The Red Cloud chief., 1880-02-12
saEP. rIxiEg-s I
8ey~~-shi~f. Cozss~rf~is~r Nisssaes. Feii-
tt>iaa and Farmer.

saEP. rNiEg-s CAREER.
8oy~e-shi~f. Cc1sssrfeis~r Ninisaes. fosi-
tt-tas and Sarmer.
EkanesriIIe co. Cor. y \. verdi
fc~ 0hscass whose memory can cover
the past - years have heard the
marvellous stories which tradition has
connected with Shep. Tinker. Fifteen
years ago the name Of shrp- Tinker vAs
the bugaboo that sent thrills of terror
through the breasts If refractory chill
dren- Yet though his fame and tame
have been for years s common house
word from the Eastern Ohio 20 beyond
the Mississippi. the real Biography II
this noted horse-,hiL has never been
written. lie Is perhaps the only noss-
bic horse-thief ~ho ever retired from his
nefariou- calling into the shade. 81 PR
ya,e life and settled quietly dorn in The
n~eighborhood ~ his childhood. home,
where his misdeeds were the comuion
property Of the country gossips.
In the year lsps old John Tnker tie
worthy sire of the i.lus;rious shep..
whose stock OF worldly gear Was q, n
unlimited A. his physical energy, took
il into his Yanke. head 10 leave the
New Hampshire bills and "ei,her find
or make his way" West. Cnincum-
bered a he was, be found comparative
ly no trouble in pushing forward into
Central Ohio. He settled at Putnam,
and his hohe,; f.ce, broad shoulder.
and brawny arms proved such q RECON-
incubation that before many DAYS he
found a wife in one of Puinam's bellies.
From this marriage, in the year lsl0,
Sheppard was born. In the year 1913.
when Shep. Wa three years old, his
father once more set out on his travels,
u finally settled on n farm in Perry
County, about four miles from the pres.
ent town Of Chapel Hill, and midway
between Athens and GAINESVILLE. The
distance between these twp places j.
fifty miles. Here John erected and
opened a tavern for wayfarers which
has been known eyer since - Thinkers
Tavern" but which long since los, it,
hospiiable character. Thinkers Tay-
ern" was at that time the only building
between Athens and GAINESVILLE. 1t oc-
| cupied the summit Of one II the innuni-
cradle hills that abound n Perry County,
from which "you could see," as Shep.
says, as far as the sky would let you.'
Of the heyday of Shep.'s youth
the village tradition does not
preserve any record. Ii is only known
that he was accounted a brigh, young
blade. intelligent but uncommonly wild.
Certain il j., however, that he soon be-
| came the acknowledged leader Of a set
Of young rascals who inhabited the
neighboring hills. This was the nucleus
around which Shep. formed the telebra-
ted Tinker gang 81 rse-thieves. When
Tinker was twenty years old a horse
vas stolen from a man named Flowers,
at New Lexington, and Shep. was sup
posed to be the thief. No evidence,
howeved, 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 penitentiafy for six years. IL after
wards transpired that on the night the
horse was stolen Shep. had been some
twenty-five miles away and had in real
ity invented the story Of the theft. The
joke, if joke it was, became a serious
matter before the end. When
released from the p%eniteniary he
Immediately set to work IN earnest
to steal horses. He organized a band
Of professional horse-thieves, and was
80 successful that i'm the year 1910 his
name was a terror tn the farmers of
Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky. Mem
bers of his gang were located in almost
every county in this State and in a
large portion of Indiana. The horses
to be stolen were always carefully So
lected. Dark nights were chosen for
the raids, and the horses were carried
by nightly stages into the wilderness of
Perry County, near "Shep.'s" home, |
where they were secreted. This country
was admirably adapted To the purpose.
being very thinly settled and covered for
the most part with a heavy growth of
timber. The principal "hOld'' of the
band, however, was a patch of woods
situated On the county line between
Athens and Perry Counties, called
Beech Woods, and which to this day
contains four square miles of forest in
terspersed with ravines and rocky
places. Sooner or later it occurred To
Shep. that counterfeiting might also BE-
profitable, and he turned his attention
to that branch of rascality. But before
long the eye Of suspicion was on him,
and one day, having come to Zanes-
vile with a saddle-bag full of spurious
coin, the Sheriff arrested him and threw
him into Jail. Shep. was accounted a
very handsome man, and succeeded in
making an impression on the Sherif's
servant-girl, who, having stolen the keys
of the Jail, released him. Shep. fled and
the Sheriff with a posse of 10 men fol-
lowed him for two weeks without sue
cess. Leaving his Lieutenant, Henry
Raynor (who, by the way, afterwards
signalized himself in the annals Of New
York crime by stealing a whole herd of
cattle in Orange County,, in charge of
the gang, Tinker set off through the
West. The news of his travels from
time TO time reached GAINESVILLE. He was
heard of as a Methodist minister, As a
political stump-speaker, and later as a
resident of the Iowa P~enitentiary. Still
later it was heard that he had become
rich. and was the owner of a palatial
residence on the Iowa River, which far
exceeded any thing in the State in point
of richness of appointment. AT last he
returned, and, freely admitting that he
had served terms in the Penitentiaries
of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin, called
upon the people to elect him as Justice
of the Peace, saying, naively: 81 know
all about crime, so You couldn't do bet
ter"
His proposition was not accepted, al
though he had distinctly announced
that he would either be a Justice of the
Peace or a highwayman, and told them
IN fata their choice. As GOOD "a his