Page:History of Iowa From the Earliest Times to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century Volume 1.djvu/500



Bennett Warren, who was also a prisoner in their hands. As in all previous arrests there was no evidence whatever against them, but the Regulators decreed they must leave the country. They were compelled to witness the hanging of old Mr. Warren; then taken back to Big Rock, kept over night at Goddard’s tavern and terrified into promising to leave the country. In a few days Clute disappeared and was never seen or heard of even by his family. It was afterward proved by Johnson that Clute was in no way implicated with him in horse stealing, and there is little doubt that he was entirely innocent of all charges made against him. It was believed by his friends that he never got out of Scott County, but was made way with by the Regulators. On the other hand, many believed that Mr. Clute had become convinced that his life was in continual danger from the Regulators, and that his only safety was in going to some distant State.

In 1857 there was living in Clinton County, near the Wapsipinicon River, about four miles northeast of Wheatland, a farmer named Bennett Warren. He was about sixty years of age and an old settler in that section. He kept a sort of public house, entertaining travelers. Persons strongly suspected of belonging to gangs of horse thieves and counterfeiters often stopped at his house, and it was believed by many that Mr. Warren was in some way connected with these law breakers. The Regulators had organized for the express purpose of breaking up and bringing to swift punishment these bands of horse thieves.

On the 24th of June, 1857, several hundred of the Regulators gathered at Big Rock in Scott County and marched into Clinton County to Warren’s house. They took him to a grove near by to select a jury of twelve men from their number, R. H. Randall, a well-known citizen of Clinton County, presiding over the court thus constituted. Charges were preferred against Mr. Warren of harboring horse thieves knowing them to be such; keeping and