Warren T. McCray: signing off

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Before he entered state government, Warren Terry McCray was known by a royal nickname: the "Hereford Cattle King." A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties, Indiana deemed him "the greatest breeder of Hereford cattle in the world." In 1919, news of his exploits made it as far as New Zealand, where the Poverty Bay Herald said that the sale of a five-pound bull raised by McCray earned him the equivalent of 10,000 pounds. It shattered the previous world record for the highest bull sale, which formerly stood at 6,200 pounds. Even after he was elected to office, McCray continued to breed cattle on his 1,600-acre farm in Newton County and win prizes for them. The animals sometimes sold for up to $10,000 apiece.

The farm, coupled with other ventures, made McCray a very successful man. Born in Kentland, Indiana in February of 1865, he finished school at age 15. He went into business for himself after spending some time as a clerk in the Discount and Deposit Bank, which was run by his father. He expanded his interests to include grocery stores and grain elevators, and began community pursuits as well. He joined the board of trustees for the Northern Indiana Hospital for the Insane in 1904 and stayed there until 1912. In that year, he joined the Indiana Board of Agriculture and stayed there for four years. During World War I, he chaired the Food Conservation Committee of Indiana and for two years he served as a trustee of Purdue University.

In 1920, McCray won the Republican nomination for governor. He went on to win the general election, and was sworn into office in January of 1921. According to his National Governor's Association profile, 87 public buildings were launched during his term, along with a budget law affecting state and local finances, a reformatory at Pendleton, a budget law affecting state and local governments, and a two-cent gasoline tax to benefit road maintenance and highway construction.

Early in his term, McCray took an action that may well have placated the labor unions in the state. In October of 1921, he refused a requisition by Republican Governor Ephriam Franklin Morgan of West Virginia to send David Robb of Terre Haute to the state. Robb, an organizer for the United Mine Workers came to Indiana after he and several other union men were given the choice of leaving the state or going to jail due to their violation of Morgan's martial law proclamation. He was also indicted in West Virginia's Mingo County for conspiracy to commit a felonious assault in relation to the murder of a man that May. McCray refused the request on the basis of "disturbed conditions" in West Virginia and his belief that Robb wouldn't get a fair trial there; the United Mine Workers agreed, saying Robb's safety would be in jeopardy.

His reluctance to send a union man into hostile territory did not extend to support from the miners, however. He condemned United Mine Workers leader John L. Lewis as "disloyal," and denounced Socialist head Eugene V. Debs as traitor several times. In July of 1922, he publicly supported the idea of a government takeover of Indiana mines to break a strike and produce enough coal to meet the state's needs. After he followed through on the threat to declare martial law to guard the mines, 4,000 striking miners called a public meeting to demand his impeachment.

McCray's real woes began in 1923. In August, the Discount and Deposit State Bank threw him out as president of the institution. A month later, he admitted at a meeting of creditors that he owed them $2,652,000. They agreed to put his property into trust until he could meet his obligations, and took over holdings valued at $3,323,417.90. Former Republican Governor James P. Goodrich, who contested McCray in 1920, tried to help minimize the meltdown to mitigate any embarrassment to the party. He grew quite upset when McCray's chief political adviser, John Moorman, suggested that Goodrich and Republican President Calvin Coolidge were conspiring to ruin McCray."I spent nearly three months in trying to untangle the governor's affairs and finally raised $350,000 to save him and some of his associates from the most serious personal consequences as a result of his own acts," said Goodrich, "and I deeply resent the efforts of Mr. Moorman or the governor, or anyone else, to reflect upon the good faith of the men responsible for the conduct of the affairs of the party in this state." McCray said the matter was less serious than it seemed. "Boiled down to one fact, you find a farmer, a landowner, who is caught after three disastrous years in the farming business. I could not collect my bills and found myself unable to meet some of my obligations," he said. "I happen to be governor of Indiana, but this is a private matter that has happened to other farmers. The state has not suffered. I do not see that the public should be greatly interested."

In October, the bank collapsed after he was unable to take up $290,000 in notes with his signature. That same month, a grand jury began a probe into his financial transactions at the request of the First National Bank of Marion, which held $22,000 in McCray's notes and was one of 200 creditors backing him up. Three Fort Wayne banks initiated a bankruptcy hearing against him, and in November he admitted that some of the notes he pledged as collateral to the state board of agriculture had no value besides his endorsement. McCray had taken out the notes on the misguided belief that his signature would make the notes good enough for distribution. In the midst of these financial difficulties, the Republican State Committee indicated that he should resign, but he refused. Impeachment was also impossible, since the state legislature was not scheduled to meet again until January of 1925. By that time, McCray would be out of office, and he alone could call an emergency session of the legislature.

