening an appreciation 
 of the serious business in hand. 
 
 It has been determined that the Ludington Guard shall 
 cooperate as far as possible with Doolittle's company. 
 Marching orders will be given at au early hour in the 
 morning and the cavalry will proceed on its road into the 
 "big woods.' A halt will be made on the way at Capt. 
 Doolittle's camp, where a conference of the leaders will be 
 had. Sheriff Peterson has taken this action in justice to 
 Doolittle, who has thus far conducted field operations in an 
 able and satisfactory manner, and whose work has been too 
 valuable to be undone in the least, as might be the case 
 were an entirely independent command to reoccupy a part 
 of the field already covered by him. What remains of the 
 Pepin county posse is separated into squads, on guard at 
 different intervals through the country below here, where 
 the Williamses were first reported as having been seen. 
 
 CAMP CADY, Pierce Co., Wis., July 26. The Luding- 
 ton Guard folded its tents at the old school house at an 
 early hour this morning and took up the line of march 
 through a veritable " howling wilderness." Here and there
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 151 
 
 we came across a farm opening, but for the most part the 
 clearings were small and the farms in keeping with the 
 general character of the people living in this out-of-the- 
 world region. There were a few exceptions, certainly, 
 both as to farms and farmers, but we were impressed with 
 the belief that, generally speaking, the Williamses would 
 ordinarily be as free to travel the road as to press against 
 the thorns and interwoven brush through the dark ravines 
 and deep coolies and across the rocky ridges covered with 
 thicket and timber. It is surprising how many school 
 houses " old " ones and new ones there are in the " big 
 woods," and still more surprising where the school children 
 are expected to come from. 
 
 We reached Camp Cady about noon, with appetites 
 whetted for the good dinner we enjoyed as the guests of 
 Capt. Doolittle, whom we found here with thirty-five men. 
 Edward and Henry Colemen, of Knapp, brothers of the 
 murdered men, Capt, Kelley, Capt. Scribner, Sheriff 
 Anderson, of Henderson Co., Illinois, and Prosecuting At- 
 torney Woodard, of St. Croix county, are prominent mem- 
 bers of the Doolittle party. 
 
 I had an interview of some length with the Colemans 
 fine fellows, said to resemble their butchered brothers in 
 bravery and manliness. Their theory of the tragedy is that 
 Milton and Charles Coleman had set out to make a peace- 
 able arrest, and that they threw their own lives away in 
 giving the Williamses a fair chance to surrender. Had they
 
 152 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 started out to shoot the horse thieves on sight, they would 
 have been, probably, more than a match for the despera- 
 does, but it is not unlikely that their success in such event 
 in ridding the country of two bad characters would have 
 been open to criticism on the part of many who have, since 
 the sudden debut of the Williams brothers as man-slayers, 
 found cause to censure the Colemans for rashness and in- 
 discretion. We obtained late news here of the outlaws, 
 who are furnished with supplies by more than one family of 
 sympathizers in these peculiar parts. 
 
 The woman of a dilapidated dwelling back from the 
 road, a mile distant, where the Williamses are thought to 
 have obtained provisions, in conversation with one of 
 Doolittle's scouts, showed her feeling pretty plainly. " You 
 fellers will never ketch them 'ere boys. They be too 
 smart for ye. They've got a glass along with 'em an' ken 
 see jest what you're about all the time." She further 
 vouchsafed the consoling information that if any of the 
 pursuers did "ketch up" with the human tigers, they 
 would have the daylight put through them in no time at 
 all. Other reports confirm the homely hag's statement 
 that the Williamses have a field-glass with them, through 
 which they watch the open movements of their pursuers 
 from on high, securely hidden from similar inspection by 
 the almost impenetrable undergrowth and overgrowth on the 
 steep bluffs. 
 
 The freshest trail yet struck was the one taken up and
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 153 
 
 then lost, a few days after the murder, by a squad of scouts 
 under Capt. Kelley, who struck the trail on a hill near the 
 house of " Bill " Henry Thompson, one of the " cousins by 
 marriage " of Lon Williams. Following it they came upon 
 a place where the fugitives had stopped to rest. Traces of 
 blood and matter were found on leaves which the Wil- 
 liamses had evidently used in dressing their wounds. The 
 tracks made by one of them plainly showed that he had 
 worn a boot on one foot and a moccasin or overshoe on the 
 other. The trail was finally lost, and search in that direc- 
 tion proving fruitless was not long after abandoned. 
 
 Among the best friends of the Williamses are ranked the 
 De Wolfe brothers, of Hersey. A woman who knows 
 Lon W T illiams saw him with the De Wolfes at their house 
 one day last week, and an intercepted letter of about the 
 same date, from one of the De Wolfes to a young lady in 
 St. Paul, conveyed the information that the Williams boys 
 had " returned from their trip, somewhat jaded, but feeling 
 in good spirits," and that they had taken supper there the 
 night the letter was written. On last Saturday one of the 
 De Wolfes called at the express office in Hersey with a 
 forged order for a lot of ammunition sent to a party intend- 
 ing to join in the pursuit, and left Hersey that night 
 with the express package in his possession. He most 
 assuredly carried this ammunition to a rendezvous of 
 the Williamses. He has since returned home, but 
 the arrest of the De Wolfes has been deferred in hopes
 
 i^. Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 of tracking one of them at least to a lair of the fugitives. 
 Doolittle has now in his paid employ certain parties 
 whose names are properly withheld, who have been in com- 
 munication with the Williams brothers, but who have been 
 open to bribes to give away the whereabouts of their 
 friends. Under the lead of one of these spies, the outlaws 
 might have been run down on Sunday but for the swarm of 
 pursuers everywhere in the suspected neighborhood, into 
 whose hands the unknown party would most provokingly 
 fall, when he would be stopped and brought to the camp 
 under arrest. This happened no less than three times dur- 
 ing that day and night, and, as the spies' business could not 
 be given away, the trail grew cold. The desperadoes were 
 constantly shifting their positions, each one of which is next 
 to impregnable, unless betrayed or stumbled on by accident. 
 It is the opinion of the leaders in the Doolittle party, how- 
 ever, based upon reliable reports of persons who have seen 
 one or both of the Williamses, that they are keeping them- 
 selves in daily view of the field proceedings of their pur- 
 suers. Aided as they are on almost every hand, both by 
 people who are half-way on the road to total depravity and 
 by ignorant country folk who are forced through fear to 
 lend assistance, and with their skill in woodcraft, the Wil- 
 liams brothers cannot be said, as yet, to be making their 
 way against such great odds as it would appear to the 
 reader abroad. There are half a dozen vast caves within 
 three miles of here, in whose fastnesses fugitives from jus-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 155 
 
 tice, also anxious to avoid the forked lightning of a stormy 
 night, could find dry comfort. These caves are at the head 
 of rocky ravines, and appear to a casual sight like mere 
 fisures, or cavities. Fresh ashes were discovered in one of 
 these caves one day last week. 
 
 The conference between Capt. Doolittle, Sheriff Peterson 
 and Captain George reached the conclusion that the cavalry 
 should proceed seven miles further, in a southeasterly direc- 
 tion, and camp in Dunn county at a point w^iere it can act 
 in concert when desired, or on its becoming necessary, with 
 the posse on foot.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 EXPERIENCES OF SERVICE. 
 
 IN CAMP AT MAPLE SPRINGS. MENOMONIE*S SCARE. 
 "WE'UNSAND YOU 'UNS. " A PRISONER. THE SO- 
 CIAL SIDE OF CHARACTER IN THE CAVALRY- 
 MEN. GOOD COMPANY. TAINTER's FANCY 
 SHOTS. PREACHING TO THE "HEA- 
 THEN." SHERIFFANDERSON. ONE 
 
 OF HIS POSTAL CARDS. 
 
 MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, Dunn Co., Wis., July 27. 
 Resuming the line of march across the ridges and through 
 the valleys, the Ludington guards arrived here yesterday 
 afternoon. The camping grounds lie in a romantic vale, 
 through which a little brook runs from its source, where a 
 " cool spring bubbles up, " taking its course " through the 
 meadow, across the road," and, leaving the clearing, is lost 
 among the thickets at the foot of an adjacent ridge or bluff. 
 The water is cool and " clear as the crystal flood," and 
 highly prized. Officers' headquarters have been established 
 in the Spring Tavern, a deserted wayside inn, roomy and 
 comfortable for the purpose. The old sign, found where it
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 157 
 
 had fallen during some wind-storm, was hoisted, reviving 
 old assocations in the strangely new ones now being made 
 a part of the humble hostel's history. 
 
 The cavalrymen -are resting their horses to-day, and are 
 all detailed on outpost duty, with the exception of a small 
 number left as a garrison for highly-prized horses, the in- 
 valuable stores, the skillful surgeon and the humble histo- 
 rian. Camp life with us " at home," is jolly enough, andjas 
 little restraint as is necessary has been placed on the natu- 
 rally high spirits of active young manhood. What a change 
 would be wrought by the appearance in the near back- 
 ground of the scene of the Williams brothers! The State's 
 soldier boys would be equal to the occasion undoubtedly, 
 but it would certainly put them as much on their mettle as 
 if the toughest experience of a life in the regular service 
 was about to be encountered. 
 
 The news from the towns supplies us with all manner of 
 reports about the grand search. It was told in Menomonie 
 this morning that Capt. George had been relieved of his 
 boots at the camp last night by a thief who might be an 
 emissary from the bandits. Great Jupiter! to imagine our 
 valiant captain without his high-top boots is to think of a 
 shorn deity. 
 
 Menomonie has hardly recovered, I should judge, from 
 its first-class scare the other night, when a couple of Knapp 
 boys arrived at a late hour from the front. They were 
 armed with Winchesters, had revolvers in their belts, and
 
 158 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 looked as near like the Williams boys as their alleged pho- 
 tographs. Stepping into a saloon and dance-hall, the gen- 
 tlemen from Knapp quietly got the drinks and withdrew. 
 Their Winchesters gave them dead away, it seems, for no 
 sooner were they safely out of sight than the barkeepei 
 raised an alarm which well-nigh awakened the whole town. 
 Sheriff Severson was roused up, and his family so badly 
 frightened that he was only allowed by his wife to go down 
 town to investigate the rumor upon awakening enough 
 neighbors to secure a comfortable garrison for the jail 
 building. 
 
 Capt. George has secured the services of a valuable 
 guide and proposes to scour this part of the country thor- 
 oughly. While the horses are indispensible to the guards 
 when moving from one place to another, the real work has 
 to be done on foot and generally amid surroundings that 
 render the detection of an ambushed party exceedingly dif- 
 ficult within one's conservational reach. The pursuers aim 
 to cut off the supplies being sent from different places to 
 the Williamses, and to this end have set spies to watch the 
 comings in and goings out of more than one of the " first 
 families " in the smaller clearings. 
 
 MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, Dunn Co., Wis., July 27. A 
 scouting party of the Guard rode up to-day to a log shanty 
 in the woods, and halted in the presence of two buxom 
 damsels, aged about 16 and 13, respectively. Upon inquir- 
 ies after any strange men that might have been seen in the
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 159 
 
 timber, one of the girls, whose cheeks had whitened at the 
 unusual sight of the armed cavalrymen, spoke up: " We 
 'uns was terrible 'fraid o' you 'uns, 'cause we thought mebbe 
 you was some of the Williamses. No, we ain't seen noth- 
 ing o' nobody, and don't know nothing. " Their sincerity 
 could not be doubted, and the squad moved on. One of the 
 boys looked back, when a few hundred yards away, and 
 gracefully saluted the rustics, who were on a sudden seized 
 with an irresistible desire to fly, and, joining hands, took to 
 their heels. The shouts of laughter sent after them served 
 to increase their speed, and the way they "legged it" was 
 a rich sight. 
 
 Under the escort of Orderly Sergeant Wilcox and two 
 of the guards, and accompanied by Surgeon Grannis, The 
 Times correspondent was treated this afternoon to a ride of 
 five miles over the worst roads yet encountered they were 
 as bad, about, as the thickets through which at times the 
 road was next to lost. We passed one very dark and deep 
 ravine which particularly impressed us as a place where but 
 half-dead men could positively be relied on to tell no tales. 
 The party an old woman named Mrs. Fitch we started 
 out to see was sought at her son-in-law's, W. H. Thompson, 
 a cousin of the Bill Thompson whose step-daughter Lon 
 Williams wed. The old lady was found to be not at home, 
 but the sergeant obtained for a consideration, the services of 
 Thompson as a scout and guide. Going to the well for a 
 drink, one of the guards accosted a little three-year-old
 
 i6c Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 shaver in the yard and asked him where his gran'ma was. 
 "Down cellar!" was the urchin's answer. Now we have 
 no reason to think the Thompsons told us an untruth, but a 
 sharp little grand-son, all the same, gave away what likely 
 enough had been the old lady's favorite hiding place on 
 former visits to the house, during the " hunt, " of armed pur- 
 suers. 
 
 On our return Sergeant Wilcox overhauled a suspicious 
 old customer, whose stories conflicted, and who had told 
 different parties of his having seen the Williamses half a 
 dozen times yesterday. We overtook him in the act of hiring 
 out to a farmer for a few days' labor at harvesting, and the 
 sergeant's suspicions being properly excited by his failure to 
 tell a straight story, we gave him a seat with us in the 
 wagon, under guard. 
 
 Scattered through this region, and generally accounted 
 among the more respectable of the settlers on the cleared 
 farms, reside numerous branches of the Thompsons, related 
 to Lon Williams by marriage. Occasionally one of their 
 number falls under suspicion, but it is by no means easy to 
 prove a thing of this sort on any one, however crooked their 
 actions may appear. 
 
 The many opportunities afforded me for studying the 
 social side of character in those, both in the rank and file, of 
 theLudington Guard, with whom I have been thrown most 
 in contact, I have done my best to improve. I am fond to 
 a degree of good company, and it is my rare good fortune-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 16 1 
 
 here in the wilds of Wisconsin, on an errand which had 
 promised nothing of the sort, to have found it of a like 
 degree. Capt. George, whose appearace of being " every 
 inch a soldier" is in accordance with the meritorious fact of 
 his having served with gallantry in the civil war, is a hearty 
 wit, to " top off " with. He can tell a capital story, 
 and sing a good song, possessing as he does fine dialect 
 powers. 
 
 Lieutenant Brewer reflects distinction upon his rank as 
 next in command, and is a pleasant gentleman, whom I shall 
 remember long withal. 
 
 Lieutenant Knapp is a fine conversationalist and a highly 
 refined gentleman, both in speech and manner, and with 
 whom it must be an honor and a pleasure to be on terms of 
 friendly intimacy. 
 
 Surgeon Grannis is, like the staff officers, a young man, 
 and in his honored profession stands deservedly high, as well 
 as being much sought after for his social qualities. The 
 doctor has been our " friend in need and indeed." The boys 
 have frequent recourse to his pill boxes and array of inter- 
 esting looking bottles, big and little. The bowels have to 
 be taken consummate care of on expeditions of this character 
 
 Orderly Seargeant Wilcox is one of the most jovial fellows 
 and best yarn-spinners in camp. I never tire of hearing 
 him as he relates anecdotes of his experience as an under- 
 sheriff and deputy United States Marshal, with the Nor- 
 wegians, French, Indians and other classes among the popu-
 
 ,62 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 lation of Northern Wisconsin. He, too, has dialect powers 
 of a kind to envy. 
 
