Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1902-12-18

upset all discipline for time and Gre
ate a sensation for the newspapers.
When the governor appeared among
them alone, they changed their plan.
OF sudden as his excellency stood
looking at the work in hand the four
men raised a shout, rushed upon him
and hustled him into the alley between
the tailor shop and the shoe shop. III
two minutes the whole prison was II.
revolt. There was no cowardicp among
the guards, but when so mln break
loose without the slightest warning
surprise and confusion will render thir-
ty or forty guards powerless for time.
In the tailor shop where Barlow was
at work there was only one guard over
the thirty-fve men. The fellow lost lis
head at once, and the first man tC
reach him was Barlow. The revolver
was wrenched from his hand. and he
was flung aside as the thirty-five
rushed into the yard. None Of them
had as yet espied the governor, but
when it became known that he had
been captured Barlow dived straight
for the spot where he was being held.
Then, croWding the governor back, he
stood in front Of him and leveled his
weapon at the cheering, cursing. eXcit-
ed mob and warned them that it would
be. death to them to come nearer.
For fifteen minutes pandemonlum
reigned in that yard. The mob surged
from side to side Of the yard, sacking
the building destroying machinery and
defying the guards. The shoe shop was
set on fire, and above all the confusion
the notes of the alarm bell were heard
summOning help from the town.
In time most of the prisoners were
marched to their cells and locked up,
but a score or more continued defiant
and were not overcome for an hour, and
then only after three of them had been
shot. During all this time one man
stood between the governor and death
the convict Barlow. The 'desper-
ates' begged, coaxed, cursed and
threatened. They menaced him with
missiles, they sorely wounded him
again and again, but they dared not lay
hands on him, dared not cross the line
he had drawn. When all was over, he
sat down and wept The governor
went forth without a scratch on his
person.
Everybody said here was a case for
instant pardon, and yet 1t was
heroic thing on the part Of Barlow,
but he had been sentenced for life for
bo cly
Cor pardon What he did ask was
TIT his innocence might be proved.
HI had gone over the whole case in his
mind a hundred times, and now he was
able to throw some light on certain
dark spots. The governCr no doubt
of his guilt, and yet he employed men
at his own expense to go over the
ground.
But by a mere accident after all Bar
low was cleared. In another state and
hundreds of miles away horse thief
was mortally injured by fall from the
horse he had stolen. Before dying that
man, who had not heard Of the trial and
conviction of Barlow, confessed among
other things, that he had entered the
house where Mrs. Barlow was stopping
to secure plumber. He was in the room
when she woke up and cried out, and
he hit her on the head with an iron
bolt. He had no idea that he had
caused her death, as he had not struck
to kill. Barlow had been there in the
evening to get word with her and make
up their quarrel, but she refused to
speak. When arrested, he was simply
going to a distant point, far from the
scene of his domestic troubles.
If his guilt had seemed clear when
tried before, his innocence seemed no
less clear when he faced jury the Sec
ond time. Leaving out his action dur
ing the mutiny and taking the case on
it's legal merits, he was honorably ac-
quilted and restored to society without
a stain on his name, and the first man
to grasp his hand after the verdict was
the governor of the state.