On the last day of November, the court walloped McCray with an indictment charging embezzlement, grand larceny, forgery, obtaining money under false pretenses, and issuing false checks. The charges accused him of involving $155,000 of misappropriated state funds in his own financial shortcomings. He refused to resign. "I feel sure that if I had been permitted to appear and present the facts I could have helped the jurors reach a just and correct conclusion," he said. "I ask the public to suspend judgment until I have been given an opportunity to tell my side of the story." A Marion County jury couldn't agree on a conviction in a trial in April of 1924, but two months before he had been federally indicted on 28 counts of mail fraud and violation of banking laws. He tried without success to get an abatement because women were not permitted to serve on the grand jury.

McCray's trial lasted for seven days. The prosecution showed that the governor passed some some $1 million in worthless notes on the banks in Indiana and other nearby states in an attempt to regain his standing. McCray denied any intent to defraud the government, but also testified that he used his political standing to get money from the state board of agriculture and designate banks as state depositories to get loans. It took the jury only 13 minutes to return a guilty verdict on 13 counts of mail fraud. McCray resigned from office on April 29, and Lieutenant Governor Emmett F. Branch took over. The judge told him that McCray was guilty of more felonies than anyone he'd seen in his experience on the bench, saying, "The circumstances are enormously bad and wicked. He has shown an utter disregard for the right. It is my duty to show this man that, no matter if he is governor of Indiana and no matter if he has broad acres, he cannot escape the penalty that is customarily given to every criminal of low estate in this court."

Twenty minutes after leaving office, McCray was sentenced to 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. He opted not to appeal, and began his time behind bars in an Atlanta penitentiary. Friends of the disgraced governor began looking for a pardon soon after, basing their effort on McCray's poor health, but they did not meet much support. President Coolidge said he would abide by the rule requiring a prisoner to serve at least a third of their sentence before they were eligible for commutation; the prosecutor and judge had to sign off on such a deal as well. In one curious offer, McCray's friend and former Republican Governor Chase Osborn of Michigan said in January of 1926 that he would be willing to serve the remainder of McCray's sentence in his stead. He offered his skills as a plate printer and remarked, "I have no dependents and I am used to more hardships than a prisoner entails."

McCray left prison in August of 1927 after meeting the one-third mark, having served three years in prison. The release didn't come with a pardon. His friends came to his aid once more, financing the repurchase of his Orchard Lake Farm, which he'd lost after his bankruptcy. He devoted his time to re-establishing his reputation as a famous Hereford breeder.

At about the same time he was freed, the state was conducting another probe due to the accusations of D.C. Stephenson. The Grand Dragon of the state's Ku Klux Klan had been sentenced to life in prison for the murder of a woman, and chose to take down as much of the Indiana government as he could with revelations of just how deep the state's politicians were in the Klan's pockets. The largest target was Republican Governor Ed Jackson, who succeeded Branch and served as secretary of state under McCray. Stephenson charged that Jackson offered McCray $10,000 while he was in office to appoint James E. McDonald, a Klansman, as Marion County prosecutor. When McCray came under investigation for his own malfeasance, Jackson said he could sweeten the deal by offering him immunity from prosecution. McCray refused, instead appointing William H. Remy. "The whole affair teems with the vilest corruption that has come to light in years and will remain forever as a blot on the history of Indiana" the Sanford Herald opined in an editorial.

It wasn't the first time McCray had clashed with the Klan. The mine unions sought to ban participation in the Klan, but several members were still interested. After the Klan started up a membership drive, McCray wrote a letter to the editor of the organization's paper condemning their efforts to control the union. The Klan was unfazed, and Stephenson even made personal appearances at the mines to denounce "new immigrants" as inferior workers and call for immigration restriction.

McCray told reporters that he wanted to simply go back to his family and stay as far away from the Jackson scandal as possible. "I am out of politics for good and all," he declared. By that point, McCray's testimony wasn't really needed since the grand jury had concluded that portion of their proceedings. In September of 1927, Jackson and two associates (former law partner Robert I. Marsh and Marion County Republican boss George V. Coffin) were indicted on charges of bribery conspiracy. At trial, Stephenson confirmed the plot and said that he'd put aside $10,000 from one of his strongboxes if McCray agreed to the bribe. McCray was the star witness, testifying that Jackson had told him he would leave the money in the governor's office desk. As McCray had it, he replied, "Ed, I am amazed that you should make that kind of an offer to me. You evidently don't know me. It begins to look like I've lost my fortune that I've striven for for 35 years. My office is threatened, it looks as if they are threatening my liberty, but I'm not going to lose my self-respect."

Prosecutors also charged that McCray rebuffed a second attempt at a bribe, and that Jackson and Stephenson threatened to obstruct his parole if he gave them away. Jackson claimed that he had made the offer, but without bribery or coercion. In the end, judge Charles M. McCabe determined that since the state did not prove willful concealment of the bribe, there was no way to nullify the statute of limitations which expired two years before the indictment. McCabe was clearly disappointed that the case couldn't proceed, as he dismissed the matter by blasting the "slime and disgrace" of the KKK. Noting that the Klan used their power to threaten McCray in 1923, he said, "There is no more regrettable bit of history in Indiana than the organization and participation in politics of the Ku Klux Klan." Jackson refused widespread calls for his resignation, saying he wouldn't let the "malicious propaganda" affect his administration. He left office in disgrace in January of 1929.