 If it were possible, and being possible would be polite, in 
 me to express a preference among companions such as these 
 grand young men are, then I might name Louis Tainter. 
 Though, like Lieut. Knapp, a son of one of the members of 
 the Knapp, Stout & Co. Company, a powerful, wealthy and 
 liberal corporation, whose lumber and mercantile interests 
 foot up into the millions at a year's end, privateTainter is as 
 unpretentious and open-hearted as the humblest in his mili- 
 tary file. He is bubbling over constantly with the wit that is in 
 him, and is altogether one of the most congenial of those 
 companions one finds on the wayside of life's fleeting jour- 
 ney that it has ever been my lot to meet. 
 
 We have an artist, also, with us. Prof. Jacob Miller, 
 everybody's familiar as plain "Jake," can draw as good a 
 sketch in black and white, as one would want to see. Jacob's 
 other forte is story-telling. The amorous passages from the 
 leaves of a well-stored memory are what he delights in 
 chiefly. He unravels his plot literally and figurative!) 
 and in such a manner that often " worse than Tantalus" is 
 their amoy" who sit and listen, in nervous impatience to 
 get to the naked fact on which the ten-mile tale is hung. 
 
 The rest of the boys are all good fellows, among 
 whom it would be hard to particularize. 
 
 MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, July 28. The fact that skilled 
 shots though the Williams brothers are, there are others in
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 163 
 
 Wisconsin who can ** shoot some " as well as the outlaws, 
 received to my mind, on to-day in camp here, " exemplifi- 
 cation by example " of a most positive character. The boys 
 were allowed to indulge in a little target practice with their 
 new Colt's six-shooters, sent by Uncle Sam from the Rock 
 Island arsenal, and obtained on yesterday evening by wagon 
 from Menomonie. Pistol practice becoming a little tame, 
 we were highly entertained by Louis Tainter and his Win- 
 chester. His off-hand exhibition embraced a number of 
 fancy shots executed in imitation of, and as well as, Lon 
 Williams. He would bring down small objects thrown by 
 another up in the air at distances of from six to ten yards, 
 and broke with ease the bowl of a clay pipe held in the 
 hand of his friend, Sergt. Wilcox. Looking about for 
 more sport of the kind, the skillful marksman sighted the 
 tail of a pig, feeding in the bushes on the hill behind where 
 he stood at a distance of about fifty paces. He parted the 
 curl of that tail right in the middle. Taking similar aim at 
 another shoat, Tainter fired, but with an " indifferent suc- 
 cess," as owing to a sudden move by the restless young 
 hog, the pig, in this instance, may be said to have been shot 
 off the tail. 
 
 MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, July 28. The pictures of the 
 Williams brothers, from which their published descriptions 
 were obtained, do not appear to be such likenesses of them 
 as their friends would care much about keeping in order to 
 remember them by. I have seen no less than a dozen par- 
 II
 
 164 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 ties, both men and women, who knew the Williamses well 
 some of them intimately and in no case were the de- 
 scriptions verified. The photographs of Lon Williams, 
 taken in different positions, in his Sunday clothes and in an 
 outlaw's habit, armed to the teeth, are for the most part 
 poorly executed. In Menomonie the side and front views 
 of Lon were exhibited and duly labeled as the picture of 
 Kd. and Lon respectively. The only picture I have seen 
 that doesn't resemble any of Lon's photos, and so may be 
 the likeness it is said to be of Ed., was given me by Under- 
 sheriff Knight, of Pepin county. The following descrip- 
 tion of the two brothers I have based on the testimony of 
 parties who knew them both: Ed. Maxwell, alias Wil- 
 liams, five feet seven inches in height, compactly built, 
 about 140 pounds in weight, age between 30 and 35 years, 
 dark complexion, black hair, black or very deep blue eyes, 
 short black mustache and goatee, dull heavy set features, 
 taciturn disposition. Alonzo (Lon) Maxwell, alias Wil- 
 liams, five feet ten inches in height, medium build, 
 weight about 150 pounds, age 25, light complexion, 
 auburn hair, gray or blue eyes, brown mustache and 
 chin whiskers, cheerful disposition. Lon's manners were 
 more those of a gentleman than Ed's, and it may be 
 stated that the family resemblance is not perceptible 
 between them. Both are supposed to have smooth 
 faces, unless they have grown negligent about shaving 
 while in the woods with so much else to think of.
 
 Life of Williams Brothers, 165 
 
 At the time of the murdev both wore false heavy 
 black beards. 
 
 The portly old prisoner Sergt. Wilcox took in yesterday 
 proves to be a party named or called Pennywell, who occa- 
 sionally preaches for a living. He is related to a hard 
 crowd the Bishops who reside farther north in the woods. 
 " Old Pennyroyal," as the boys call him, got permission to 
 hold religious service in Camp, and preached a short sermon 
 very much at random as to text and ideas. He gave us the 
 revised Lord's prayer, and led in several hymns, the boys 
 joining in the chorus with a vocal vigor that awakened the 
 resounding echoes. 
 
 Sheriff Anderson, of Illinois, who has been in the field 
 with Capt. Doolittle throughout the pursuit, and has been 
 untiring in his efforts to bring to justice immediate justice 
 the outlaws whose crime was brought about by the incentive 
 of reward held out in his postal cards to the Wisconsin 
 authorities, was in camp to-day. He told me that one of 
 these postal cards was found in the breast pocket of Milton 
 Coleman after he had been laid out upon his bloody bier. 
 The words written in ink " Be careful and go armed, they 
 are desperate men," seemed to stand out in bold relief 
 from their background of the crimson -blood of man. The 
 sheriff was bound for below, and had in his possession the 
 stolen steed which was found in the woods where the 
 Williamses had tied and then left it to starve. The Illinois 
 sheriff will pick up the other horse at Durand, and ship
 
 1 66 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 them both home by steamer from Reed's Landing, at the 
 mouth of the Chippewa, on the Mississippi. He expects 
 to return himself with the horses unless something turns up 
 in the next day or two.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 THE GREAT FRAUD. 
 
 A PITILESS PURSUIT ON PAPER. " BUFFALO CHARLIE." 
 
 WHERE ARE THE BLOODHOUNDS? THE LONG-LEGGED 
 
 DUTCHMAN IN PERIL. HOW HE "TOOK THEM 
 
 IN." EPISTOLARY CONFIDENCES OF A 
 
 BELLE OF THE BIG WOODS. BEEF 
 
 FOR THE BANDITS. 
 
 READERS of the widest circulated newspaper in the 
 country, The Times, of Chicago, were thrown into a fever 
 heat of excitement by a telegraphic despatch from the seat 
 of war, published on Friday morning, July 2oXh, announ- 
 cing a new departure of an intensely thrilling nature in 
 the plans and tactics of the pursuing party. The dispatch 
 ran as follows: 
 
 "MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, Dunn Co., Wis., July 28. New 
 life has been infused into the pursuit of the Williams 
 brothers by the arrival of eight Indian scouts with thirty 
 bloodhounds, employed out west by the United States gov- 
 ernment. The scouts are headed by Buffalo Charile and 
 
 Yellowstone Kelley. With these names the readers of The 
 
 (167)
 
 1 68 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 Times were made familiar during Custer's and Miles' cam- 
 paigns in 1876 and 1877. Buffalo Charlie's parents, 
 brothers, and sisters were killed by Indians over six years 
 ago, since which time he has given his whole heart to his 
 work of tracking redskins and fugitives from justice gener- 
 ally. The trail of the outlaws will be taken up in the 
 vicinity of Doolittle's camp, and the scouts will go ahead 
 with the entire pack of bloodhounds, starting such a hunt 
 as was never witnessed in the big woods before. If the 
 outlaws will kindly remain where they have been for the 
 past fortnight they are certain to be run down. The ex- 
 citing chase will begin some time before night." 
 
 The associated press, as is its invariable custom, took its 
 pick from the news columns of The Times on that day, 
 and by the next day " a whole world knew " more about 
 those bloodhounds than " we in the woods." 
 
