Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1898-01-20
Troubles of a Nebraska Farmer.

of our older citizens as having resided
in Extra for a good many years. -Ed.)
Seymour G. Watson is resident Of
Cedar county, Nebraska, and by occu-
patton is farmer, and owns, as he has
just told Michigan court, 160 acres of
land, horses, implements and all that
is required to cultivate that amount of
mother soil, says the Sioux City Trib-
une.
Twenty-Five years ago he was school
teacher back in Michigan, but since
that time he has been land breaker
and farmer, first in South Dakota,
then in Audubon county, Iowa, and
finally in Cedar county, where his
home now is.
Just at present Mr. Watson is in
hard luck and the story he tells ought,
in the nature of things, to have had a
different effect on Michigan court,
and just why he did not can only be
inferred, for it is not told with surpris-
ing distinctness in the history of Mr..
Watson's peculiar case.
Hesays his wife, who was a Michi-
gan woman, died at Extra, Iowa, nine
years ago, leaving him a daughter,
"a Miss of eleven years, whom he deA
scribes as bright and winsome child,
the light of his home and the pride of
his heart. He says that without her
society his home will be broken up and
he tells of what he calls s conspiracy
to deprive him of her.
In his petition, filed in the Chancery
Court, at Detroit, Michigan, he AYERS
that while he was temporarily away
from home on the 18th day of March
last, one Rev. Alfred Fowler did sur
repticiously coax, entice, inveigle, take
away, carry off and kidnap his daugh-
ter, Esther, and he believes that he
did SO at the instigation of an aunt
who resides at Detroit.
Upon the stand Mr.. Watson testified
that on the 10Th day of March, last, he
went to market with a load of wood,
leaving Esther in the care of q neigh
Dor named Pitts. When he returned
Mr.. Pitts inquired who it was that
Watson had sent for Esther. Watson
replied that he had not sent anyone
for her and Pitts then told him that he
wished to take her to Yankton to visit
some friends. Watson followed her to
Yankton and there received an unsign-
ed letter telling him that Esther had
been taken to Michigan where she
would receive Christian education.
Watson inquired at the depot and was
told that Rev. Fowler had gone away
on the 600 o'clock A. NJ. train with q
little girl.
Watson told of his great grief, of his
crossing river full of floating ice in a
skiff, of riding twenty-five miles on
horseback to ask the assistance of the
prosecuting attorney, of his failure to
secure aid of the authorities, and of
his inability to respond when notice
had been served upon him that the
maternal aunt had made an applica-
ton to be appointed Esther's guardian.
The defense in the case claimed that
the reason Esther was taken away was
that the District Attorney, in Nebras-
ka, had, written to the Michigan peo-
pie that Watson had fallen into drum
ken habits and that his companions
were badsmen, and that the girl was
subject to their influence and associa-
alton. Watson admitted that he had
drank considerable at one time but
claimed that he had abandoned the
habit.
The Judge had talk with Esther
and she preferred to stay in Detroit
and the writ was denied and Watson
wendell his weary way westward a dis
consulate man.
The world is full of bright girls and
negligent and careless fathers, and but
little attention would have been paid
to the matter had it not been for the
manifest infraction of the laws impli-
eating the minister, if he really did
take the child, is a serious criminal act;
the Prosecuting Attorney, of Cedar
county for q gross direlection of duty,
and the Probate Court, of Detroit,
with carelessness of procedure that is
altogether unexplainable, and the legal
profession has shown q general interest
in the case than is usual.
1T is claimed that, being a minor, her
father was her natural guardian and
that She could not gain such a resi-
dence in Michigan as to give the court
jurisdiction.
That the only proper course for the
aunt would have been to make her APP
plication to the Nebraska courts, hav-
ing Jurisdiction, when the Michigan
court might, if necessary, affirm the
guardianship and protect the ward.
The Rev. Fowler, no matter how
good his intent may have been, if he
took the child, was and is now liable
to severe punishment under the Ne
braska laws.
Attorneys in Detroit have of their
own volition appealed the case and it
is bound to become celebrated however
it may be decided.
Persons who are troubled with indi-
gestion will be interested in the expe-
rience of VIM. III. Penn, chief clerk in
the the railway mail service, at Des
Moines, Iowa, who writes: 1t gives
me pleasure to testife to the merits of
Chamberlain's Collie, Cholera and Di-
arrhoea Remedy. For two years have
suffered from indigestion, and am sub
ject to frequent severe attack of pain
in the stomach and bowels. One 6rtwo
doses OF this remedy never fails to give
perfect relief. Price 25 and soc; for sale
by G. w. Houston, Extra; A. H.
Roberts, Audubon.
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