The revelations significantly increased the sympathy for McCray. By appointing Remy, he had put a man in office who would take him to court on the embezzlement charges. Remy would also take on Jackson when those charges came up. In May of 1930, an odd case arose when McCray's former partner, grain broker William Simons, was found dead of a gunshot wound just below the heart and two more to the back of the head. The coroner ruled it a suicide, but family members demanded an investigation into the possibility of a homicide. Later in the year, just shy of Christmas, Republican President Herbert Hoover granted McCray a pardon.

In December of 1938, after about a year of poor health, McCray died of a heart attack at his Kentland home.

Sources: The National Governors Association, "Price For Bull Sets World Record" in the Poverty Bay Herald on May 3 1919, "Refuses Requisition For Mingo Mine Leader" in the New York Times on Oct. 6 1921, "Grand Prize To Missouri-Bred Hereford Bull" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Nov. 16 1921, "Indiana Threatens To Operate Mines" in the New York Times on Jul. 27 1922, "Unions Demand Impeachment Of Gov. McCray For Guarding Indiana Mine With Troops" in the New York Times on Aug. 10 1922, "McCray Estimates Debts At $2,652,000" in the New York Times on Sep. 1 1923, "Political Notes" in Time on Sep. 10 1923, "McCray's Creditors Accept Trust Plan" in the New York Times on Oct. 8 1923,"McCray Probe Still Secret" in the Southeast Missourian on Oct. 12 1923, "McCray Bank Shuts; Asserts Solvency" in the New York Times on Oct. 14 1923, "McCray's Name His Security To State, He Admits" in the Chicago Tribune on Nov. 21 1923, "Governor McCray Will Not Quit Office" in the Nevada Daily Mail on Dec. 1 1923, "Gov. McCray Is To Stay On The Job" in the Southeast Missourian on Dec. 1 1923, "Governor McCray Files Plea" in the Wall Street Journal on Feb. 6 1924, "U.S. Grand Jury Indicts McCray on 28 Counts" in the Chicago Tribune on Feb. 26 1924, "McCray Must Face Other Indictments" in the Christian Science Monitor on Apr. 12 1924, "Governor Of Indiana Put Behind Bars" in the Southeast Missourian on Apr. 29 1924, "10 Years For McCray" in the New York Times on May 1 1924, "McCray Pardon Movement Not Meeting Favor" in the Crawfordsville Review on Feb. 24 1925, "Offers To Serve Friend's Sentence" in the Times Daily on Jan. 5 1926, "McCray To Be Paroled From Penitentiary" in the Sarasota Herald on Aug. 31 1927, "McCray Out of Political Life" in the Sarasota Herald on Sep. 2 1927, "Political Notes: McCray Out" in Time on Sep. 12 1927, "Indiana Ex-Governor Permitted To Testify" in the Pittsburgh Press on Sep. 16 1927, "Problem Of Cleaning Politics" in the Miami News on Sep. 19 1927, "National Affairs: Indiana Scandals" in Time on Sep. 19 1927, "Trial Date Set" in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Dec. 6 1927, "Jackson Trial Planned Feb. 7" in the Miami News on Dec. 6 1927, "Stevenson On Witness Stand" in the Southeast Missourian on Feb. 15 1928, "McCray Says $10,000 Was Jackson's Bait" in the New York Times on Feb. 16 1928, "Governor Jackson Acquitted" in the Sarasota Herald on Feb. 17 1928, "Corruption: In Indiana" in Time on Feb. 28 1928, "Ex-Governor Staging Comeback" in the Berkeley Daily Gazette on May 7 1929, "Gun Death Is Puzzle To Police" in the Times Daily on May 20 1930, "President Grants Pardon To McCray" in the Owosso Argus-Press on Dec. 24 1930, "Dies" in the St. Petersburg Times on Dec. 20 1938, Fragile Alliances: Labor and Politics in Evansville Indiana 1919-1955 by Samuel William White, James P. Goodrich: Indiana's "Governor Strangelove" by Benjamin D. Rhodes, A Standard History of Jasper and Newton Counties Indiana by Lewis H. Hamilton and William Darroch

James H. Lane: soldier of misfortune

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Like William Hull, James Henry Lane could be considered as much or more of a military man than a politician. Though he had considerably more political experience than Hull, Lane nevertheless spent much of his time in the field. Ultimately, it was a mix of both political and military issues that led to Lane's downfall.

Lane was born in Lawrenceburg, Indiana, in 1814. After attending school and studying law, he was admitted to the bar in 1840 and opened up a practice in his hometown. While there, he became a member of the city council and speaker of the Indiana house of representatives. Six years after opening his practice, Lane left to join the Third Indiana Volunteers. Ultimately, he became a colonel and served in the Mexican War, leading a brigade at the Battle of Buena Vista. Upon returning home, Lane raised the Fifth Indiana Volunteers and served as Lieutenant Governor from 1849 to 1853.

