River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1911-05-18
.D|ETz GETS A
LIFE SENTENCE
DEFENDER OF CAMERON DAM is
CONVICTED BY JURY AT
HAYWARD.
WIFE AND SON ARE ACQUITTED
First Serious Rebuff to Noted Back
woodsman in Celebrated Case Which
Has Been in the Courts For
Nearly Ten Years.

| Hayward-John Deitz, guilty of
murder in the first degree, and his
wife, Mrs. Hattie Deitz and his son
Leslie, not guilty. Such was the YER
dict of the~jury in the famous case of
the Wisconsin backwoodsman. For
the killing of Oscar Harp, sheriff
deputy, for which crime he has been
convicted, John Deitz was sentenced
to prison for life, and will be in soil
tary confinement one day each year,
Oct. 8, the anniversary of Harp's
death.
Deitz announced his intention of
filing an appeal, and will employ an
attorney. He acted as his own at
torney in the present case.
Clerical Error Cause.
A clerical error, the omission of a
mention of a reservation of rights for
the Mississippi River Logging COM
pany and the Chippewa Lumber and
Boom company, the original owners, to
maintain Cameron dam and flow the
land after it had been transferred to
Mrs. Cameron, is declared by many
to have started the controversy which
ended with the jurys verdict today.
The rights of the dam and the fiowage
of the land has always been the con-
tention of John Deitz on the grounds
that it is located on the property
which is in his wife's name and as
much has been ascertained by survey
ors for the lumber company.
The company claimed that when the
land was decided over to Mrs. Gamer
on, who later sold it to Mrs. DeitZ,
they retained the perpetual rights to
the dam and f1owage, but this reserva-
ton was left out of the warranty deed
which Mrs. Deitz now holds and it is
on this omission that the Deitz family
base their claims to the dam.
Since 1904, at which time the
trouble began, when Deitz refused to
allow the lumber companies to send
the logs over the dam, there have
| been ten efforts to capture In the
wholesale violence which attended
these attempts one man, deputy
sheriff, met his death, three were
wounded, on the one side, while with
the defenders of the property Myra
Deitz was wounded in the back, Clar-
ence shot in the head and John Deitz
wounded through the hand. The
shooting of Bert Horel is an addition
al outgrowth of the trouble.
Lumber Held Up.
The lumber piles which proved such
points of vantage in the battle of
last October are composed of lumber
sawed from part of drive of 100000
feet which Deitz held up when the
lumber companies refused him $4,000,
which he claimed as his due for about
80,000,000 feet Of logs which had pass
ed over the dam since his wife bought
the quarter section on which it is To-
Gated. When an injunction was issued
by Judge Parish, Sheriff Peterson, in
stead of personally serving it on the
members Of the Deitz family, mailed
it, with the result that it was burned.
For not doing his duty and serving the
paper, Sheriff Peterson was deposed,
fined and sentenced to Imprisonment,
but was later released from the fine
and sentence.
Sheriff Fred Clark during a previous
term was the next officer of the law
to call upon Deitz. Without papers
Clark went to the cabin and tried to
get Deitz to go with him to the county
seat, but no attention was paid to
him.
Sheriff William Giblin, with William
Eliot and armed posse, moved on
Cameron Dam, May 10, 1904, but were
met in the woods and after an ex
change of shots without injury gave it
up as a bad job Valentine Weisen.
bach, who assisted Deitz in resisting
this service, is now serving a ten-year
sentence at Waupun for his compile
ity.
A warrant brought to the cabin by
Thomas Grist, a G. A. r. man and the
next sheriff, was promptly consigned
to the flames.
Posse in Vicinity.
A posse lowered in the vicinity OF
the Deitz clearing for several days in
1905, but left without accomplishing
anything, and later Sheriff Colon Wis
tied the occupants of the cabin and &C
complished rs much. He was followed
by Deputy United States Marshals 10.
mas and Merklin, who were thrown out
of the cabin bodily when they tried to
serve their papers. When they were
ordered from the clearing at the point
of a gun Deputy Sheriff Waite Ackley
and another man who were the next