 Everybody shared a disappointment, felt abroad only less 
 keenly than by bamboozled Badgers of which The Times 
 man counts himself one of the first the following day, 
 when there appeared a second dispatch, dated the same as 
 the preceding one, which had been delayed while in the 
 hands of a messenger until too ^ate an hour to get into 
 telegraphic communication with Chicago that night. The 
 second dispatch was as follows : 
 
 "MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, July 28,6 p. M. The informa- 
 tion dispatched 77ie Times this morning that eight Indian 
 scouts and thirty bloodhounds had arrived to join the pur-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 169 
 
 suit of the Williams brothers was based and still rests solely 
 on the statements of a party calling himself Buffalo Charlie, 
 who reported the scouts and dogs a few miles below here. 
 As yet no dogs have been seen, and investigation fails to 
 reveal their whereabouts in any part of this country up from 
 Reed's Landing, where Charlie said the men and dogs had 
 arrived early this morning. The suspicions of the authori- 
 ties have been excited, and the alleged scout has been placed 
 under surveillance. We are looking anxiously for the 
 hounds. If they do not turn up, it will be made hot for 
 Buffalo Charlie, who seems anxious to get into the woods 
 alone." 
 
 A bulletin sent out the next day continues the narration, 
 as follows: 
 
 "MAPLE SPRINGS CAMP, July 29, 6:30 A.M. The all- 
 absorbing topic in both camps at daybreak this morning is 
 furnished in the mysterious person of the party naming 
 himself Buffalo Charlie, the Indian scout. His tale of thirty 
 bloodhounds, which he promised to have here, together 
 with " Yellowstone Kelley " and six other scouts, by night 
 before last, he first said, and within a few hours, whenever 
 he has been approached since, has not, so far, been verified 
 in a single instance. Buffalo Charlie is a long-legged 
 Dutchman, talking with a slight accent. Further informa- 
 tion about him will be thankfully received by the Ludington 
 Guard and Doolittle's company, both of which commands 
 have had all their plans and calculations upset by the advent
 
 1 70 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 of the great unknown. Yesterday noon Charlie started 
 out on a scout through the woods, accompanied by ten men 
 from Doolittle's camp and three of the guards, who were 
 under orders to keep an eye on the Dutchman. They were 
 out all night, and have not yet returned. Nothing has 
 been heard from the dogs yet, and speculation is rife as to 
 " who in h 1 and the wilds of Wisconsin " is this Charles 
 de Buffalo. If he is not what he represents himself to be, 
 just what interest may he have in the pursuit of the Wil- 
 liams brothers? It is safe to say that if those hounds do not 
 appear to-day, that Buffalo Charlie will be seized as an 
 accomplice of the outlaws, and called up in the woods to 
 answer the charge of a conspiracy to convey information 
 and assistance to the enemy. Developments are anxiously 
 awaited." 
 
 The next dispatch was of the same date, at a later hour, 
 and read as follows: 
 
 "CAMP CADY, Pierce County, Wis., July 29, via ME- 
 NOMONIK, Wis., July 30. Buffalo Charlie's fellow scouts 
 and thirty bloodhounds failing to come to time, and his 
 movements taking a suspicious turn, he was put under 
 arrest by Capt. Doolittle this morning. Charlie now says 
 that the bloodhounds have not left Fort Lincoln yet, and 
 the other scouts have gone to that point. He says that he 
 is known out west by the various names of Buffalo Charlie, 
 Charlie Lewis, and Yellowstone Charlie. He dictated 
 telegrams to be sent to Portage, Wis., and Fort Snelling,
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 17* 
 
 Minn., asking for identification. Unless this identification 
 comes in due time, and is fully satisfactory, it will be impos- 
 sible to restrain his captors from dealing summarily with 
 the alleged scout, who is strongly suspected of complicity 
 with the Williams brothers, to whose assistance he is be- 
 lieved to have come as a spy. Buffalo or Yellowstone 
 Charlie is six feet one inch in stature, well built, weighs 
 165, has brown hair, hay-colored mustache and goatee 
 watery gray eyes, and talks with a slight German accent 
 He will be held in camp until his telegrams can be an- 
 swered, ample time for which will be given. 
 
 " According to his own story, as revised to date, Buffalo 
 Charlie has not been in regular government employment 
 since 1878. He says he has done occasional scouting since 
 in the summer, and hunted buffaloes in the winter. Evi- 
 dently he has been working his way for the past two months 
 up the river towards St. Paul, hiring out as cook in hotels 
 along the route. The following, written in pencil on a 
 telegraph blank, dated at Portage, Wis., was found in his 
 pocket : 
 
 PROPRIETOR DEVIL'S LAKE HOTEL: What about 
 the cook? Answer. 
 
 It was probably intended for a telegram, but was not 
 signed. If he can satisfy his captors that he is not in league 
 with the Williams brothers, whatever may have been his 
 object for telling such yarns, Buffalo Charlie will be given 
 his freedom. In that event he says he will continue in pur-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 suit of the outlaws and obtain the trail, and will yet have 
 those bloodhounds here. He was photographed to-day 
 by an artist from Menomonie. Doolittle's company will 
 not give up pursuit yet, believing the game is still concealed 
 in the big woods. 
 
 Readers of The Times were not long without "the full 
 particulars, " as to the movements of the mysterious per- 
 sonage, conveyed in the following article of correspondence : 
 
 CAMP CADY, Wis., July 30. The first seen of "Buffalo 
 Charlie" was on Wednesday afternoon. He was brought 
 to Maple Springs camp in the wagon of an Eau Galle man, 
 who had met him in that place en route from below, for the 
 pursuit of the Williams brothers. The stranger told the 
 same story about his thirty bloodhounds and the other seven 
 scouts coming on behind him that he regaled the men at 
 the camps with, and was readily given a lift as far as Maple 
 Springs. Here he was accorded a warm welcome on his 
 errand and importance being made known by the party 
 driving the wagon, and given an escort and ride on to Camp 
 Cady. Buffalo Charlie left a parting injunction with the 
 Ludington Guard to be on close watch that night for the 
 hounds, which he said he expected along the road about 
 dusk. Arriving at Camp Cady, he was introduced in a 
 like manner to Doolittle's company, and at his request given 
 a detachment of men for scout service that night, in order 
 to discover, if possible, the " moccasin trail " of Lon Will- 
 iams, whose sore right foot, the large toe of which is
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 173 
 
 missing, causes him to wear an overshoe or moccasin, with 
 one boot. Buffalo Charlie's party were kept hard at work 
 all night, the scout professing to have obtained clues worth 
 following up. During the night he sent a messenger to 
 Maple Springs Camp, asking that all the guards save a small 
 garrison, be sent up to join him at Howard's farm, several 
 miles distant. In the absence of Capt. George, who was 
 out on a scout, Lieuts. Brewer and Knapp concluded on 
 consultation that an order by an unknown party could not 
 be obeyed, and refused to send the men. Thursday morn- 
 ing Capt. George started up to see about the dogs. Char- 
 lie was met near Howard's, and when questioned said that 
 the bloodhounds and the rest of the scouts would be in be- 
 fore noon, from Menomonie, where they had gone by rail, 
 instead of coming across the country from below. Night 
 came, but no dogs. During the day Charlie had obtained 
 a dozen men and started out to scour the woods. He was 
 not seen again until caught up with Friday morning and 
 put under arrest. Thursday afternoon was passed by 
 Charlie's command in following trails he claimed to have 
 struck. The scout showed the boys a thing or two in the 
 way of imitating the sounds made by barking wolves, bay- 
 ing hounds, and hooting owls, which he explained as sig- 
 nals in woodcraft. He also fired off his gun several times 
 when desirous of calling in the picket guards. On Thurs- 
 day night Charlie and four men were quartered in a barn 
 on Widow Gibson's place. Charlie, so his men allege, was
 
 174 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 anxious for them all to go to sleep and rest, saying he would 
 sleep light and be responsible for guard duty. But the men, 
 under other instructions, kept up a watch by turns through 
 the night, having an eye out for the horses in the stable- 
 On Friday morning, as neither the bloodhounds nor any 
 trace of them appeared, after minute and careful investiga- 
 tion, Capt. Dcolittle sent out a squad of men detailed to ar- 
 rest the suspicious character and bring him into camp. The 
 arrest was made easily, Charlie professing great surprise 
 mingled with ill-concealed contempt at the stupidity of his 
 captors in taking him for " one of the Williamses. " Sev- 
 eral hours passed after he was taken into camp, during 
 which time the situation was one of imminent peril to the 
 prisoner, before Buffalo Charlie decided to take any definite 
 steps toward establishing his reputation. 
 
