The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1877-10-26

be killed. He was shot in the arm, and
then began frightful scene, as, recog-
nizing the purpose of comrades he knew
so well, he pleaded piteously for his life.
His pleading was vain. A bowlder was
tied to his neck and he was taken III
skiff to the middle of the river. There,
while frantically begging for moment
"a single moment-to make his hopeless
peace with God, he was hurled into the
stream. Shuck assigned 70 reason for
this murder in his confession, but there
is ground TO believe that Koran had been
a member of the band and broken with
them, and it was to prevent his possible
revelations that he was murdered. His
body was afterward washed out by the
waves caused by passing steamboat,
buried; some arrests were made, but the
persons arrested were discharged by the
examining Justice, and that was the last
of the case till the new developments at
tending on Shuck's confession. More
atrocious was the murder of Eli Downey,
year later He had $40 in his own
money and pension he had just drawn.
The gang, all old friends, dissuaded him
from going home by train, offering to
accompany him if he would walk. Near
Six-Mile creek, to reach which at night
fall they loitered, is a large fiat rock
with an opening in it some six feet
square and about twelve feet deep-the
mouth of a cavern. One of the party
pretended to hear strange noise in it,
and thus Downey was induced to go to
it and lean over the cavity. AS he did
so Jack Simmons put a pistol to the
back of his head and blew out his brains.
His body was stripped and tumbled into
the cave, and covered with brush and
stones, on top of which was thrown the
carcass of hog, to throw off inquirers
should the stencil of decomposing
flesh attract attention. And more hor-
rible was the murder of Seeler James,
the 17-year-old son of John James,
who had married as his second wife one
of King JIM Simmons daughters.
Either the boy, an innocent and some
what gawky youth, knew too much of
the gangs secrets or his stepmother
could not get along with him; in any
case, his death was decided on. Bob
Goodrich, Dave Carter and Jack Sim
mons, pretending to sympathize with
him, induced him to rob his father and
run away from home; then, meeting him
in secluded part of the marsh, they
took from him the money they had
counseled him to steal. 1t is altogether
probable, if local belief is entitled to any
credence, that the father at least con-
scented to his slaughter. Over the grave
where the murdered boys remains were
buried was placed the carcass of a slain
hog, the strategy to which allusion has
already been made thus appearing to be
habitually practiced. Still another ex-
plot of the gang was the murder of one
Gallagan, tree-peddler Him they am
pushed on a narrow path high above
the river bed, and, having taken his
money and valuables from him, they
beat out his brains with a stone, fast
ened bowlder to his corpse, and rolled
it into the river. 1t was for the murder
of Nelson Parish that Shuck, the in
former, was hanged, though he always
declared his innocence, while admitting
that he had taken part in other crimes
as heinous. Sbuck was Parish's son-in-
law. Parish was shot in the daytime,
and his body was taken to a school
house, where, in the course of the
night, it was burned. AS Shuck could
not account for his whereabouts on the
day of the killing, and money and pa
pers belonging TO the murdered man
were found i'll his possession, his SEN
tence is generally regarded as just one.
Shuck's grave lies under two little wal
nut trees on his fathers farm. AS the
body was about to be lowered into it the
coffin was opened and the body found to
be batbed III profuse sweat-whence,
probably, arose the rIlmor now current
In the neighborhood to the effect that
the murderer was resuscitated. There
is not much travel now o. nights in Hen
ry and Owen counties, save by armed
bodies of men III search of Jack Sim
mons. Says the reporter: :" In my
ride of seven miles on public road
through a ickly-settled district, and in
the early part of a pleasant summer
night, not one living being did see.
Every one has mental recognition of
the fact that travel is safer now than for
years previous. but all the horrors of the
recent revelations hang like pail over
all the people, and even the nomadic
negro goes not out of nights.
Such gangs always come to grief, how
ever successful may be their operations
for a while. That the wages of sin is
death was strikingly exemplifed in the
fate which overlook at Kansas City
gang of desperadoes known as the Payne
Jones boys, consisting of Payne Jones,
Bill Hulse, Andy Mcguire and one
Burnes. One rainy night, about eleven
years ago, information was received at
police headquarters that Payne Jones
was at the house of his brother-in- law,
Mr.. Evans, very respectable citizen,
residing near Independence. A posse
was fitted out for his arrest, anu pro-
ceeded to the place indicated and sur
rounded the premises. The door was
opened by Mr.. Evans, and parley en-
sued. In the meantime young girl,
the daughter of a widow woman, came
out of the house, where she had been
passing the night, and was in the act of
crossing board fence on her way home,
near which a young man named Wilker-
son, one of the Kansas City posse, was
standing, when Jones appeared at the
door with a double-barreled shotgun,
and shot both the girl and Wilkerson
dead. The pistols of the posse were wet
and refused to go off, and Jones dashed