Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 17.djvu/379



REMINISCENCES OF MARTHA E. GILLIAM COLLINS 371

Theodore Prather bought him. When he had worked out his three years Prather gave him a horse and saddle and twenty dollars. He went to Douglas county and raised a family and was a good citizen.

"Frank Nichols, who married my sister Sarah, was the next sheriff. One of his first jobs was hanging Adam E. Wimple. Wimple had stayed for a while at our house in 1845. He married a 13-year-old girl in 1850 and within a year killed her. They lived in Cooper Hollow, four or five miles from Dallas. My brother-in-law, Alec Gage, and his wife stopped at Wim- ple's house the morning he killed her. Mrs. Wimple's face was all swollen and her eyes were red from crying. Wimple saw they noticed it, so he said 'Mary isn't feeling very well this morning.' My brother-in-law and his wife had not gone over a mile and a half when they saw smoke rising from where the Wimple house was. They hurried back and found the house in flames. It was too late to save anything in the house. When the fire had burned out they found Mrs. Wimple unde. the floor partially burned. Wimple had disappeared. He was- more than double her age. She was 14 and he was about 35. A posse captured him and brought him to Dallas. I knew Wimple well, so I asked him why he had killed Mary ? He said, 'Well, I killed her. I don't really know why/

"There was no jail so Frank Nichols took Wimple to his house to stay. Frank swore in four guards, but Wimple got away and was gone four days before they found him and brought him back. They tracked him to the house where he had killed his wife. I went over to stay with my sister, Mrs. Nichols, while he was boarding there waiting to be hung and I helped her cook for him. Frank hung him early in October, 1852. Wimple sat on his coffin in the wagon when they drove to the gallows where he was to be hung. They passed the sheriff's father, Uncle Ben Nichols, while they were on their way to the gallows. Wimple was afraid Uncle Ben would be late and miss the hanging, so he called out 'Uncle Ben, ain't you going to the hanging ? Ain't you coming down to see me