The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1907-07-03
ORCHARD Tells AN
ASTOUNDING TALE
Confesses at Boise How He Muir
dered Steunenberg.
HIS VICTIMS NUMBER EIGHTEEN

Witness Describes How He Heard
Explosion Of Fatal Bomb as He
Was Running From Scene of
Last Crime.
Boise, Idaho. - Harry Orchard,
alias Hogan, alias Green and alias
Dempsey, who admitst that he planted
the bomb that killed Ex-Governor
Steunenberg, of Idaho, for whose
murder William D. Haywood, secre-
tary Of the Western Federation of
Miners, is now on trial, and who
says that Haywood, Charles H. Moy-
er and George A. Pettibone, respec-
lively the secretary, the president
and an executive board member of
the Western Federation of Miners,
planned the murder and hired him to
do it, told on the witness stand here
what Is probably the most extraor-
binary recital Of crime ever made in
a court room.
Orchard lifted the total of his own
murdered victims to eighteen, de-
tailed the circumstances under which
he tried to murder former Governor
Peabody, Judge GODDARD, Judge Cab
bert, General Sherman Bell, Dave
Moffatt and Frank Herne. Inciden-
tally ne confessed to a plan to kid
nap the child of one Of his former
associates. Under cross-examination
Orchard confessed guilt of the sordid
social crimes Of deserving his young
child and wife in Ontario, fleeing to
British Columbia with Hattie Simp-
son, the wife Of another man, and
committing bigamy by marrying a
third woman at Cripple Creek. .
Through the shocking details of
murder plots, stories of secret bomb
making and tales Of man hunts with
sawed-off shotguns and Internal ma
chimes as weapons, the witness went
on in the same quiet, of-hand man
ner that marked his demeanor pre-
viously. His voice dropped to lower
keys as the pitiful story of the long
hunt for Steunenberg narrowed down
to the last day, and he told Of the
race from the hotel to the home to
beat his victim with the death trap
and the meeting in the evening gloom
as the victim walked unconsciously to
his doom. - Il!
Through it all he WINGED but once,
and that was when the defense made
him name his six sisters and his one
brother and give their residences IN
Nnforio and Nau York
The defense fought the story with
a multiplicity Of objections and sue
ceeded in heading off an attempt to
tell the story of the murder of Ar
thur Collins at Telluride and temper
arily shut out the contents Of a tele-
gram received and q telegram sent
by Orchard after his arrest. Except
for this the State managed to get In
its story intact.
These are the principal crimes to
which Orchard confessed:
Blew up the mill of the Sullivan
and Bunker Hill mines at Warder,
Idaho, on April 20, 1899, killing two
men.
Exploded a bomb in the Vindicator
mine at Bull Head, near Cripple
Creek, in 1903, killing Sup%erintend-
ent Mccormick and Mel Beck, a shift
boss.
Shot and killed, in Denver, in
1904, Lytls Gregory, a deputy sher-
if, who had been active In seeking
out perpetrators of crimes In the
mining regions.
Blew up, in 1904, the railroad sta
ton at Independence, Col, and a
train standing by it on which were
100 non-union miners, killing from
twelve to fourteen men.
In the same year, in San Francisco,
manned for life Frederick Bradley,
a mine boss who had been against
the union in Idaho, by planting a
bomb so that Bradley exploded it
when he opened the door to leave
home on a morning.
Attempted to assassinate with dy-
Mantle, in 1904, Governor Peabody,
of Colorado, but was foiled; later
tried to shoot Governor Peabody,
also tried to murder other prominent
men.
Killed at Denver a man named
Wally, in one Of several attempts to
assassinate Judge Gabbert, Wally,
falling into a trap set for the jurist:
Tried to assassinate Sherman Bell,
former Adjutant-General OF Color
ado.
Second attempt to assassinate
Judge Goddard by dynamite.
The browning crime was COM
mitted at Caldwell, Idaho, in 1905,
when Orchard assassinated ex-GoV-
ernor S%teunenberg.
This is how Orchard told Of Steu-
nenberg's death:
Il located him just before even
ing. It was in the saloon part of the
hotel playing cards and 1 came u
into the lobby and l seen Mr.. Steu-
nenberg sitting in the hotel talking
to another man. l went up to his
residence as fast as l could walk and
I placed the bomb at his gate in such
a way that when the gate was opened
it was fastened with a string and
would explode.
when / was going back toward
the hotel I met Mr.. S~teunenberg, n
I ran as fast as I could. I was about
a block and a half from the Saratoga
Hotel on the foot bridge when I
heard it go off. I hurried as fast as
I could and went into the saloon part
of the hotel and met the bartender
there and helped him tie up a little
TII- G-.A