Lane left this position after being elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1852. He served one term, during which his most noted vote was one in favor of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill and the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, an act that led to the "bleeding Kansas" struggles between pro- and anti-slavery settlers in the territory. Not one to shy away from trouble, Lane moved to the Kansas Territory after his term in the House and joined the anti-slavery "free state" faction.

In 1855, Lane became the chairman of the executive committee of the Topeka constitutional convention, which formed the first state government. He was also elected major-general of the Free State Troops, and organized the defense of Lawrence during the conflict in late 1855 known as the "Wakarusa War." The key feature of the defense was a network of rifle pits throughout the settlement's streets, ensuring that any attacking pro-slavery army would pay a high price. In a speech after Lawrence's successful defense from Missouri raiders, Lane declared, "That beloved Union, for the safety of which we trembled, will not again, we trust, be imperiled by a foreign force from a sister state invading our Territory. They must and will see the impropriety and injustice of meddling in our affairs until they become our fellow citizens."

Lane was known for such speeches in his efforts to encourage anti-slavery settlers to come to Kansas and in his general denunciation of slavery. In an 1856 speech, Lane blamed Franklin Pierce for the bloodshed, since the territory had been rejected for statehood, and arraigned the President as a murderer. The accusation referred to the government's decision that year to not recognize a memorial presented to Congress requesting statehood. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois accused Lane of perpetrating fraud, since the memorial was plagued with added sentences and several signatures that appeared to be in the same handwriting. An incensed Lane challenged Douglas to a duel, but Douglas refused to accept, saying Lane was not a Senator and therefore not his equal. The rebuke was especially cutting because the Topeka government had appointed Lane to sit in the Senate if statehood was granted. According to John Speer, a compatriot and biographer of Lane, Douglas and Lane eventually became friends due to the approaching Civil War, and Lane mourned Douglas when he died a few months after the conflict began.

Lane continued his activities against pro-slavery men in Kansas, earning him the nickname "The Grim Chieftain." When raiders sacked Lawrence in May of 1856, Lane gathered troops from Iowa and Nebraska and entered Kansas to bolster the anti-slavery forces and drive out raiders. During the same month, Lane was indicted for high treason. The New York Times, in Lane's obituary, reported that Douglas County handed down the indictment for Lane's support for the Topeka government, while historian Donald L. Gilmore says the indictment was handed down by a U.S. district court chief justice who charged Lane and a number of other anti-slavery leaders with resisting territorial laws.

The indictment led Lane to keep out of sight more than usual, but by the next year he was back on the scene, assisting with efforts to remove raiders from Bourbon and Lion counties. He served as president of the Leavenworth constitutional convention, and was elected major-general of the Kansas troops by the territorial legislature. Lane also corresponded with John Brown during 1857, appointing him a brigadier-general and encouraging him to come to the territory to fight. Brown declined, as he was making preparations for his famed 1859 raid against Harper's Ferry in Virginia.

Lane's first serious trouble came in June of 1858, when he shot and killed fellow free state leader Gaius Jenkins as Jenkins came onto land that both men claimed in order to get water from a well. According to Lane's account, Jenkins was accompanied by three other armed men, and he did not open fire himself until three shots had been leveled at him, including one that struck him in the knee. Lane was charged with homicide, but ultimately released on the grounds of self-defense. The incident haunted Lane for at least another year, when a public resolution called him a coward and murderer and said the incident "adds one more infamous page to a life of treason, stratagem, and spoils." In a response published in the Lawrence Republican in March of 1859, Lane declared that he had not expected to kill Jenkins. "It is true that Mr. Jenkins fell by my hand," he wrote. "But no one has more deeply felt or grievously mourned that misfortune than myself."

After Kansas was admitted to the Union as a state in early 1861, the legislature elected Lane to the U.S. Senate with 55 votes, a slight majority over Samuel C. Pomeroy, the other man appointed. By this time, Lane had fallen in with the Radical Republicans, who not only opposed slavery but supported civil rights for African-Americans. He had also fallen on poor times. Speer said that when Lane was elected, he was so poor that he "was refused credit for a loaf of bread in Lawrence."

With the Civil War underway, one of Lane's most notable actions was commanding the Frontier Guard. Made up of Kansas troops, the Guard was raised for the defense of Washington, D.C. in the early part of the war. They were even camped in the East Room of the White House for a time, according to the New York Tribune. Lane also sent the men on a few offensive actions, including an attempt to capture Confederate general Robert E. Lee. While this failed, they did manage to capture the first rebel flag of the war from the homestead of a secessionist.

In June of 1861, President Abraham Lincoln nominated Lane to be brigadier-general of the volunteers. Lane accepted, and for four months commanded the Kansas Brigade, made up of three volunteer units. Following the retreat of Union troops at Wilson's Creek and threats of further violence by pro-slavery raiders, Lane gathered troops and fought skirmishes at Dry Wood and Papinsville. He then led the men on to sack Osceola, Missouri.

