The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-05-06
TAKEN OUT AND WHAIFD

toms" terrace lands, on which, in their
/ season, one may overlook miles of tasseling
maize, waving grain or rich fields of clover
/ or meadow grass; while farther inland the
/ blue grass pastures, gentle slopes and clear
! streams flowing over gravelly beds give
/ an ever varying charm to the landscape.
! 1t is hard to believe, as one looks upon
such scenes, that within the memory Of
men still living this lovely Land was the
theatre Of the states only considerable In
dian war; that two presidents of the United
States won their laurcls in that region;
that Tecumseh and Elkswatawa C'The
Prophet there organized their great say
age confederacy, and that Gen. Cater Pres
ident) Harrison marched along that very
line while it ran through 4 wilderness,
while Col. Cater Presidept) Taylor organ
lied the defense of Fort Harrison against
the fierce La Farine and his fellow red
men. Yet so it was, and at time so recent
as to seem but yesterday, as time is meas
ured in the evolution Of nation.
After the Indians had departed came a
strangely mixed population. Along with
the honest settler came the outlaw, the
"coiner" and the horse thief; and so it was
that while the children Of other lands
heard of genii and fairies, the boys Of the
Wabash valley, from 1910 to 1860, heard of
Indian massacres, of bloody cOmbats on
the very paths they Travelled to and from
school, of thickets in the bottoms" where
horse thieves rerdeZvoused, of discoveries
here and there of concealed FORCES, where
"coiners" manufactured ''bogus money"
and of terrible Combat5 between the law
less and the laws guardians. Let US
snatch from oblivion one such caSe-all
the more interesting because it was the
last of the kind-in which the due course
OF justice was supplemented by lynch law.
Some twelve miles north of Terre Haute
in those wild and early days gathered d lit
tie group of those who boosted themselves
pioneers, and in their drinking bouts talked
long and loud of being "old settlers" men
who had 'tramped out the dog fennel and
killed the rattlesnakes," and yet their lit
tie settlement soon acquired an evil fame
fame, be it noted, long since redeemed by
the honorable conduct Of the present pOpu-
lation. At the head Of the clan, as it came
to be called, was one Silas Bowers, whose
name may now be found on the public rec
ords of the county as party TO a suit Of
some kind at every court for twenty-nine
years. 1t adds not little to the interest to
note on the records that for ten Of these years
his principal attorneys were the law firm
of Howard Sc WriSht-of these Tilghman
A. Howard went TO Texas as President Ty-
ler's charge d'affaires. to introduce that
commonwealth into the nation, and Joseph
A. Wright. after serving most acceptably
as governor of Indiana and minister of the
United States at Berlin, rendered valuable
services to the Union cause during the war.
Around this Silas Bowers gathered gang
of coiners, false sweapers and other disre-
putables. Cattle, which had pastured free
ly on the public domain, mysteriously fail
ed to come home; horses in increasing num-
bers disappeared; bogus" dollars, chiefly
Mexican, multiplied, and sometimes chick |
ems took wing by night and fed TO that IN
discovered country from which no feath-
cred traveller returns. That the gang robbed
and counterfeited is certain; that they muir
dered is only surmised. but on evidence
which convinced the people Many columns
might be filed with the bare titles of suits Z