The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1873-07-24
From schOOlmaster to Bandit.


i unnatural death, twenty-seven years 81
age, and until his twenty-second yea
| his conduct had been irreproaehable
i An act of injustice which he suffered il
/ 1867 at the hands of a Frussian noble
man of high rank converted him from
a respectable village schoolmaster into
a relentless enemy of society, and even.
tually led him to the scaffold, 1t was
4 shortly after the Gnesen Lar ,lwehr bat
talon and returned from the war witt
| Austria, and after Harder, who had
served as a private in that corps, had
! resumed his duties as schOolmaster al
I GrodZyk, a village near Gnesen, that he
/ accidentally met the Baron Won Hetts
\ tedb, the major of the battalion. The
baron was under the influence O.
| liquor, and, without any provOcatio1
/ whatever, began to abuse Harder very
| grossly. Harder tried to get away
from him, but the Baron struck him
and spit In his face. This was too much
for eyillage esehoOlmaster. BE turned
! furiously upon his assailant, and al
though the latter was in full uniform,
beat him severely, broke his sword,
and, left him bleeding and almost IN
sensible on the ground. He then left
for parts unknown. On the following
! day summons was issued against him
| by the Gnesen military tribunal, and
| failing TO appear, he was sentenced to
be shot. An the efforts to ascertain his
whereabouts remained fruitless, and
! SIX months afterward the affair was well
nigh foFgOtten.f1 -e!s r5s7
There was but one man who remem-
bered it with the keenest bitterness, and
that was Daniel Harden himself. While
he had hidden from the police he had
brooded over the great wrong that had
been done to him, and determined TO
wreak a terrible revenge upon the Ba-
ron Won Hettstedt. The latter lived IN
a very fine mansion, two miles from
Gnesen. Shortly after midnight on the
Sd of August, 1867, a fire broke out in
the mansion at three different places.
The building was speedily laid in ashes,
| and, owing to the trapidity with which
the flames spread, one of the baron's
children perished in them. The conha-
grafton was evidently the work of an
incendiary, and the peoples voice at
once designated Daniel Harder as the
man who done it, ~ 2 p u OAf
A reward of 81, 900 was offered for ap-
prehension, and the gensdarmie of the
whole district was sent out to hunt
him up. It was discovered that he hid
DCGn III bllC ntlRlDOIuOOus DuS 1lS 4lAEtL4-
aged to elude PURSUIT. Dan Harder
had set fire to the Hettstedt mansion,
and henceforth his career was that of
an outlaw knowing that his life was for
feited. The peasants began to look
upon him as daredevil, endowed with
almost superhuman powers of endu-
rance, fiendish malignity, and the most
indomitable courage. We next find him
associated with a band of highway rob
bers, who made the vast forests of the
Gnesen district their headquarters,
and whose chief he became soon after
terward in consequence of his superior
intelligence. ~ E 81
The band, under his leadership, be-
came a scourge to the district. 1t COM
mitted hundreds of lawless acts it
robbed, killed and burnt, and at one
time fought regular battle with ten
mounted gendarmes, in which two of
the latter were killed. Harder de-
lighted in bidding defiance to the au-
thorities. Once he visited Gnesen in
disguise, and called upon the police
master. A few hours afterward he sent
that dignitary letter, in which he in
formed who his visitor had been. Du-
ring the year 1870 the impudence of the
Harder band became so great that de-
tachment of regular cavalry was sent
~out to scour the woods and hunt the da-
ring criminals down, but all to no pur-
pose. Harder became such terror to
the district that the peasant did not
give information that might lead to his
apprehension. -.--.
The mayor of the-village of Dilitzka
who had volunteered in 1872 to lead the
gensdarmes to his place of conceal
ment was brutally murdered a few
weeks afterward It was this assassina-
ton that finally led to the arrest of the
great bandit. The murdered mayor
of Dilitzka had four children, the eldest
of whom was Sophie Josephine Arnitz,
who at the time of her fathers death
was eighteen. She was good-looking,
and endowed with superior intelligence.
The cowardly assassination of her father
made deep impression upon her, and
she swore to herself to bring the muir
derer TO Justice.
With true feminine shrewdness and
extraordinary powers of dissimulation,
she managed to have an interview with
Daniel Harder, and made him believe
that the renOwn of his bloody and da-
ring deads had caused her to fall in
love with him. She was handsome, his
vanity was excited in a word he ac-
cepted her declaration of love and said
he would marry her. She told him
that he could meet her the next even
ing at the Golden Ok tavern, one mile
from Gnesen, where she was about to
| accept place as a servant girl. She
talked with such apparent frankness
that Harder did not for moment sus-
pect her. He promised to meet her
| there at the appointed time in the dis
guise of peddler.. He kept his APP
pointment, and was at once arrested by
| six gendarmes, whom the girl had noti-
| fed of his coming. Ten days after
ward he was placed on trial before the
| criminal assizes of Gnesen, convicted
of crimes enough to send dozen men
to the gallows.
He was sentenced to be bebeaded.
His execution, however, was delayed
/ until the 1st of May. Until then Har-
/ der manifested the greatest fortitude in
! iail. When the executioner visited him
/ on the eve of his his death, Harder
! ioked with him, and told him he need
not fasten his head to the block, as he
would lie still till all was over. He ad-
ded TO the headsman My friend
| grind your ak well, so that you kill me
Mt one blow" On the scaffold hC
| turned to the immense multitude an6
/ 6NCiall0cQ III q tOuQ IOue NOW set
how a man dies" Then he knelt dowI
behind the block, and put his head OF
it. He growled aloud when the execu
homer fastened him to the block witt
the leathern straps; g You are very
slow" he said, calmly, while the heads
man took out his terrible ak. "Strike
Striker The ak fell twice befor,
the head Of the greatoutlaw wa
severed from his body. Not s few o
the superstition spectators dipped thei
handkerchiefs in Harder's blood.
a SHARP Detroit boy painted in larg
letters on his umbrella, Stolen from
No.-A-streeS" thinking that woul,
be an infallible protection agains
thieves, but the first time he went on
with it he was arrested by a policeman
I who regarded the inscription as a taci
confession thereof.
/ AsTAN named Dunlop remarked tha
/ he had never heard his name runnel