Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1890-01-04
FARMER AYERS ANGER.
A TERROR TO HoRsE-THIEyEs AND
HIS DAUGHTERS LOVERS.
Life of an Eccentric Iowa Farmer
Strange Complications Which Put
Him Under Arrest
From he Chicago Herald !

one which was redeemed from monotony
at least by an incident which is still re-
membered by many citizens of Governor
Boies' State:
ROSE GROVE Qs.), November 13th.-Herbert
N. Aver, the weathiest farmer in Hardin
county, died yesterday of consumption. He was
a man of eccentric habits, and had devoted the
last twenty years OF his life 10 sn attempt to re-
move the county seat from E,dora, owing to a
mistake many years ago which resulted in his
arrest at that place on charge Of horse steal
ing.
Herbert Aver was indeed an eccentric
character. He was one bunch'of the most
complex nerves that ever answered to the
name of man. In a very early day he
pushed beyond the ordinary lines of pio-
neers and pitched his tent in Hardin
county, pre-empted homestead and set
tied down to win some sort of a fortune
from the luxuriant soil. He had brought
no wealth beyond that in piled in the pos
session of a good team and wagon. to-
gether with very slender outfit of farm
ing tools, but he worked so lndustriously
and seemed TO learn the peculiarities Of
the new soil and climate so readily that in
two years time he had most promising
start toward a home He disappeared
suddenly one autumn Just after corn was
gathered, and was gone until Thanksgiv-
ing Day, when he arrived at his farm and
surprised the Swede he had left in charge
Of the stock by introducing his wife. She
was a strong-built, dark-haired woman,
not particularly handsome, but was
armored against her husbands widest
nervous shocks by the most perfect
self-possession imaginable She was never
excited; he was seldom calm She was
never angry. he was often in a rage She
was clean, but not rapid housekeeper (;
he was not a perfect workman, but could
accomplish more results in day than any
three men Of his acquaintance
In course of time two children were
born to this pair, the elder, girl, who
grew up in great beauty, inheriting her
fathers nervous nature, tempered by her
mothers calm reserve force. The chill
dren accumulated years and experience as
their father accumulated wealth, and by
the time Agnes Aver was IS her father
was in rather better shape financially
than any farmer in the township. He was
still pursued by the demon of Feasibility,
and had cursed nearly every neighbor in
turn, but his seasons of wrath were always
succeeded by the most generous of tempers,
and at such times he was the foremost
man in Hardin county to lend a helping
hand. But there was one subject the men
ton of which would change his most
placid moments into whirlwinds of rage,
and that was DEMONSTRATING Gentlemen
who lived by nocturnal borrowing of
choice farm horses had laid Hardin county
under tribute for so long that society
known as the "Anti- Horsethief AssOcia-
ton" was formed, and Aver was chief
officer of the branch having jurisdiction
of the western half of the county. He
had never lost any horses himself but he
had on four different occasions been reused
from his slumbers just in time to protect
his property and to see ill-meaning men
galloping away into the night. At such
times he would alarm the household with
the most unearthly yells, would charge
into the night with two revolvers and a
shotgun, screaming and shooting like one
possessed, and escaping selfmutilation
only by a succession Of miracles which
ceased when he ran out of ammunition
His wild awakenings always alarmed the
neighborhood for miles around and secured
substantial immunity for horsefesh
throughout his territory.
He arranged series of signals in his
house connecting the barn, granary and
smoke-house with primitive alarm clock
in his bedroom by stringing fine wires over
pullyes so that no intruder could enter a
gate nor approach any of the store-house.
of his wealth without setting pyramid O
dlshpans and fatirons by the ears right al
his bedside, and so lightly did he sleeI
that at the first intimation Of danger con
veyed by his strange device he was out o
bed, snatching firearms from every shell
and charging from one clubhouse to anothe
in the thinnest of raiment So well wer,
his peculiaritIes known that Agnes ad
mirers were content TO do their courtin!
under the broad light of day, and in
manner so unimpassioned that father anC
mother might pass on the propriety o
every act. But, handsome and good as thu
girl was, this stilted sort of devotion
warned away many choice lovers till Lyl,
Kings father moved into the county ant
bought farm adjoining Ayers. Old ReUl
King was a quiet but very successful far
mer, and the young man had been giveI
advantages of education unusual in thos
days. He was handsome, strong and de
termined, and when he found his admira
ton for Agnes Aver was reciprocated h
would have won her for his wife in spit
of all the fire alarms in Iowa.
In 1868, Notwithstanding the very vigor
Gus efforts of the anti-horse- thief club:
the prevalence of DEMONSTRATING had be
1tL l.
without neighborhood alarm being raised
Four times during that year-a year mad
memorable by the first election of Genera
Grant to the Presidency-the regulator
succeeded in capturing thieves in the YER
act of stealing horses, and turned then
over to a Sheriff who knew better than t
permit their escape, and who knew hi
business sufficiently well to impanel
jury pledged to convict on any reasonabl
evidence. The regulators found some dii
fculty in fitting name to their class c
service, and the legend "Member of th
Anti Horse-Thief Association" was abbre
waited into "horse-thief," for short. Al
the members were spoken of familiarity b
the farmers and merchants and by eacl
other as "horse-thieyes," and they took
grim satisfaction in the name which bodel
no good to the actual stealers of horse:
As the campaign closed and matters begal
to adjust themselves to natural limit
again, the rights Of property seemed 70
once to be observed in the country, but b
some strange shifting of causes petty thiey
ing in the towns became so prevalent tina
all the aid of Msrshals paid and sworn t
protect could not make property safe. Phi
ferers fairly overran the county seats an
finally became so bold that burglaries wer
of nightly occurrence and detections wer
so rare that spirit of the sternest indig
nation seized upon the people, and the
swore vengeance on the first unlueky wigh
who should be detected stealing. y
But through the heat of the campaig
young Lyle King, who CHANGED to be
Democrat found harder lines In navin