Lane's military activities back in the West weren't exactly conducive to his duties as a U.S. Senator. Following his nomination to be brigadier-general, the Judiciary Committee determined that he "virtually resigned his seat." Governor Charles Robinson appointed Frederick P. Stanton, a former governor of the Kansas Territory, to fill the vacancy. Robinson was not very fond of Lane, resentful of his influence and troop-raising activities, which were not strictly within his authority. Though the Senate considered the question of whether Lane was "not entitled to a seat in this body," the seat remained Lane's when the question was amended in January of 1862 to remove the word "not" and accepted.

Though Lane's hope was to raise an expedition of Kansas troops, Native Americans, cavalry, and artillery to invade the southwestern portion of Confederacy, the idea was abandoned due to impracticality. Nevertheless, Lane continued to see action in the West during the Civil War. In July of 1862, he was named commissioner to superintend the recruitment of volunteers.

One noted result of Lane's recruiting efforts was the First Kansas Colored Volunteers, the first black regiment created in the Union army. He sent agents throughout the Union to raise troops, but ultimately the War Department asked that it be put to a stop after receiving complaints that it was hindering efforts to recruit white men. Undeterred, Lane continued to muster troops without federal or state backing. He even hired black recruiting agents, promising pay equal to their white counterparts. Eventually, the regiment received federal authorization.

Already an enemy of pro-slavery forces in Kansas, Lane's activities and declarations (including one that overthrowing slavery would destroy the Confederacy) did nothing to endear him to them. One goal of William Quantrill's 1863 raid on Lawrence was to find and kill Lane. Though his house was one of some 185 buildings torched, Lane was not among the approximately 150 casualties of the massacre. He had managed to escape through a window and nearby cornfield. Enraged by the attack, he called for western Missouri to be converted into "a desert waste." He also pressured a local brigadier-general to pass an order calling for the inhabitants in four Missouri counties to evacuate if they were not loyal to the Union and relocate to a military post if they were. In October of 1864, Lane was named volunteer aide-de-camp when martial law was proclaimed in Kansas.

Lane managed to find some time in these adventures to do work in the Senate. He chaired the Committee on Agriculture during 1864, and also helped to get the Union Pacific Railroad moved three miles to access Lawrence and Topeka. When the railroad requested $300,000 to counteract the loss of funds the diversion would cause, Lane responded, "Before you get a dollar out of that burned and murdered town, you will take up every stump, and every old log you have buried in your grade to save money, and stone-ballast every rod to Lawrence; and even then, when you get your first subsidies, let Jim Lane know!"

When the war concluded, the Chicago Tribune published an account suggesting that a U.S. Senator was personally receiving $20,000 in a deal involving Indian Bureau transactions and military contracts. Though the newspaper didn't name anyone, the Boston Commonwealth suggested it could be Lane. He denied any involvement in such a deal, and was supported by the Senators from Indiana, who declared him innocent after looking the matter over.

Though he was exonerated on the accusations, the incident only further stressed Lane, who had been returned to the Senate in 1865. He lost favor among the Radical Republicans when he opted to support President Andrew Johnson's watered-down approach to the Reconstruction, including Johnson's opposition to the Freedmen's Bureau and veto of the Civil Rights Bill. In July of 1866, Lane visited his brother-in-law, a Captain McCall, and the two rode out from Fort Leavenworth. When McCall opened the carriage door for him at a stop, Lane stepped out, said, "Goodbye, Mac," and shot himself in the head. He died 10 days later.

In pondering the incident, contemporary sources often turned to mental illness as a way to explain the suicide. Speer, declaring Lane overworked and deranged, said, "There is nothing strange about such a man becoming insane." The New York Times obituary stated, "Mr. Lane's present term in the Senate was unmarked by ought that was peculiar or out of the ordinary routine. He was eminently social, kind-hearted, and just faithful ever to his friends, relentless ever to his foes." Initially referring to his condition as "temporary insanity," the newspaper declared four days later that a doctor had determined that the suicide was "attributed solely to mental aberration, induced by extreme prostration and derangement of the nervous system, and aggravated by anxiety."

Sources: The Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, The Kansas Historical Society, Territorial Kansas Online, "Obituary: James H. Lane, United States Senator From Kansas" in the New York Times on Jul. 4 1866, "Gen. James H. Lane; His Conduct Previous To The Attempt To Commit Suicide" in the New York Times on Jul. 8 1866, Life of General James H. Lane, "The Liberator of Kansas" by John Speer, Jim Lane: Scoundrel, Statesman, Kansan by Robert Collins, Rebel Invasion of Missouri and Kansas by Richard Josiah Hinton, Compilation of Senate Election Cases from 1789 to 1913, The Black Military Experience by Joseph Patrick Reidy, Kansas edited by Frank W. Blackmar, John Brown, Abolitionist by David S. Reynolds, The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies Vol. 3, Encyclopedia of the American Civil War edited by David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, John M. Schofield and the Politics of Generalship by Donald B. Connelly, Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield by James Gillespie Blaine, Civil War on the Missouri-Kansas Border by Donald L. Gilmore, "New Perspectives On The West" at pbs.org

John W. Dawson: shovel-ready governor

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As John W. Dawson told it, his stagecoach was at its first stop on a cross-country journey on New Year's Eve of 1861 when he found that several items of clothing had been taken. While waiting in the coach for the return of his physician, the driver made insulting remarks to him and Dawson chose to take his leave. As he was walking to a nearby house, the former Governor of the Utah Territory was attacked and beaten by the driver and other ruffians, an incident that punctuated Dawson's disgraced exit from the land.

