Baraboo weekly news. [volume] (Baraboo, Wis.) 1912-197?, 1922-06-01
Reign of Crime In the
Days of Pat Wildrick
BY o. D. 5RANDENRURe

PernapS the most SeuSdIlOudA Settles
OF capital crimes in all Wisconsin oc-
Curred in the POrtage-Kilbourn region,
partly in Sank county, something
over fifty years ago when two lynch
fngs swiftly followed two murders.
Along about 1865 Pat Wildrick, des-
peradO and highwayman Of Kilbourn,
swarthy. square, awed, low-browed
and powerful, was convicted of rob-
berry in Columbia county and sent to
state prison for two years. Soon az
Eer his release he, with a companion,
all but murdered Schuyler s. Gates
on a lone island in the Wisconsin
river just below Kilbourn. Gates had
sold his home, and with his wife had
loaded household goods on two row.
boats which he dashed together and
started, one June day of 1867, to
float down to Muscoda. Darkness soon
overtaking him, he landed on the
island for the night. At two o'clock
in the morning Wildrick and his &C
complice, aware OF Gates departure
and of the possibility of his having
a considerable sum of money in his
possession, stealthily rowed to the is
land and violently assaulted Gates,
who was pounded pitilessly over the
mead and left insensible, presumably
dying The young wife also was
grossly abused, but she was able,
when daylight came, to assist her
husband to the boats and drift on till
a farmhouse was sighted, and re
lief obtained Gates face and head
were fairly in a state of masceration,
so brutally had he been beaten. He
was removed to Baraboo, and we'll l
remember my horror at seeing him,
covered with surgical bandages, as he
weakly walked about. After linger-
ing for a time at the very threshold
of death. he finally recovered.
Wildrick's plumber amounted to
$1,000 in cash. Gates recognized his
KilbOurn. Years before Gates was
married Wildrck had formed an at
tachment for the young woman, now
Gates wife. Wiidrick not long after,
was apprehen1ed at McGregor, Iowa,
brought back to BarabOO, and, while
lying in Jail. escaped, but was soon
recaptured BY change of venue, the
case was taken to Portage where
Wildrick was again put behind the
bars, Judge Alva Stewart having
placed his bond at $4,000. This was
reduced later to $4,000 by Judge Cate
a. fY,f ITxro
ed for the act, and Wildrick re-
leased Almost Immediately. on
September 10, he was caught by
officers at Portage, as he was robbing
a man named Olson with whom he
had been drinking He had lured his
victim to a side street, knocked him
down, and taken what money he had,
81 or S. lii the very act, however,
ne was seized and returned to jail.
This happened eighteen months after
the murderOus assault upon Gates.
and the people of all the region natur-
ally felt that justice was grossly out
ragged by the long delay.
y y y
Now occurred another bloody cpl
sOde. On September Is, three days af-
ter Wiidrick's last Incarceration,
Gates left his home in Kilbourn to
gather cTanberries beyond the Wis
cOnsin river in Sank county 1t was
i've o'clock in the morning. Some
ffteen minutes after he had walked
across the bridge, two young men,
Hugh Smith and Percy Richards,
cOnfederates of Wildrick followed,
and few hours later, a farmer,
coming to Kilbourn, reported the
body of a dead man lying in the road
three-quarters of a mile from the
bridge. It was Gates with six bullet
holes in head and body. He had been
summarily murdered merely to re-
move him as the only material witness
by whose evidence Pat Wildrick, still
in JAIL could be convicted of that
savage assault on the island nearly
TwO years before
* - y
Soon after midnight on the morn
ing Of Saturday, September Is, twelve
days after Gates murder, two groups
of men quietly came into Portage,
one from Baraboo, fourteen miles
away. the other from Kilbourn almost
as near. Uniting. they proceeded ST.
lently to the Jail. three going ahead