 At last he dictated two telegrams to parties in Fort Snell- 
 ing, Minn., and Portage City, Wis., asking for his record 
 as a scout in 1873. 
 
 After these telegrams were written Charlie was pressed 
 for the names of parties who knew him within the last 
 month. This brought him to the confession of the fact 
 that instead of having been traveling across the country in 
 company with Indian chiefs during the past few weeks, he 
 had been working, since June i, as a cook in various hotels 
 along the river, not far from this part of Wisconsin. What 
 a fall was here^ my countrymen ! From a scout under Cus- 
 ter to a second-rate cook in a country tavern! The revela-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 175 
 
 tion caused every one to feel worse sold out than ever, and 
 didn't help Charlie any. Time, however, was allowed him 
 to prove his standing either as a scout or as a cook, and un- 
 der either of the names he now says are " all his own " 
 Buffalo Charlie, Yellowstone Charlie, Charlie Lewis and 
 Charlie Shubert. His photograph was taken in camp to- 
 day by Ordemann, a photographic artist of high repute, 
 who brought his camera with him from Menomonie. 
 
 While the disgust that was uppermost in the minds of 
 the pursuers prevented much of anything like a relish from 
 being obtained by the perpetration of the ordinary joke, 
 the historian succeeded in creating a momentary ripple of 
 mirth, on an occasion we will take his own words to ex' 
 plain : 
 
 The old Spring Tavern, where we are quartered so com- 
 fortably, was a frequented resort five years ago when kept 
 by old man Bailey. Searching its abandoned apartments 
 for relics, I came upon a letter written three years ago by 
 one party feminine to another, which afforded some amuse- 
 ment for the boys. As indicative of the culture and re- 
 finement which marked the average young woman of this 
 picturesque section, the missive was filed away among the 
 archives of this department of the expedition. The sweet- 
 est-spoken sentiments of the writer, Emma Winters, ad- 
 dressing her dear friend Ella Alton in the greatest confi- 
 dence, were contained in the following touching references 
 to their school (one of *he numerous log school houses in
 
 176 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 the woods) and school teacher : " If I was you I would not 
 read to-morrow just to spite him. I don't see what you 
 done. Yes, ser, we will have a bully old time up there to 
 school, and if that old sticker says anything to me, I will 
 knock his by-God head off, as fank Blair said. If you had 
 of been me when he sent you tow your seat I would of took 
 my book and bonnet and went home, and give him fits be- 
 sides." 
 
 Capt. George did not lose any more time than could pos- 
 sibly be helped with " Buffalo Charlie, " but continued the 
 careful exploration of the section of country he had under- 
 taken to " round up. " One of these expeditions resulted 
 in the finding by a party in command of the Captain him- 
 self, of the carcass of a recently killed steer, out of whose 
 flank a twelve pound chunk of meat had been cut. Tracks, 
 made out with extreme difficulty, near by were believed 
 after a close examination to be those of the outlaws, the 
 moccasined foot of Lon Williams having left its " give- 
 away" mark.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 THE PURSUIT ABANDONED. 
 
 SUCCESS AND FAILURE. MONEY AND TIME OUT. THE 
 LUDINGTON GUARD RECALLED. A " BULL RUN" EPI- 
 SODE. "THE TIMES" CORRESPONDENT THEO- 
 RIZES ON " BUFFALO CHARLEY." LOTH TO 
 
 LEAVE THE FIELD. A WILD RUMOR. 
 
 PALMYRA'S FRIGHT. THE WILLIAMS 
 BROTHERS AHEAD OF THE LAW. 
 
 IT is said that nothing succeeds like success. Per contra^ 
 nothing fails so far as failure. After spending a good deal 
 of both time and money, to all appearances in vain, the 
 organization for pursuit was ready to declare that the game 
 it was after was not to be found in the wilds of Wisconsin. 
 A press dispatch, dated at St. Paul, on July 31, stated : " A 
 special messenger just in from the field, after a full ingesti- 
 gation, reports that the idea that the murderers are still in 
 the woods is not now seriously entertained. It is thought 
 they escaped from the river several days since. The pur- 
 suers were misled by a tramp calling himself Buffalo Char- 
 ley, a noted Indian scout, and he is now under arrest. He 
 claimed that he was to be followed by several scouts and a 
 
 (L77)
 
 178 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 pack of blood-hounds, and the pursuers depended on his 
 promises until too late to accomplish anything. Several 
 thousand dollars have thus been squandered on a fruitless 
 search, and the men in the field will abandon the chase in 
 disgust." 
 
 So the State felt at any rate, and the following telegram 
 to The Times, chronicles the end of a brief but by no means 
 inglorious campaign: 
 
 MENOMONIE, Wis., July 30. Quartermaster General 
 Bryant visited Maple Springs to-day to ascertain the progress 
 of the Ludington Guard's campaign in pursuit of the Will- 
 iams brothers, under orders from Governor Smith. General 
 Bryant, satisfying himself from reports of what had been 
 done, and a survey of the situation, ordered the guards to 
 return to Menomonie and disband from actual service. The 
 Quartermaster General told The 7imes correspondent that 
 he considered further search by a cavalry company, under 
 the circumstances, as useless and involving unnecessary 
 expense to the State. He did not believe the Williams 
 brothers were in the woods at all, but that they had improved 
 the opportunity to escape. 
 
 On the return of the Ludington Guard, an incident 
 occurred along the somewhat scattered line of march taken 
 up in single file through the woods, which was duly 
 recorded at the time by a faithful historian, and is given 
 below for the fun there is in it : 
 
 "MENOMONIE, Wis., July 31. While we were "home-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 179 
 
 ward bound" to-day, one of the high privates in the Guard 
 met with a thrilling adventure on the road. His name it 
 was John Bull, and the scene of his " run" was in a lonely 
 spot, where he happened al the moment to be riding along 
 alone with his thoughts. It was here, he says, that he was 
 joined by none other than " one of the Williamses," dis- 
 guised only in having no arms on, or at least showing none 
 in sight. He reeled in his saddle, and offered Johnnie Bull 
 a drink out of his bottle. He called himself a detective 
 from Ohio, seemed to have taken a decided fancy to young 
 Bull (" Sitting" uneasily in his saddle the while), and among 
 other conversational bits, honored him with the following : 
 ' What in h 1 are you fellows giving up the chase for yet? 
 Why, those Williamses are right here in the woods, and I 
 could put my hands on them this minute.' The Bull-y boy 
 of the Ludington Guard, the more he stared at the stranger, 
 became convinced that he beheld one of the Williams 
 brothers. The " detective from Ohio" certainly looked like 
 several of the many guaranteed likenesses of the outlaws, 
 and had withal a mien ferocious and a manner careless and 
 free to an alarming degree. There were no more of the 
 Guard near by, and Johnnie Bull began to feel the flesh 
 creep along his bones. The stranger repeated that he came 
 from Ohio, at the same time diving his hand into a breast 
 pocket to produce ' papers to show it.' This was too much 
 for the single-handed guard, armed with only a carbine and 
 
 a Colt's six-shooter, and, while in mortal fear lest the * d d 
 12
 
 I So Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 desperado' should draw and shoot him in the rear, he turned 
 and put spurs in his horse's flank. Rejoining his compan- 
 ions later on, after the mysterious detective had disappeared 
 down a cross-road, the hero of another Bull-Run' No, 
 3 recounted with suppressed excitement his daring adven- 
 ture with "one of the Williams brothers," to whose identity 
 he was willing to take oath." 
 
