The Dupuyer acantha. [volume] (Dupuyer, Mont.) 1894-1904, 1898-12-29
LIGHTNING AND LYNCH LAW.
How the First Wiped Out the Witness
of the Other.

How the First Wiped Out the Witness
Of the Other.
Gazing northward from any train
On the Big Four road as it runs across
the fertile plains of Benton county,
neal Templeton junction, ind, 100
miles out from Chicago, no 6bservant
passenger will fail to see, perhaps
half a mile distant from the tracks,
the charred and shattered, sharp
pointed stump of what was once a
great tree. Around it for a radius of
twenty feet are piled old rails and
pieces of timber. Well cared for and
generally rich with heavy crops is the
f1eld in which the tree, one of the few
in Benton, which is %Indiana's greatest
prairie county, lourished. But not so
around the blackened trunk. The
plowman and AL who till the land
seem to avoid any familiar proximity
to it, and the rude barrier which sur
rounds it seems to tell that the spot
was the scene of some uncanny doing.
And so it was-the scene of the VEN
geance melted out to the perpetrator
of n of the most terrible crimes in
Indiana's annals. Sixteen years ago
Benton county was not the well-popu-
lated and prosperous one it is today.
Indiana hunters to seek when the
prairie chicken was plentiful. The
wolves of Benton county, and even
lions and other ferocious beasts sup
posed to have lairs there, were used
to terrify children, and even some
older people. A few years before only
had railroads opened up the country.
In 1882 a Mr.. Atkinson was n Of
the most prosperous farmers in Ben
ton. With his wife he went to the
nearest town one day late in the fall
of that year. They returned home to
find their beautiful daughter Ada, 10
years old, dead-murdered and man.
gled horribly. No clew was left by the
murderer, but suspicion fell on Jacob
Melting, a farm hand employed on the
Atkinson place. He was arrested, and,
despite the fact that no actual evidence
could be adduced. so great was the in
dignation aroused against him that he
was hurried overland to Lafayette,
Ind, and lodged in the Tippecanoe
county Jail, which was guarded by
troops, ordered out by the governor.
While confined there a man who
now occupies a responsible position
with a leading Chicago hotel was in
troduced into the Jail as a prisoner.
He was really an employe of a Chi
cago detective agency. He gained
Nelling's confidence, and to him the
latter related his guilt of the murder
of Ada Atkinson. Melting was adj
vjsed by the lawyer he engaged to go
to Benton county and plead guilty, the
lawyer promising to follow and make
a plea for mercy. Melting was taken
to Fowler, Benton county, on the day
before the II set for his trial. Early
the next morning his lawyer was wait
ing in Lafayette to take the train for
Fowler, when he received a telegram
telling him not to come. "Your client
don't need you," it said. Nelling's
body was dangling from a limb of the
tree not far from the scene of his
crime. A mob had broken into the Jail
a few hours after his arrival there and
taken him to the place of vengeance.
The tree never f1ourished after bearing
such CHASTITY fruit. 1t was dying when
a blast Of lightning from the heavens
struck and shattered it. And the bar
rier was placed around it, and there
the stump remains, an object lesson or
warning OF whatever it may be.