trapper named Bowers who thought the young man had stolen his furs and who was wrong about that and felt remorse and hung himself in his cell; he was acquitted by the jury on account of his death.
On December 24, 1868, at a dance at the New Albion House, a man was stabbed and killed who was not the man the assailant intended to kill, the man who had given an expensive brooch to a woman nearby, but the man standing next to him. The murderer served several years at the penitentiary in Stillwater. The woman had been betrothed to the murderer. She married the man who gave her the gift and they removed to Minneapolis.
In June 1875, Mr. Herman Daly was shot and killed in his field by a neighbor, Azariah Frost, whose son David had married Mr. Daly’s daughter Maud two years before; Frost then returned home and killed himself.
On a Sunday evening in May 1880, persons came to the window of the Shaw residence while members of the family were eating supper and fired a Winchester rifle and a shotgun loaded with buckshot, killing Mr. Horace Shaw and his young son, Charles, while severely injuring Mrs. Shaw who was pierced by several bullets but survived in a crippled condition. Two daughters, Mary and Agnes Shaw, fifteen and seventeen years of age, had gone to the kitchen to cut a blueberry pie and were uninjured. A detective from St. Paul was called in on the case and, following up various clues, he put the finger on two men from St. Cloud who had been seen in the company of the Shaw girls at a dance only a week before the murders. The girls admitted to authorities that they had agreed with the young men to marry them if they killed their parents so the girls would inherit the house. Reprehensible as the crime was, the girls were put on a train to Minneapolis to live with an aunt. The young men were tried for murder and found not guilty by the jury, which felt that the girls were equally culpable, whereupon a man named Conway shot and killed a juryman. He was never apprehended.
The following August, a newborn child was found in a privy, and in October, the decomposed body of what appeared to be a young woman of wealth was found in a field during plowing. A string of pearls was around her neck, and the bones of her right hand clutched a Bible. That winter, a man was stabbed and left to die in a ditch north of town. Nobody could identify the body. Mr. Thorvaldson offered a gravesite and a stone. The body was buried under the name “Oscar Thorvaldson,” though the deceased was no relation to him.
Doctors came and went. Four had hung up their shingles in five years and then left, taking the shingles with them. One of them was all right if you believed in that sort of thing (roots, mainly, and leaves), one was a drunk, one peddled snake oil, and the other didn’t get much business, so there was no telling about him. A fifth man, Dr. Thompson, was good and left after the diphtheria epidemic of 1866, his own health shattered.
When Dr. Louis Holter, E.D.D., set up shop in 1872, the town had lost faith in the current officeholder, a Dr. Pfeiffer, who dispensed white powders and brown liquids that put his patients in a stupor. Once, after a massive outbreak of dysentery, he dosed them with a combination of the two, and half of New Albion lay flat on its back, seeing faces in the wallpaper.
Dr. Holter brought the most advanced equipment of the day: an electrical chair, solid oak, with a crank in back that the physician turned to create magnetic energy that entered the body through wires and straps and achieved a more perfect balance of forces within the corporal field. The electrical chair, he instructed them, was no
interventive measure
to be called on when illness struck but rather a
preventive
and
restorative
device, meant to be employed on a weekly basis. The patient would notice the benefits only after a serious and sustained program of treatment.
The electrical chair produced a pleasant tingly sensation. One could actually feel
On December 24, 1868, at a dance at the New Albion House, a man was stabbed and killed who was not the man the assailant intended to kill, the man who had given an expensive brooch to a woman nearby, but the man standing next to him. The murderer served several years at the penitentiary in Stillwater. The woman had been betrothed to the murderer. She married the man who gave her the gift and they removed to Minneapolis.
In June 1875, Mr. Herman Daly was shot and killed in his field by a neighbor, Azariah Frost, whose son David had married Mr. Daly’s daughter Maud two years before; Frost then returned home and killed himself.
On a Sunday evening in May 1880, persons came to the window of the Shaw residence while members of the family were eating supper and fired a Winchester rifle and a shotgun loaded with buckshot, killing Mr. Horace Shaw and his young son, Charles, while severely injuring Mrs. Shaw who was pierced by several bullets but survived in a crippled condition. Two daughters, Mary and Agnes Shaw, fifteen and seventeen years of age, had gone to the kitchen to cut a blueberry pie and were uninjured. A detective from St. Paul was called in on the case and, following up various clues, he put the finger on two men from St. Cloud who had been seen in the company of the Shaw girls at a dance only a week before the murders. The girls admitted to authorities that they had agreed with the young men to marry them if they killed their parents so the girls would inherit the house. Reprehensible as the crime was, the girls were put on a train to Minneapolis to live with an aunt. The young men were tried for murder and found not guilty by the jury, which felt that the girls were equally culpable, whereupon a man named Conway shot and killed a juryman. He was never apprehended.
The following August, a newborn child was found in a privy, and in October, the decomposed body of what appeared to be a young woman of wealth was found in a field during plowing. A string of pearls was around her neck, and the bones of her right hand clutched a Bible. That winter, a man was stabbed and left to die in a ditch north of town. Nobody could identify the body. Mr. Thorvaldson offered a gravesite and a stone. The body was buried under the name “Oscar Thorvaldson,” though the deceased was no relation to him.
Doctors came and went. Four had hung up their shingles in five years and then left, taking the shingles with them. One of them was all right if you believed in that sort of thing (roots, mainly, and leaves), one was a drunk, one peddled snake oil, and the other didn’t get much business, so there was no telling about him. A fifth man, Dr. Thompson, was good and left after the diphtheria epidemic of 1866, his own health shattered.
When Dr. Louis Holter, E.D.D., set up shop in 1872, the town had lost faith in the current officeholder, a Dr. Pfeiffer, who dispensed white powders and brown liquids that put his patients in a stupor. Once, after a massive outbreak of dysentery, he dosed them with a combination of the two, and half of New Albion lay flat on its back, seeing faces in the wallpaper.
Dr. Holter brought the most advanced equipment of the day: an electrical chair, solid oak, with a crank in back that the physician turned to create magnetic energy that entered the body through wires and straps and achieved a more perfect balance of forces within the corporal field. The electrical chair, he instructed them, was no
interventive measure
to be called on when illness struck but rather a
preventive
and
restorative
device, meant to be employed on a weekly basis. The patient would notice the benefits only after a serious and sustained program of treatment.
The electrical chair produced a pleasant tingly sensation. One could actually feel
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