 Concerning the " inexplicable individual," The Times cor- 
 respondent insisted on having his way towards establishing 
 a theory that would explain if it could not excuse those 
 little eccentricities in the conduct of the " half-scout, half- 
 cook and two-thirds ' what-is-it?> " In correspondence with 
 his paper he says: 
 
 " By mutual agreement, Sheriff Peterson and The Times 
 representative have been making a close study of Buffalo 
 Charlie, as a character, for the past few days, and on com- 
 paring mental notes this morning it was found, as a curious 
 coincidence of trains of thought, that we had each arrived 
 at the same partial solution of the perplexing problem as to 
 his identity. This opinion, in brief, may be stated as follows: 
 Buffalo Charlie's unblushing disregard for the truth, taken 
 in connection with the terrible risk he coolly ran in telling 
 such a lie as that about the bloodhounds, at the time and in 
 the place he did, establishes, first of all, an evidence of mono- 
 mania on a subject to which his chief time and thought have 
 been wholly occupied with, to the exclusion of everything 
 else. His gun-shot and tomahawk wounds about the head
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 181 
 
 and bullet-holes in different parts of his stringy anatomy, 
 together with the killing, in his sight, of his parents, brothers, 
 and sisters, are experiences calculated certainly to prey on 
 his peace of mind, as well as to effect his mental capacities 
 they tending to confirm the above impression, and to help 
 explain the source from which may be said to flow his pro- 
 voking prevarication. But Buffalo Charlie is no fool. His 
 familiarity with woodcraft has been proved by his move- 
 ments in the brush and timber. His knowledge of signs and 
 sounds is great and thorough beyond dispute. 
 
 He would stoop down and show the track of a man's foot 
 where the faintest traces of it were invisible to the eyes of his 
 companions, until they followed his words as he revealed to 
 them the art of the practiced Indian scout. Charlie's know- 
 ledge of the Yellowstone country, of persons and places in 
 Dakota and Montana, and of dates and Indian campaigns, 
 further strengthen the belief that he has been, for a greater 
 or less period, what he represents himself to be an Indian 
 scout on the plains. As to the bloodhounds, they may or 
 may not have been his own, or belonged to the government; 
 they may have existed, indeed, only in a diseased mind's-eye. 
 It is easy enough, further, to understand how he could have 
 fallen into hard lines and have been working his way as a 
 cook, with whose duties he was more familiar man with 
 those of a skilled artisan, when news of the $1,700 offered 
 as the price of work he was peculiarly fitted to perform at- 
 traced him thither. To sum up, Buffalo Charlie is a person
 
 1 82 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 who, while from a partial and peculiar derangement of cer- 
 tain mental faculties, is not to be entirely relied on, can be 
 made useful, under the eye of one who understands and can 
 control him, in tracking the Williams brothers to their haunts, 
 whether in the big woods of Wisconsin or elsewhere. Let 
 him be kept in check as a hound would be until his keen 
 scent can be made available, and then give his natural wit a 
 chance to display itself." 
 
 The pursuit was not immediately abandoned upon the re- 
 call of the Ludington Guard, although that step by the 
 State naturally and speedily led to this result. There were 
 still parties in the field who were loth to leave, as is shown 
 by the following article of correspondence taken from The 
 Times: 
 
 MKNOMONIE, Wis., Aug. 2. The pursuit of the Wil- 
 liams brothers has not been abandoned. It can not be ex- 
 pected, of course, that men who are poor and compelled to 
 work hard for a living can subscribe their services for any 
 protracted length of time, free, while their little crops which 
 should have been harvested by now, are waiting to be 
 gathered; and unless some assurance is given Doolittle's 
 men that they shall be paid for their time, it is likely enough 
 that a considerable number of them will leave the field this 
 week. Doolittle, Kelley, the Coleman brothers, and other 
 leaders, however, state their determination to remain in the 
 woods until the outlaws are caught or positive proof is ob- 
 tained of their escape from this part of the country.
 
 Life of Williams B tut hers. 183 
 
 Sheriff Peterson, of Pepin county, will either take com- 
 mand of a Pepin county posse or join Doolittle with a few 
 men, and may be depended on to stay at his post of duty as 
 long as that duty calls him. He has been in the field ever 
 since the chase began, and has rendered assistance and co- 
 operation whenever invited, and often without, as I think, 
 the thanks of any one. 
 
 The scheme the most practicable at present is for the 
 pursuing party to inaugurate a still hunt through those 
 parts of the big woods where the bandits are the most likely 
 to be if in Wisconsin's wilds at all. 
 
 Hunting the Williams brothers has been an expensive 
 job, and a far more difficult one, by the way, than the gen- 
 eral chase after the Youngers in Minnesota. The latter 
 were in a strange country, without friends, and had become 
 demoralized. The Williamses are perfectly at home in the 
 vast woody deeps where trails become lost before they are 
 found, and they are nearer more friends than can possibly 
 be ascertained by the authorities. If the movements of every 
 suspected party were to be shadowed, it would require a 
 detective force larger than the entire number of men in the 
 pursuing parties at any time during the past three weeks. 
 The pursuit of Sam Bass, the Texan train-robber, through 
 the river bottoms and thickets of Denton county was re- 
 lieved and enlivened occasionly by an exciting dash across 
 a stretch of open prairie, pursuers and pursued mounted on 
 fleet horses. There has been no such sport here, where so
 
 184 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 far as practical results go the days pass monotonously into 
 weeks with nothing to show for the hard, fatiguing work 
 of brave and determined, but, in a measure, powerless 
 men. 
 
 There is every reason to suppose that the fugitives are 
 still in the state, until conclusive evidence is afforded of their 
 voluntary desertion of the forest fastnesses with which their 
 familiarity enables them to maintain right along a positive 
 advantage over a hundred or two hundred pursuers. They 
 are safer here than anywhere else, and it is a fair presump- 
 tion that they know such to be the fact. Their capture, 
 their death, may be compassed by stratagem, or occur 
 through a lucky accident, and a quiet pursuit by the right 
 body of men, small in numbers though it be, holds out now 
 the one remaining hope of Wisconsin's ridding herself 
 within her own domain and at her own expense of her now 
 widely celebrated brace of bandits. 
 
 Rumors, catching at the growing belief, now became 
 prevalent of the Williams brothers having been seen in 
 other parts of the state. A telegram was sent to The Chi- 
 cago Times by a local correspondent at Palmyra, Wis., on 
 August ist, stating that the outlaws had entered a hotel in 
 that village and taken breakfast, after which they had left 
 without paying their bill. Another dispatch was sent the 
 next day, as follows: 
 
 " PALMYRA, Wis., Aug 2. Sheriff Messerschmidt has 
 consulted with Gov. Smith regarding the capture of the
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 185 
 
