Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1880-01-08
The Wages OF Sin.

Tinker was the bugaboo that sent thrills
of terror through the breasts Of refrac-
tory children. Yet though his fame and
name have been for years a common
houseword from the Eastern Ohio to
beyond the Mississippi, the real biogra-
ply Of this noted horse-thief has never
been written. He is perhaps the only
notable horse-thief who ever retired
from his nefarious calling into the
shades of private life and settled quiet
ly down in kthe neighborhoOd of
his childhOod's home, where his mis-
deeds were the common property of the
country gossips.
In the year 1903 old John Tinker, the
worthy sire Of the ilustriOus Shep,
whose stock Of worldly gear was not as
unlimited as his physical energy, took
it into his Yankee head to leave the
New Hampshire hills and either find
or make his way' West. Unincum-
bered as he was, he found comparative
ly no trouble in pushing forward into
Central Ohio. He settled at Putnam,
and his honest face, broad shoulders
and braWny arms proved such recon-
mendation that before many days he
found wife in one of Putnam's bellies.
From this marriage, in the year 1910,
Sheppard was born In the year 1918,
when Shep was three years old, his fa-
ther once more set out out on his trav-
els, and finally settled on farm in
Perry County, about four miles from
the present town Of Chapel Hill, and
midway between Athens and Zanes-
vile. The distance between these two
places is fifty miles. Here John erected
and opened tavern for Wayfarers which
has been known ever since as " Tink-
er's Tavern" but which long since lost
its hospitable character. "Tinker's Tav-
ern' was at that time the only build
ing between Athens and Gainesville.
It occupied the summit of one of the
innumerable hills that abound in Perry
County, from which "you could see,'
as Shep says, 60 as far as the sky would
let you" Of the heyday of Shops
youth the village tradition does not
preserve any record. 1t is only known
that he was accounted bright young
blade, intelligent but uncommonly
wild. Certain it is, however, that he
soon became the acknowledged leader
of a set of young rascals who inhabited
the neighboring hills. This was the
nucleus around which Shep formed the
celebrated Tinker gang ofhorse thieves.
When Tinker was twenty years old
horse was stolen from a man named
Flowers, at New Lexington, and Shep
was supposed to be the thief. No evil
dence, however, could be obtained
against him until one day while drunk |
he boasted Of having stolen the horse. |
Upon this admission he was arrested
and sent To the penitentiary for six
years. 1t afterwards transpired that
on the night the horse was stolen Shep
had been some twenty-five miles away
and had in reality invented the story OF
the theft. Tho Joke, if joke it was, be-
came a serious matter before the end.
When released from the penitentiary
he Immediately set to work in earnest
to steal horses, He organized a band
of professional horse thieves, and was
so successful that in the year 1840 his
name was a terror to the farmers of
Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Mem
Ders of his gang were located in almost
every county in this State and in a
.arge portion of Indiana. The horses stOI
be stolen were always carefully Sc
ected. Dark nights were chosen for the
raids, and the horses were carried by
nightly stages into the wildernessof Per-
y Comfy near Shep's' home, where
hey were secreted, This country was
adapted to the purpose, be-
ng very thinly settled and coYe1ad for
he most part with heavy growth of
imber. The principal 'ehold'' Of the
band, however, was patch Of woods
ituated on the county line between
Athens and Perry Counties, called
3eech Woods, and which to this day
'ontains four square miles Of forest in
with ravines and rocky !
Dlaces. Sooner or later it occurred to
'hep that counterfeiting might also be
,roftable, and he turned his attention :
o that branch of raseality. But before .
ong the eye ofsuspiciOn was on him, {
nd one day, having come to Zanes- .
lille with saddle-bag full of spurious {
DIN, the Sheriff arrested him and threw 9
i'm into jail. Shep was accounted a. 9
cry handsome man, and succeeded ih .
laking an impression on the Sheriff's =
ervantAgirl, who, having stolen the 2
eys of the jail, released him. Shep |,
ed, and the Sheriff with posse of ten 3
zen followed him for two weeks with q
ut success Leaving his Lieutenant, Y
Lenry Raynor (who by the way, after l
ards signalized himself in the annals q
{ New York crime BY stealing a whole b
erd of cattle in Orange County,, in g
narge Of the gang, Tinker set Off q
trough the West. The news of his d
'avels from time to time reached p
anesville. He -was heard Of as y
Iethodist minister, as 8 political Y
and later as q resident q
the Iowa penitentiary. Still later it d
as heard that he had become rich, and 70
as the owner Of Q palatial residence h'
J the Iowa River, which far exceeded in
lything in the State in point of rich m
sss of appointment. At last he re- In
rned, and freely admitting that he q
ID served terms in tho penitentiaries OF
Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, called be
)on the people to elect him as Justice 81
the Peace, saying naivelg;s {" I know !.
about crime, so you couldn't do bet Il
= - Il Vo