Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/499



prominent member of the gang of horse thieves. A band of Regulators was scouring the country near Yankee Run, in Cedar County, on the 27th of June, and came upon Conklin in the woods on horseback. He fled, was pursued, overtaken, shot down and instantly killed. There was little doubt that he was a desperado of a very dangerous character.

Charles Clute, a carpenter, living on a farm nine miles northeast of Tipton, fell under suspicion and suffered persecution, if not death, at the hands of the Regulators. He married the daughter of Mrs. J. D. Denson, a widow, and for several years attended to her business. They kept a hotel and carried on the farm. The widow finally married J. A. Warner and the two men worked harmoniously together at farming, building and hotel keeping. One day in the winter of 1856, a peddler, named Johnson, stopped at the Denson House, and becoming blockaded by a snow storm, remained several days. Some months later Johnson came to the Denson House with a good team, and left it to be sold by Mr. Clute. Johnson was arrested some time later for stealing horses in Wisconsin, taken to that State and lodged in the jail. As Mr. Clute had sold the horses for Johnson, he was charged by some of his neighbors with harboring horse thieves. He was arrested, but no evidence could be found against him and he was released. One night a gang of men called upon him, took him to the woods and gave him a terrible whipping. He was then released and returned home. Late in the summer Mr. Clute was again arrested, charged with assisting Johnson in disposing of stolen horses. But there was no evidence produced against him when the time for trial came and he was again discharged. After the organization of the Regulators, in 1857, a body of them seized Clute and Warner, who were building a house in Scott County, claiming to have a warrant for them. They were taken across the Wapsipinicon at Clam Shell Ford, and given a trial by the Regulators in the woods near the residence of