New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-11-17
Murder Of the Spicer Family in
North Dakota Avenged
by a Mob. I.


planned, and was carried out without
break in the programme, and sudden
and swift retribution was melted out by
the mob to the murderers.
Lynching Occurred at Williamsport.
Williamsport, where the hanging
took place, is about 40 miles from this
city and off the railroad. The men
were under the custody Of Deputy
Sheriff Tom Kelly and they were taken
from. him by the mob and hanged to a
beef windlass several hundred yards
from the Jail, where their bodies were
swinging to the breeze during tbs day,
the coroner not having arrived yes, and
no one volunteering to cut them down.
There were about 40 men concerned in
the lynching. They rode into Will
Transport on horseback late at night
and picketed their horses outside the
city, that they might secure them again
as speedily as necessary after the deed
was done.
The Visit to tho Jail.
Deputy Sheriff Kelly had been ex-
pecting visitors, and at 2 o'clock when
there was a rap at the outer door of the
Jail he arose quickly and turned the
key in the lock, thinking that the per-
sons he expected to meet had arrived.
No sooner had he opened the door than
the members of the mob crowded into
the small Jail corridor. All of them
were masked and the leaders carried
ropes, purchased new for the occasion.
The lynchers were quiet but deter
mined. The leader presented revol-
yer at the head of the deputy sheriff
and told him they wanted his prisoners,
and demanded that he open the cells in
which they were confined. Kelly saw
that resistance was useless and unlocked
the cells. The men were then taken
out and hanged, Ooudot having first
confessed his share in the crime. The
other two had previously made con-
LESSONS. ...u-.
How Two Others Escaped.
There were two other men alleged to
have been implicated in the murders
for which the three were lynched, and
they were saved from the same fate by
the fact that they are confined in Bur.
leigh county jail at Bismarck, 40 miles
away. The mob would like to have
, secured them also, and, if they had
been within reach, there is no doubt
that they would have shared the fate of
their comrades. It is said that the
lynching was precipitated by recent
decision Of the supreme court of the
state granting new trial to the Indian
Coudot, the only one Of the five men
who had been tried and found guilty Of
the crime. tt.s.
Crime For Which They Hung.
The crime for which the three men
were hanged was one of the most hor-
rible in the annals of brutality and
atrocity. On Feb. II last q passer en-
tering the house of Rev. T. Spicer,
a Methodist circuit rider, discovered
the dead body Of his mother-in-law,
Mrs. Ellen Waldron, lying upon the
floor of the parlor, horribly mutilated.
Passing to another room he found the
body Of Mrs. William Rouse, a daughter
T Of Spicer, also dead, with her twin baby
boys brutally murdered, their brains
having been dashed out, and Mrs.
Rouse having been killed with q club.
At the barn was found the body Of Mrs.
Spicer, likewise horribly mutilated, she
having been shot and afterwards
! stabbed with pitchfork, her breast be.
ing filed with wounds, and her head
J crushed with an axe. Inside the barn
was the body Of Thomas sSpicer, who
had been shot through the back with a
shotgun, and his throat cut from ear tt
ear. The spectacle was sickening, and
the crime created most intense excite
i ment and indignation. q