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Audubon County |
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CHAPTER IX.
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This was the name given to a band of lawless citizens, who from the close of the Rebellion up to about 1885 inhabited the southeastern portion of Audubon County, as well as the northern tier of townships in Cass County. Many of the deperadoes [sic] had settled along Crooked Creek, from which they took their name. For many years this band of murderous, thieving people was the terror of both counties. They included men who had run away from the Confederate States -- were rebels of the darkest dye -- and soongathered to themselves such other outlaws as had already settled in this section of Iowa. They stole valuable stock, including horses, and they also gave quarters for hard characters who chanced to go through their settlement. Law-abiding people were for many years harrassed to that extent that they dare not go before a grand jury and testify against them. In one night one farmer had fifty fat hogs stolen and driven from his barn-yard; and for fear of having his house and barns burned he never prosecuted, or even sought to trace out the thieves, whom he had every reason to believe were his nearest neighbors. From time to time these men have been shot, sent to State's prison, or hung by lynch law here in adjoining counties, until the "nest" has finally been pretty well broken up. While every new country has more or less trouble with this desperate sort of characters, it would seem that southern Audubon and northern Cass counties had more than their full share. It is for this and the other fact that courts of justice have necessarily had more or less of these outlaws upon their trial and grand juries, that it was impossible for peaceable citizens to have justice meted out at the hands of courts, and in self-protection they got into the habit of taking the law into their own hands, and perhaps used the services of "Judge Lynch" more than they would have done otherwise. |
| Prev. <=== Continue Reading ===> Next Transcribed by Cheryl Siebrass August, 2013 from "Biographical History of Shelby and Audubon Counties", Chicago: W. S. Dunbar & Co., 1889, pg. 692. |