Dawson was born in 1820 in Cambridge, Indiana. He worked as an office clerk and studied at Wabash College and Transylvania College. Further working as a lawyer and farmer, he eventually settled into the position of editor of the Fort Wayne Times and Union. Through the newspaper, Dawson supported public schools and temperance and criticized Catholics and abolitionists. He was especially vehement in this latter attitude when the Civil War broke out, saying the abolitionist movement only gave advocates of the Confederacy arguments to use in support of secession. Dawson's basic argument was that the preservation of the Union was a more important goal than the abolition of slavery. He asked if William Lloyd Garrison, a New England newspaper editor and prominent abolitionist, if he would admit "that this war is not a Godsend war for the abolition of negro slavery, but to maintain the supremacy of the Union and the Constitution, and that you will henceforth be silent on the wrongs of the slave and the atrocities of slaveholders, until throughout all the land the federal laws are freely obeyed?"

Like his working career, Dawson dabbled in a variety of political parties in a series of unsuccessful bids for public office. In 1854, he ran for the state house of representatives on the People's Party ticket. Two years later, he was back on the ballot running for Indiana secretary of state. This time, he was on a fusion ticket supported by the Republican and Know-Nothing parties. In 1858, he ran for the House of Representatives as a Democrat. In the election of 1860, however, he backed Abraham Lincoln, the Republican candidate, in his paper.

Given his relative lack of political experience, it is unclear how Dawson got the nod to be Governor of the Utah Territory. Some have suggested that he was a man of loose morals and an embarrassment to the Republican leaders in Indiana, and the distant desert territory seemed to be a proper point of exile. The post was also not the most popular one up for grabs, and Dawson's willingness to serve probably played in his favor. After Governor Alfred Cummings chose not to seek re-appointment, Lincoln appointed Dawson as the third Governor of the Utah Territory on October 3, 1861.

Dawson did not arrive in the territory until December 7, and took the oath of office on the 10th. It didn't take long for him to irk the predominantly Mormon population. In his first address to the territorial legislature, he urged them to pay a $26,982 annual tax to support Union war efforts. Doing so, he explained, would show that the Mormons were supportive of the country, not disloyal as had been alleged.

On December 17 and 18, the legislature passed a bill calling for a convention of delegates to create a constitution and organize a state government. Territorial secretary Frank Fuller of New Hampshire, who had served as acting Governor while waiting for Dawson to arrive, had already given his support for the measure. Dawson, however, vetoed it. He said the proposed date of the convention (January 6, 1862) was too close to submit the bill to Congress or notify the people of the territory. He also said the bill sought to fix the state's boundaries, which Congress would have to do. The rejection of the bill again did nothing to endear Dawson to the population.

On New Year's Eve, having served less than a month, Dawson suddenly packed up and began a journey back east. He left Fuller to take over the Governor's duties. A variety of reasons were given for Dawson's departure. Fuller said he had received a note saying Dawson was leaving for health reasons. The Deseret News said Dawson was leaving "under circumstances somewhat novel and puzzling," and alleged that the Governor had gone "distressingly insane."

The newspaper also mentioned the more prevalent theory behind Dawson's hasty retreat. He was accused of making indecent proposals to Albina Williams, his housekeeper and a Mormon widow in Salt Lake City. As the story went, Williams was so offended that she chased Dawson out of her house with a fireplace shovel. Dawson was also accused of trying to pay Williams $3,000 to keep quiet about the incident, and threatening to shoot Mormon newspaper editor Thomas B.H. Stenhouse if he published anything on the matter.

Stenhouse may have been sufficiently intimidated, though he also later left the church; in an account published in 1873, he said Dawson "was almost immediately a victim of misplaced confidence, and fell into a snare laid for his feet by some of his brother-officials." Catherine Van Valkenburg Waite, writing in 1867, also took this point of view. She argued that the incident was entirely fabricated as a way of expelling Dawson, since he was not as lenient toward Mormon leader Brigham Young as his predecessor. John Hanson Beadle, editor of the Salt Lake Reporter, also implied that the charges may have been false but clearly had no sympathy for Dawson. In an anti-Mormon book he wrote in 1870, Beadle said Dawson's later beating was "richly deserved for his cowardice, and, if the charge above be true, for his detestably bad taste."

