The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1874-04-16

ards the bush. IhlS time tney maze Clean
work of it, for with a wood axe they beat
out his brains and heHed off his head
Thus died the Tiger of the Ozarks, to whose
dread account history places 126 or 146-l
am not sure which, but the published his
tory states one or the other-murders.
Even this tiger in human shape has not
inspired more awe than the Younger and
James brothers. There are-or were-four
of the Youngers, who came of good Ken
lucky stock Coleman and James Younger
were educated in Kentucky before the war
broke out, the others in Missouri. All are
good looking, manly to a certain degree,
accomplished gentlemen. They would
pass musterin any hotel or any Mississippi
steamer and hardly be taken for what they
are-desperadoes without pity or fear.
Their father was killed by gang of bush
whackers in the war at Harrisonville; their
uncle is Judge Younger, of st. Clair county,
and they have brother who, am in
formed, is a wealthy and respectable farmer
living only few miles from here.
John Younger, who was killed last week,
was about twenty-four years old, and. as
the coolest and most intellectual of the
four, ne had of late come to be their real if
not their nominal leader. He was a hand
eOLCs udou4uk 4uA4Omg dACCNCA LAO UCdUy
and was quite ladies man. At fifteen he
had killed his man but was acquitted. In
1869, or thereabouts, temporarily sojourn-
ing in Texas, he shot the Sheriff of Dallas
county, who attempted to arrest him for
riot, and blew hole through a citizen
who had tried TO assist the officer of the
law. The country rose to lynch him, but,
riding day and night, he escaped to Mon
egaw Springs, little village about twenty
miles southwest of this station, where the
brothers have their rendezvous alive, but
with a charge of buckshot in his body that
laid him up for many weeks. Immediately
on his recovery he set out for the Pacific
coast, killed a man with whom he had a
quarrel over a card-table, was arrested and
en- route for the prison and gallows, when
he scored another sheriff." leaped from
the cars, and escaped He always boasted
that he wouldn't grin through grating
while he was alive, and he kept his word
and died with his pistol in his hand and
with his boots on, as is the ambition Of all
good borderers hereaway to die. He it
was who is credited with having given a
striking display of the contempt for pop
guns which prevails all through the South
west, where people put their faith in moth
ing but navy revolVers and short shot
guns. Talking of these shot guns and
their terrible effect at short range, let me
inject an Arkansas border county sheriff's
mode of procedure. He "wanted" horse
thief, and received the man IN due course
of time from the more fortunate authori-
ties of a neighborIng county. The pris-
oner was tied on his horse and escorted by
the sheriff and his deputy. SAID the sher-
iff: "Yeu see these trials are tedious and
expensive and very uncertain, especially
when the prisoner is well connected. So
Just as we crossed the line into our own
county-we were riding, Jim and I, on
each side of him-we dropped back step
and each put his gun under the fellows
shoulder and blew two holes in him that
you could put your arms into him through"
To resume: A band of half dozen citi-
zens, aggrieved at the absence of horse,
and went out to hunt the Youngers, and
called at house where they were accus-
toned to resort. John and two of his
brothers happened along few moments
after, and with fine sense OF chivalry re-
solved to avenge the insult upon his friends
thus practically accused of harboring
horse thieves. They pursued the pursu-
ers, and halted and disarmed them, and
John remarked on receiving a small pistol
from one OF DIS prisoners:
"You id fool, if you'd shot me with
that and I'd known of it, I'd have had you
kicked out of the county"
Such was John Younger, who at present
occupies plot of earth in a struggling and
neglected graveyard at Monegaw Springs,
over which is heaped mass of rain-beaten
clay.
Fell as he was in heart and mind,
He left no Drawer heart behind.
Coleman Younger, the eldest brother, is
man about thirty years of age, the nom
inal chief of the band. There is not a
wholesale murder, nor an outrageous as
sault on some outlying settlement, nor
train-robbery, that has been perpetrated
since 1865 along the line from the Trinity
river IN Texas way up to the Niobrara, in
which he has not been engaged, or of which
has notfull knowledge. He has plupdered
stages in Texas, stolen horses in Arkansas
and the Indian Territory, robbed trains in
Missouri and Iowa, plundered stores IN
Kansas, and murdered everywhere. He
was one QuantrelPs aides when Lawrence
was sacked, and is said to have shot down
in cold blood fifteen prisoners after the
fight. Local history tells that amid his
spolls was an Enfield Iife "a weapon of
which he heard a good account and whose
destructive qualities he was desirous of
testing: Accordingly he placed six pris-
oners IN file, convict fashion, each with his
hand on fle-leader's shoulder, aud, putting
the muZzle of his rifle to the back of the
last man, killed four at one discharge. The
other two brothers are Robert, aged 20,
James, aged Is. They have the courage
and ferocIty of their more distinguished
relatives, and have participated in all their
exploits, but not having been leaders or
lacking originality in devising or execut-
ing crime have established no special midi
vidual reputation for themselves. These
are the Youngers who haunt the country
in the vicinity of Appleton City, Monegaw
Springs, Rolla, Roscoe, Osceola, and
Kearney.
About one hundred miles north Of here
are the James brothers, their allies and
rivals in desperate deeds, on whose heads
price has been placed, but who treat the
law and its officers much as leviathan
the shaking of a spear. On the map you
will see town called liberty, about fifteen
miles north of Kansas City, on the st. Joe
road. Ten miles above that is Kearney, a
little way-Station. Near this, in CLAW
county, live the James brothers with their
mother, who has the reputation of being as
able and willing to shoot as either of her
boys. They have great many friends,
some Of whom have been acquired by the
laYishness with which after robbery they
scatter their money among the poor or
their boon companions, while others have
been coerced into aiding them. Rumor
even has it that the authorities-or at least
some of them-have shared in their spoils.
and SO have been brought to leave them
unmolested or TO warn them of danger.
These two men are like man-eating tigers
of India, one of which by the terror IT in
spires desolate and depopulate whole
district. The James boys have made land
worthless in Clay county, business is at
standstill, and immigration has been
checked. They have cost the country
thereaway several millions of dollars di-
rect loss, and several lives, though they
have not been as deeply stained in blood
as their cenfederates to the southwark
When they make haul they retire to st.
Louis, New Orleans, Memphis, or even
Kansas City for debauch and gambling
carnival, and, their money spent, return
home to plan another RAID It was the
Jameses and Youngers who last year threw
passenger train from the track at Alton,
Ia, shot the engineer, and robbed the
mails and safe IN the presence of six or