Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1871-09-29

terminated between the Roberts Brothers
and their brother in law Woolri.lg, on
the one side. and tn members OF the
"RIdseway Vigilance Committee" on the
9th side, take this opportunity of Civ
ing you the particulars. Not being in the
habit Of writing for the press, (to say meth
ing Of other excuses might suggest, and
which, no doubt, will suggest themselves
TO the readcr,) my narrative will necesSar
ly be imperfect in many points but will
endeavor to give you 1.-The truth. the whole
truth, and nothing but the trnth."
On the 4th day of March, 1868, early in
the evening, Richard Yapp. Jr., was muir
dered in this neighborhood, and suspicion
pointed to the Roberts family as the per-
petratorS Of the crime. The grounds for
this suspicion need not ns-rate, as they
are very generally understood The PEG
pie became terribly excited over the muir
der, and set to work to detect the assassin
or assassins, as the case might be, when it
became rurnored throughout the neigh
borhood that several persons who had
made themselves conspicuous by giving
evid. n :e before the croner's inquest. and
in other ways, had been threatened with
vengeance By the very parties, who were
suspected Of numbering Richard lapp.
rniS state of affairs, very naturally, inten
>lfel the excitement, already existing, to
such degree that on the LIST day of May,
in the same year, it eliminated in a pub
tic meeting at the voting place in this
town, at which it was unanimously deci-
led that Jane Yapp, tue widow of tn,
murdered man, and Joseph Roberts, Sam
al Roberts, Henry Roberts and Pierce
ROBERTS, and brother In-Iaw--John f.
,Toolridge -siioulI bc waited upon and
t,ir* j leave the county, withm forty
Hsht hours from the receipt Of the ..utice.
lie resolution was Immediately carried
MO effect, and some. eighty..iye men
| narc!i4d il a Guy from the ne. ting o.
| 4ne .ho,su OF Mrs Elizabeth Roberts, and
! .niln1 t. fed the *uSpvGte pa"tIc, they
| cit q letter addressed To thenl asSu1 ing
nen ttaG II they did not leave a. directed
n.Y would nave '>Icn i st - as their az
tt0A5 nie.rite,' Nnt aving my ptY;lcu
lar desire TO have luSal Q Measured cut to
nem according 10 their merits, they left
gjhi,, th1 tlue Superintendent Is, With
the exception If Ja: Yapp. : they as
sem lied around the country for some time,
| and pro 'pe%cd 10 auch al extent that, II
January. 1870, by the advice and with the
assistance Of the notorious Moses NJ.
Strong, John Woodbridge, Samuel Robert
.ti,i j * ...,l, ItODetrS, each commenced All
action Of irt>pass on the case, ia the Uui
sad States istrict Court, and assessed
Hair ti,,iuagts at Ten Thousand dollars
a.h. amounting III thu aggregate to (only)
nlrty thou and Il llars.-Ihese eases
sere c,,i; inuad from term to term until
fne june term heid at Madison. in thu
,,,ar. when the case of W ooirldgc, Is
Thos. Watkins, John Calkins, It, al. wa>
eticd and resulted III It verdict tor the
plaintiff, for two thousand dollars. There
are sO,ne facts connected with this cdSv
that are not generally understood, but
which exercised an imperial Infiaence up
On the verdict arrived at by the jury.
Tn, COUNSEL far the defence concludes
their argument on Saturday evening. a
about five o'clock, and the Judge imme'l
at .lv adjourned Court until 9 o locil Mon
day morning, thus giving Judge orion
(who made tue principal plea for the plain
iff) an extra opportunity to prepare hii:-
self, for the task that appeared to aine
tenths of the spectators, at that time. to
be insurmountable.- And that he i'm
proved upon the tima thus allowed, any
one, who heord his pleading at that tilhe
and upon the recent trial, must be con
WINGED. And then, any one can judge the
advantage that that po>tponemcnt gave to
the plaintiff in that instance when they
l. a. q L., "a
been arous d by the eloquent plea Of
Judge Cothrcn and the Hon. Geo. B
Smith had in great measure died away
in the intervening sabbath. Then again.
the jury went into gambling operation
called marhing, SO that athoughs seven out
of the jury voted to fix the damage at
less than five hundred dollars, which
would have thrown the costs on the plain.
tiff, they were induced by this ''marking'
operation to agree to a verdict Of two
thousand dollars On the different bal
lots that were had by that jury the differ.
ent amounts ranged all the aoay from one
hundred to ten thousand lolLaas; and achen
1T is considered that one Of those tneice .ju-
rors altered to haze TINT case decided either
soay tor ttoenty flee dollars, ace can't help
thinking that the great lao ginen' struck
a bargain acth him the result Of aoAjch
acas, that he Gated first, last end aIoays-
Ten Thousand Dollars.
One of those jurymen made that offer
to Walter Thomas, one of the defendants,
and it was refused.
The defendants in that case decided t.
appeal from that decision to the Supreme
Court at Washington, but were unable To,
because the amount did not exceed two
thousand dollars, so there was no alterna
tive bat to submit, and the judgment was
accordingly satisfied by being paid in full.
with cost, amounting in all to $2,3S0.00.
To illustrate the beauties Of the profess
sion of law" will here state that Wool
ridge received something" over six hun
dred dollars; the balance went for fees to
Moses, and other incideutalS." The au
thori,y on which make this explanation
is Moses NJ. Strong's statement 10 one of
the defendants while in La Crosse lately.
After the Woodbridge suit had been deci-
del against Us, and in manner so unex-
pected, some Of the parties concerned, nat
urally became little alarmed at The pos
sible conSeq lences of the two cases that
We're were still pending, and as the result,
negotiations were commenced with 'the
enemy" Moses NJ. Strong first offered to
drop the suits still pending on our paying
100000 and the costs The Roberts
were next consulted and they wouldn't
agree to anything without consulting their
attorney, and in the mean time Mr.. Strong
advised US. by mail, Of the withdrawal of
his proposition which he had proposed
in spirit of generous liberality"-or at
least he assured US so. There were sever
al subsequent attempts at settlement hut