The silver messenger. (Challis, Idaho) 1890-1912, 1902-06-17
Ends Long Life Of
Crime H1ifbOuf Fear
Ebon Dawson. THE Wickedest Man on Earth Goes
to J~Udgmen Without q Tear or
Prayer-His Career.

With the death OF Ebon Dawson,
who was laid to rest in a little coun-
try churchyard in Tuscarawas county,
Ohio, a few days ago, a chapter of
crime, unequalled even in border lore,
has been closed, and the "fnis'' is
written in letters of blood upon the
crimson-sinned heart of a man who
had committed crimes enough in his
life to have sent him up for life to al
most every penitentiary in the union,
even supposing his life had not been
early cut off by the hand of the law,
as 1t should have been on several sep
arate occasions, for the offense of muir
der.
A founding, with never a bit of
knowledge as to his p~arentage or any
other relative in the world, he was in
early years bound out to a farmer near
Canal, Dover, o., and was q playmate
of the afterwards notorious guerrilla,
Quantrell, whose aged mother is now
living in that same community, and
who still clings to the belief that her
son was more sinned against than sin
ming, for the reason, chiefly, that he
was always good to her.
Dawson was not good to anybody
for I'M length of time. He was as
thoroughly bad. through and through,
as any pirate who ever hit a weazand
or scuttled a ship.
When but a lad at school he nearly
killed an inoffensive BOY who CHANGED
to anger him by some trivial occur
renee. He dubbed the wife of the
man who raised him because she re-
fused him money to go to a circus,
and then held up a small boy en- route
to the show, took his money from him,
and with It purchased a tic.,et. The
character of deviltry and %wickedness
manifested itself in every conceivable
form.
When but 20 years of age he killed
a miner named Morenei near CannI-
ton, o.. robbed him of his wages, and
fed. A year later he was captured
while beating a woman to death in the
Gore region of the Hooking Valley,
and sent to the Ohio p~enitentiary
where he served a term of three years
and eight months under the name of
Ira Smith.
He appeared to have a penchant for
mingling with the rougher class about
the coal mining districts, and he soon
drifted into the Lehigh Valley, where
he was run out of a mining camp one
night after having brutality treated a
young woman, a miners daughter, and
almost beaten the father to death in
a fight which subsequently ensued. He
was a muscular, brawny fellow, and
absolutely without fear. 1t was his
boast that he was afraid of no man.
woman, or child that ever trod the
earth, and he gave every evidence of
believing what he said in perfect sim
certify. He was brutal alike to man
and beast. Once in Wellsville,O o., he
was arrested for nearly beating a horse
to death because the animal had kicked
at him as he passed by. 1t is said that
on more than one occasion he had
caught dogs that barked at him when
passing them and deliberately cut their
IurOhlS.
He got mixed up with the notorious
counterfeiting gang that infested Sey-
mour and Osgood, Ind, a number of
years ago, and aided not only in that
work but in running other peoples
horses up into the then recognized
horse thieves rendezvous, Osgood. He
was a %blunderer, and at all times fool
hardy. He would brook no words of
caution, and when demonstrated with
by members of the gang for a job near
North Vernon, Ind, he lost his tenn
per, as usual, and started in to kill
somebody. This time he had reckoned
without his host, for big Dave Ham
merstein, who prided himself as then
being the king Of Indiana counter