 Williams brothers, who have been identified from their pic- 
 tures in his possession by several parties who saw them in 
 this village and vicinity Saturday, Sunday, and Monday as 
 being the original Williams brothers. When last seen they 
 were in the woods between here and Eagle. Gov. Smith 
 ordered Sheriff Messerschmidt to arrange as speedily as 
 possible for following and watching them, but in no case to 
 attempt their arrest, but telegraph him at Madison, and he 
 would send a special with troops to the nearest railway 
 point. The matter will be arranged promptly and with as 
 much skill and safety to the pursuit as possible. It is 
 thought the outlaws will not again escape. Sheriff Messer- 
 schmidt's official description of them exactly tallies with 
 that of the men who were here who are supposed to have 
 struck the Western Union road at Eagle, south, or intended 
 to give that impression from inquiries made in several 
 places Sunday morning and Saturday afternoon, when a 
 man came upon them unexpectedly in the woods on the 
 Troy road. Each time their inquiries were regarding the 
 distance to Eagle Station, five miles from here, where con- 
 nection is made with a branch of the Western Union road. 
 This clue and the western route to the river system of the 
 state, south and west, will be closely followed by officers 
 now in pursuit, who express themselves confident of being 
 on the right track. The elder of the two men here was 
 heavily built, dark hair and eyes, prominent nose, wounded 
 face, desperate looking; the younger, more boyish, light
 
 l86 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 hair and eyes, sun-burned face, insignificant and common 
 looking, would have attracted no attention but for carrying 
 his left arm and hand in a bright red cotton sling. Their 
 resemblance to the Williams brothers was freely commented 
 upon before and after their departure, but there was no 
 suspicion of the truth till the following day's papers brought 
 the news of their escape from the Eau Galle woods several 
 days ago. As matters now stand, if they are the outlaws, 
 they have twenty-four hours' start of their pursuers, are 
 wounded, worn, not sure of their way, and apparently 
 without money or friends in this section. Their capture is 
 considered sure." 
 
 Nothing came of this so-called " pursuit." The pursuing 
 party took excellent care to remain twenty-four hours be- 
 hind the men dubbed as the " original Williams brothers," 
 who, if overtaken, would in all likelihood have proven to 
 be a pair of common tramps. 
 
 The real pursuit, meanwhile, had come to be abandoned t 
 in deference to public opinion, in both Dunn and Pepin 
 counties, which, right or wrong, came to the conclusion 
 that the murderers had escaped from the big woods, and 
 that it was unwise and improvident to continue the chase 
 longer. 
 
 Thus the Williams brothers escaped an immediate cap- 
 ture and the summary punishment which came as near 
 and only as near the former to being effected, and the 
 latter, its natural consequence, to being meted out to them, 
 as we have recounted.
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE LAST TRAGIC CHAPTER IN ED. MAXWELL'S WILD 
 CAREER. 
 
 THE SKILLFUL ARREST ED. TALKS FREELY OF HIS 
 
 WILD LIFE THE SCENE IN THE COURT HOUSE 
 
 SUDDEN CHANGE IN THE PERFORMANCE 
 
 THE CONFESSION JUDGE 
 
 LYNCH DANGLING IN 
 
 THE SNOW STORM. 
 
 The wild freedom of these twice outlawed brothers was 
 destined to come to an end, at least in the case of the elder 
 of the two, and that end as tragic as the life had been law- 
 less. The boy who began his career as a sneak thief at 
 Washburn, Illinois, in 1868 after thirteen years of crime 
 died a death of shame at the hands of Judge Lynch, at 
 Durand, Wisconsin, on the igth of November, 1881. The 
 fruitless pursuit of the murderers of the Coleman brothers 
 had been for some time abandoned ; a conviction seemed to 
 be growing that these desperate outlaws could not be 
 arrested. 
 
 On the 5th of November, however, Sheriff Joseph Kil- 
 lian, of Hall county, Nebraska, received some startling inti- 
 mations. Constable Chris. Stahl, of Merrick county, tele- 
 graphed that there were two suspicious characters at the 
 house of a neighboring farmer, named William Niedfeldt, 
 living near Grand Island. It was believed that these men 
 
 (187)
 
 1 88 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 were the outlawed Williams brothers. In the darkness of 
 the early morning of Saturday, November the 6th, Sheriff 
 Killian, Stael and Ludwig Shultz, and August Hitsch, well 
 armed with shot-guns and revolvers, started for Niedfeldt's 
 house, and, arriving there about 5 o'clock, A. M., assumed 
 the role of hunters, and asked that breakfast might be pre- 
 pared. They do not appear to have excited the least suspi- 
 cion, for, while breakfast was being prepared, they were 
 shown into the room occupied by the suspicious characters, 
 whose Winchester rifles were near at hand, and under 
 whose pillows lay a couple of revolvers. The two occu- 
 pants of the room entered freely into conversation, and rep- 
 resented themselves as goose-hunters from Hastings, Mo.; 
 but when they were unable to answer certain questions con- 
 cerning the town of Hastings, and some of its inhabitants, 
 the early morning visitors began to feel pretty sure of their 
 men. Everything now depended on coolness and tact. 
 Lon Williams, who was known to have lost one of the toes 
 on his left foot, gave himself away by putting his stockings 
 on under the bed-clothes. After dressing, Ed posted him- 
 relf near the corner of the room, with his right hand on 
 his Winchester, while Lon left his hat and coat and leis- 
 urely walked out of the kitchen door and towards the barn. 
 Changing his plans, Killian cooly walked up to Ed. and 
 said: "I want you." As Ed. moved to bring up his gun, 
 Killian grabbed and floored him, and took the gun away, 
 Nitsch covering him with a shot-gun. On being thus se- 
 cured, he saw that he was fairly caught, and that any resist- 
 ance would be as foolish as useless. The brotherly instinct in 
 Ed, suggested to him to give his brother Alonzo a chance, 
 which he did by a series of wild yells, the meaning of which
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 189 
 
 Lon was not slow to apprehend. He ran to the corner of 
 the house, but was confronted by Killian, who was there, 
 and covered him with a revolver, and ordered him to halt. 
 Lon replied with a shot, but Killian dodged, got into the 
 kitchen and closed the door, and put his foot against it. 
 Lon came up, expecting it to fly wide open. It only opened 
 a few inches, and Lon found himself looking into the muzzle 
 of Nitsch's gun. He then jumped around a corner of the 
 house and went to another window, but Nitsch was ready 
 for him and aimed at his head. Both cartridges, however, 
 failed to explode. This seemed to satisfy Lon that further 
 attempts at rescuing his brother would be futile, gave it up 
 as a bad job, and made for the tall grass on the bottom at 
 full speed. By 7:30 that night Ed. was landed at Grand 
 Island jail. 
 
 From the moment Ed. was arrested, he seemed to count 
 himself a " gone coon," and made no effort and entertained 
 very little hope of escape. Indeed, he seemed to be sick of 
 life, as he himself confessed. The plea of having shot 
 Coleman in self defense was the only straw to which he 
 clung for a moment, and it was a very feeble straw at best. 
 The visit of a reporter of the St. Paul Pioneer gave him 
 an opportunity to talk of his doings, and he availed himself 
 of the opportunity with a sort of morbid gratification. 
 
 Speaking of the murdered Colemans, he said : " They 
 were the grittiest men and had the most sand of any men 
 who ever stood before us. They were too gritty for their 
 own good." When questioned as to the wanderings of his 
 brother and himself, after the fatal doings of that July Sun- 
 day evening, the prisoner said : 
 
 " Well, we went due west, or maybe a little north of 
 west, and got out near Breckenridge. We traveled mostly 
 nights, but some days, and, as we were skillful burglars, we 
 did not have much trouble in getting all we wanted to eat. 
 If there was any money handy, of course we took that, but 
 we let horses alone. To take them would kick up too 
 much hullabaloo to suit us just then. We saw a good 
 many people, but did not have to make any bluffs. If we
 
 190 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 saw any men coming, we threw our rifles into the long 
 grass, and sometimes crouched there ourselves. We did 
 not have a bad time till Lon got the fever. He was terribly 
 sick with it for two weeks, and I thought he was going to 
 die lots of times, but I pulled him through. I tell you Lon 
 is all broke up, and it's not his hard times, but his grief for 
 his wife that's done it. I don't want to say it from vanity 
 because she was my sister-in-law, but she was a mighty 
 nice girl, and her death nearly drove Lon crazy. We 
 never went near her grave that he did not sit there for an 
 hour. Of course I'd go witK him for company, and once I 
 had to keep guard with a cocked rifle. I heard Lon say 
 once : What did they take a quart of blood from my wife 
 for?' And another time, when I asked him for his knife to 
 cut a hole in a strap, I looked up in time to see his eyes 
 glaring at me like a tiger, and his knife in his hand ready 
 to strike. I called to him, and he drew his hand across his 
 eyes and kind of sighed, and then said: 'Is that you, Ed? 
 I thought it was one of them doctors.' " 
 