Whatever the case, Dawson was fearful enough of assault that he took a hired guard to accompany him out of the territory. According to a statement Dawson later wrote for the Deseret News, he was told by Ephraim Hanks, station master at the first mail stop on the route, that some people might intend to rob or assault him. Dawson asked Hanks to accompany him, but Hanks said he was unable to and sent a man named Moroni Clawson to act as protection. Dawson said he gave Clawson five dollars for his troubles.

After the stagecoach stopped at Hanks' mail station at Mountain Dell, Dawson said, the crowd at the stopping point had supper and proceeded to get drunk and rowdy. When he checked on the coach, he found that it had been relieved of several blankets and "an elegant beaver robe." It was after this discovery that Dawson said the driver, apparently a relative of the scorned woman, began insulting him. Dawson insisted he had not provoked the men who attacked him after he exited the coach. In the statement to the Deseret News, he identified seven men who attacked him, including Clawson ("the traitor") and other men who had been hired to protect him.

According to one account, Dawson's injuries were "nearly emasculating," leading to rumors that he had been castrated as well as beaten. Dawson was quick to use the attack to characterize the Mormons as a lawless and detestable bunch. In a letter to Lincoln, he accused the population of disloyalty and said their push for statehood was only an effort to remove federal authorities from the territory and give polygamy "sovereign protection." He added, "The horrid crimes that have been committed in this territory & which have gone unpunished, have no parallel among civilized nations." Young, meanwhile, continued to push for statehood, saying the goal was "to no more endure the imposition of such men as...Governor Dawson." Though the convention seeking to create the state of Deseret went forward, Utah would not be admitted as a state until 1896.

Though they were no fans of Dawson, the Mormons did not want the attack to further inflame public opinion against them. Of the seven identified by Dawson, three were shot dead while trying to escape from police. Lot Huntington was killed on January 16, 1862. Clawson and a man named John P. Smith were killed the next day. The other attackers were captured and brought to justice.

In an interesting side note, the attack on Dawson indirectly led to the capture of an infamous grave robber. After Clawson was killed, he was buried in a Salt Lake City cemetery after his body was not initially claimed. When his family asked that Clawson be exhumed to be relocated to a family cemetery, they found that Clawson had been stripped of his clothes. The investigation found that a gravedigger, John Baptiste, had collected clothes, shoes, and personal effects from some 300 grave robberies. Baptiste was ultimately isolated on Fremont Island on the Great Salt Lake, but disappeared later in 1862, never to be seen again.

Dawson returned to find that the Senate had ultimately rejected his appointment, apparently based on the allegations that had come up against him. The incident also made Dawson quite unpopular in his home state, if he had ever garnered much favor to begin with. "He is a poor, despised, and hated ruffian, without a solitary friend of any influence on earth, outside of his own printing office," one letter to the People's Press of Bluffton, Indiana, declared. "This is not the first time that the community has been sickened and disgusted with the infamy and crime of John Dawson."

Not much is known of Dawson's post-gubernatorial activities. Most notably, he helped elevate the legend of Johnny Appleseed by writing the first accounts about him in 1871. Dawson had met the John Chapman, the person the legend is based on, when he was younger. In 1877, Dawson passed away in Indiana.

Sources: Utah History To Go, "The Governor of Utah Territory: A Significant Sign" in The Democratic Watchman on Nov. 21 1861, "Executive Communications" in the Deseret News on Dec. 25 1861, "Governor Dawson's Statement" in the Deseret News on Jan. 22 1862, "What The Public Journals Say About John W. Dawson" in the Deseret News on Feb. 26 1862, "Scandals, Shame, & Skeletons In The Closet" in Salt Lake Magazine in April 2009, It Happened In Utah by Gayen and Tom Wharton, Church Chronology: A Record Pertaining to the History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Andrew Jenson, Improvement Era edited by Joseph F. Smith and Edward H. Anderson, Popular History of Utah by Orson F. Whitney, Abraham Lincoln and the Western Territories edited by Ralph Y. McGinnis and Calvin N. Smith, The Story of the Mormons: From the Date of their Origin to the Year 1901 by William Alexander Linn, The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of the Mormons by Thomas B.H. Stenhouse, Life in Utah; or, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism by John Hanson Beadle, The Saints and the Union: Utah Territory during the Civil War by Everette Beach Long, The Mormon Prophet and His Harem by Catherine Van Valkenburg Waite

John L. Duvall: black boxed in

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In losing his official position, mayor John L. Duvall of Indianapolis was one of many officials exposed by a convicted murderer and Ku Klux Klan leader.

Born in 1874 in Tazewell County, Illinois, Duvall studied law at Valparaiso University and the Chicago Law School. He worked as a deputy prosecutor for Hamilton County and moved to Indianapolis in 1902, practicing law there for seven years. After establishing Haughville Bank, the first suburban bank in the city, he organized several other banks; most were later purchased by the American Fletcher National Bank. Duvall also started the real estate firm Leslie Duvall Inc.
In either 1922 or 1923, Duvall joined the KKK. A Republican, he served as Marion Couty treasurer from 1924 to 1925. With backing from the Klan, he won the nomination for mayor of Indianapolis and then the general election in November of 1925. He came to office in January of 1926.

