The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1897-11-16
LYNCHED THREE.
Murder Of the Spicer Family in
North Dakota Avenged
by a Mob.


Indian halfbreed; Paul Holy Track and
Philip Ireland, full blooded Indians;
the first of whom was sentenced to
death for the murder of six members of
the Spicer family last February and
had just been granted a new trial
by the supreme court, and the lat
ter two self.confessed accessories
in the murder, were taken from the
county Jail in Emmons county during
the night and lynched by 3 mob. The
lynching had been apparently coolly
planned, and was carried u without
a break in the programme, and sudden
and swift retribution was meted ont by
the mob to the murderers.
Lypchins Occurred at Wi,liamsport.
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 the day,
the not having arrived yet, and
no volunteering to cut them down.
There We're about 10 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.
III Visit to the 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 q 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, Coudot having first
confessed his share in the crime. The
other two had previously made con
LESSONS.
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 a passer EN-.
tering the house ofRev. 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
of Spicer, also dead, with her twin baby
boys brutally murdered, their brains
having been dashed out, and Mrs.
Rouse having been killed with a 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 filled with wounds, and her head
crushed with an axe. Inside the barn
was the body Of Thomas Spicer, who
had been shot through the back with a
shotgun, and his throat cut from ear tt
ear. The spectacle vas s~ickening, and
the crime created most intense excite
ment and indignation.
Warning:-Persons who suffer from