 " We suffered so much with our wounds, and traveled so 
 much at night and in such out-of-the way places, that I got 
 kind of mixed up about localities, and maybe my story 
 won't always seem like a straight-out one, but I mean to 
 tell the truth, as near as I can get at it. I guess it must 
 have been along about the first of last October when we 
 struck south and headed for Sioux City. We were good 
 walkers, and we traveled some day-times when we were 
 in the open prairie, that is. Do you know, I'd a thousand 
 times rather be on a prairie and be pursued than in a wood? 
 Lon and I can shoot straight for a long distance, and out in 
 the open country we'd surprise some of our pursuers, while 
 in the woods they might surprise us, and any hour could 
 always keep under cover easy enough. We burgled a good 
 many houses, just to get the newspapers and see what was 
 going on. When we got to Sioux City we skirted the town 
 and struck for the railroad south of it. We partly walked 
 and partly stole rides on night trains to Omaha, and that 
 was the way we did when we got into Nebraska. We walked
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 19 1 
 
 right through the principal streets of Omaha, and I carried 
 the guns while Lon lugged the blankets. No one noticed 
 t all. They are used to Winchesters, but in the upper 
 part of the country every fool wanted to know about the 
 4 new-fangled ' shooters where we got them, how they 
 worked, and a lot of such stuff as that. I never suspected 
 Killian at the farm-house where we were captured. If I 
 had, I'd have shot Gus, the man he had with him, and Lon 
 could have killed the other fellow. The sheriff wasn't 
 around, so far as I knew. I think Lon did all he could to 
 help me. He's a mighty good shot, but he missed Killian 
 because he came on him in a hurry, and it was the dark of 
 the morning. The fellows, while they had me down, beat 
 my hands terribly with the butt of a revolver. Look at 
 these scars; I am surprised the wounds healed up so quick." 
 He distinctly denied any share in the murder of the 
 Sheriff of Calhoun county, Illinois; for the apprehension of 
 whose murderer or murderers Governor Cullom had offered 
 a reward of $500. He was very frank in admitting certain 
 escapades in Illinois in other days: 
 
 ^ Lon and I had a good deal of fun in Illinois, near Smith- 
 field, once. We stole a couple of horses, and then got some 
 harness and a buggy from another barn. The man that lost 
 the buggy made an awful row and followed us. We were 
 lunching when he caught sight of us, and he ran back. 
 Presently I saw a whole mob coming down the road, some 
 armed with pitchforks, some with clubs, and one fellow with 
 a big rock. When they got within thirty rods of us I took 
 a revolver in each hand, leaped into the road and gave a 
 yell. You should have seen these fellows run. But Lon 
 covered the fellow with the rock with his revolver, and 
 made him come clear up to us and tell us how far it was to 
 a town we wanted to reach. We did that sort of thing so 
 often, with sheriffs and officers mostly, that we began to 
 think we could not be captured, or that we were the only 
 brave men in the world. No, it was not reading dime nov- 
 els or such stuff that started us on the road. It was just
 
 192 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 what I've told yon, our luck in standing off so many who 
 had a right to be brave." 
 
 He declared that he could tell of many more wild ad- 
 ventures than the public dreamed of. How he and Lon 
 had been shot at, and how they had shot at people, protest- 
 ing, however, that he never shot unless he was first 
 attacked. He said he looked upon his life as a profession. 
 He believed in religion believed in it hard but, said he, 
 " Pd rather have my Winchester." 
 
 For a while he paced up and down his cell. Suddenly 
 he stopped and said with a wild sort of bravado: 
 
 " You don't think I'm walking about here because I'm 
 nervous,, do you ? I never felt less like it in my life. I don't 
 feel a bit afraid, and, really, this is honest. It is a sort of re- 
 lief to be captured, and free from that everlasting hunted 
 feeling; that, glancing at every fellow with one eye, 
 while you look at your pistol wjth the other. I was getting 
 mighty tired of that sort of thing, though, of course, I 
 fought hard against being taken. Now I know I'm in a 
 mighty ticklish place. I know that as well, or better, than 
 you do, but I don't believe they can rightfully convict me, 
 for I shot in self-defense. I would get a lawyer, but I have 
 a deathly fear of a snide attorney. I'll wait till I find who's 
 really a good one." 
 
 At last the fatal morning dawned. His preliminary ex- 
 amination was to have taken place at 9 130 A. M., but was 
 postponed to 2 p. M. Meantime, people came trooping into 
 Durand from all quarters. There was a strange look in 
 men's faces that betokened stranger purposes; but the con- 
 federates, who had determined to avenge the bloody mur- 
 der of the Colemans, kept their council well. By noon the 
 crowds were gathering round the court house, and Ed. 
 Maxwell, in the most cold-blooded manner, suggested that, 
 as there would be a big crowd at the examination, they 
 might sell tickets at the door, and he hoped that whoever 
 sold them would " divvy on the square." 
 
 At the appoinled time, the prisoner took his place in the 
 court house. An angry crowd had surged into the dilapi-
 
 Life of Williams Brothers. 193 
 
 dated court of justice. Ed. looked around him with a sneer 
 on his wretched face. When the formal question was put, 
 Guilty, or not guilty," he replied : " Not guilty! I waive 
 examination, and wish to make a statement." He was told 
 to go on ; and then, in a calm, conversational tone of voice, 
 he made the following confession: 
 
 " We killed the Coleman boys in self-defense, but did not 
 know them from Adam. We were sitting in the grove up 
 town when we saw them pass us. They had guns with 
 them, and looked around often, as if searching for some- 
 thing. We knew there was no game about there, and that 
 they wouldn't go hunting Sunday if there was; so we knew 
 they were alter us, and kept a sharp look-out. When they 
 got past us they started to run. Then we got over the 
 fence and followed them up the road, thinking we were 
 being surrounded and caught in a trap. We had not gone 
 far before we met them, and the one nearest the fence 
 (Nichol Coleman) fired first, his shot hitting Lon in the face 
 and arm. Charley fired at me, and me at him, a second 
 later. His shot struck my arm, and he fell to my bullet, 
 but got on his knee and fired again. Lon had shot the 
 other one before that, and both men were down. Then we 
 turned and run." 
 
 As the confession went on, the crowd pressed closer and 
 closer to the murderer, and before the echo of the last sen- 
 tence died away, a dozen men sprang on him. The efforts 
 of the attendant police to protect him were all in vain. 
 Women shrieked and men yelled. A perfect pandemonium 
 ensued. A rope appeared as if by magic, the noose was 
 thrown over his head from behind, and amid cries of " Hang 
 him!" "Choke him!" "Burn him!" he was dragged out 
 of the court house only to be greeted by the execrations 
 and curses, loud and deep, of a great mob of five hundred 
 men, women and children. He was heard to groan out, " If 
 I had but my Winchester, and a second's freedom!" But 
 it was too late! He was dragged more dead than alive to 
 a gnarled old tree in the court yard, the rope was thrown 
 over a limb of the tree, and the half-strangled outlaw was
 
 194 Life of Williams Brothers. 
 
 drawn up between earth and heaven to choke. A spasm, 
 and all was over! It was said that the widow and daughter 
 of the man he had murdered gazed on the awful scene. 
 The bleak November day closed in storm, sleet and snow 
 sweeping through the court yard of Durand, half hid 
 the dangling form the victim of Judge Lynch. 
 
 So ended in darkness, tragedy and storm, the wild career 
 of Edward Maxwell.
 
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