After the election, Duvall traveled to an undisclosed location in Illinois to meet with Klan leaders. In announcing appointments to city positions, several Klansmen were given jobs. George Elliot, the leader of the Indianapolis KKK, received a position in the park administration.

While Duvall's association with the Klan did not negatively affect his election, it came at the same time that the state and country were transfixed with a crime involving David Curtis Stephenson, the organization's Grand Dragon of Indiana. In March of 1925, Stephenson forced a young woman named Madge Oberholtzer, whom he had met at a gubernatorial rally, to accompany him on a train journey to Chicago. En route, she was raped and bitten all over her body. After taking several tablets of mercuric chloride, Oberholtzer was taken back to Indianapolis. Before dying of kidney failure, she revealed that D.C. Stephenson was her assailant.

Stephenson was charged with second-degree murder. The prosecution in the case argued that pneumonia infection from the bites to her body, as well as Stephenson's refusal to seek medical care, had contributed to Oberholtzer's death. Stephenson's attorney said that Oberholtzer had committed suicide. The jury found Stephenson guilty and he was sentenced to life in prison. The verdict was not delivered until after Duvall was safely in office; the sordid details of Stephenson's case helped contribute to a widespread decline in membership in the KKK.

Stephenson believed that he was a sure candidate for a pardon from Governor Ed Jackson, himself in office thanks to Klan support. Jackson wasn't forthcoming, likely because of the high profile of the case. After about a year in prison, Stephenson decided to help bring down the corrupt governments he had helped forge and told authorities he had incriminating evidence on several officeholders stashed away in "black boxes." One of the boxes contained a pledge signed by Duvall. In it, he agreed that "in the event that I am elected Mayor of Indianapolis, Indiana, I promise not to appoint any person as a member of the board of public works without they first have the endorsement of D.C. Stephenson."

Duvall agreed to resign on Oct. 27, 1927, but did so in a way that put the city in a state of confusion for the next two weeks. Appointing his wife as city comptroller, the next in line to succeed the mayor, Duvall submitted his resignation. His wife succeeded him and ruled for all of 15 minutes before appointing attorney Ira M. Holmes as comptroller and resigning herself. The city council followed up this shell game with the appointment of Claude E. Negley. Duvall ordered a police guard to enforce Holmes' claim as mayor, and the two briefly faced off in the mayor's office before Negley produced a court injunction backing him up. Also claiming the mayoral title for a time were Joseph Hogue, comptroller under Duvall's predecessor Lew Shank, and Walter Myers, Duvall's opponent in the 1925 election, on the basis that Duvall's claim as mayor was voided back to that contest.

Negley prevailed among this gathering when the court denied a motion by Holmes to dissolve a restraining order against him. The city council deadlocked over putting either Republican John A. George or Democrat Fred Hoke in office before deciding on Democrat L. Ert Slack, to replace Negley for the remainder of Duvall's term.

After one grand jury was dissolved when a juror said he had been offered a bribe to not indict Duvall, another grand jury indicted him on charges of violating the state's Corrupt Practices Act. Besides his complicity with the KKK appointments, he was also accused of accepting a $14,000 bribe from politician and saloon owner William H. Armitage in return for naming three city officials. Duvall was said to have revoked this promise to Armitage, a Catholic, when it contradicted those he had made to the Klan. Found guilty, Duvall was ordered to pay a $1,000 fine and spend 30 days in jail.

Duvall was one of hundreds of corrupt government officials brought down by Stephenson's black boxes. Not long after the debacle of filling the mayor's seat, four members of the city council, including Negley, were indicted for taking bribes in return for not voting to impeach Duvall. Six members of the council admitted to accepting bribes, paid a small fine, and resigned. Governor Jackson was indicted for failing to report contributions from the KKK, but was able to escape prosecution because the statute of limitations had run out.

Duvall returned to real estate work after his removal from office. He died in 1962.

Sources: "Indianapolis Picks Duvall" in the New York Times on Nov. 4 1925, "In Indiana" in Time on Aug. 8 1927, "Indiana Corruption" in Time on Oct. 3 1927, "Negley Now Rules Alone in Indianapolis" in the Atlanta Constitution on Nov. 1 1927, "Again, Indianapolis" in Time on Nov. 7 1927, "Slack at Helm in Indianapolis" in the Prescott Evening Courier on Nov. 9 1927, "Four Indianapolis Officials Indicted" in the Evening Independent on Nov. 19 1927, The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis by David J. Bodenhamer and Robert Graham Barrows and David Gordon Vanderstel, Citizen Klansmen: The Ku Klux Klan in Indiana, 1921-1928 by Leonard J. Moore, The Fiery Cross: the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana by Wyn Craig Wade, Indiana History: A Book of Readings by Ralph D. Gray