Terror in the Gold Camp: The Crimes of Albert Horsley

Terror in the Gold Camp: The Crimes of Albert Horsley by Beth Dodd.
Albert Horsley, remembered by his alias Harry Orchard, committed mass murder near Victor back ... Harry Orchard was born Albert Horsley in Ontario in 1866.

All Eyes on Idaho

All Eyes on Idaho  Pacific Northwest Inlander Haywood Trial (J. Richards collection) Way back in 1907, the Steunenberg murder trial pitted the forces of labor and capital against each other and had an anxious nation holding its breath.

Walter Johnson - The Weiser (Idaho) Wonder sold on eBay

I see there has been quite a lot of action on my Walter Johnson, The Weiser Wonder, blog post. No doubt a lot of searches have been going on in the past week regarding the Johnson postcard on eBay (this link will be active for awhile but I will include the info below).

Ended: May 27, 2013 11:22:58 PDT
Winning bid: US $2,083.85
[ 27 bids ]
Shipping: $2.50 Standard Shipping
Item location: Saint Joseph, Missouri, United States
Seller: woody64

As you see, it sold for over $2k. It went sailing right by me at about $800 as my snipe did not even get into the bidding. That's a lot more than a Steunenberg gate postcard and I thought those were getting pricey!

So who out there was the lucky winner?




To the right is my Walter Johnson card. Must be worth at least 1 cent.


Update 6/2/2013 - This 1909 card of Johnson (left), referred to as his rookie card, just sold on eBay for $6,085. I would still prefer the 1907 Weiser Wonder card, being it is Johnson's very first, that he was in Idaho playing baseball during the Haywood trial, and he provided some much needed entertainment for one Clarence Darrow.
From eBay: 1909 T204 Ramly Walter Johnson ROOKIE PSA 3 VG (PWCC). Among the Most Important Pre-War Issues in the Hobby.                      
Ended:
Jun 02, 2013 12:22:05 PDT
Winning bid: US $6,085.00
[ 32 bids ]

"There will be thoughts and memories of things they will want to save, and stories of all the heroes that are buried in sandy graves." -- Cal A. Steunenberg, Sgt., U.S. Army Signal Co.

You have seen it before but it is a treasured item that I always enjoy looking at and reflecting on during Memorial and Veteran's Days.

Cal Steunenberg somewhere in the Pacific WWII.

A few related blog posts below:

Monday, September 3, 2012

Dog Tags, Ribbons & Pins.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day 2012

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Jule"Juke" Steunenberg killed in air crash 7/20/1946

Saturday, June 6, 2009

Sergeant Cal Steunenberg, 40th Infantry Division, 185th Infantry, 2nd Battalion

And check out my Fold3 account below. I recommend clicking on "Spotlights."

www.fold3.com

Mother's Day 2013

Happy mother's day mom. We miss you but always have you nearby in our hearts.

My beautiful mom, Brenda Steunenberg Richards.

From all of us. You did good and we have all managed to make it to senior citizen status.

From the left-Gary & Beck in the back & Kris & John in the front. Circa 1954. 

Related Blog Posts: 

The Cross Story-Frazier Farmstead Museum

Saturday, March 22, 2008 

Brenda Steunenberg Richards-The Graduate-Class of 1936-Honorary Diploma September 2004

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Brenda Steunenberg Richards

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Brenda Steunenberg Richards

Sunday, May 13, 2012

Happy Mother's Day

Saturday, August 30, 2008

Four Score Ten Years and Counting...

Today in labor history: Big Bill Haywood tried for murder » peoplesworld

Today in labor history: Big Bill Haywood tried for murder » peoplesworld

Harry Orchard's Colt Army?

Here are a few photographs of a Colt Single Action Army that allegedly belonged to Harry Orchard. I became aware of it several years ago after it sold in a James Julia auction. You have read about it elsewhere on this blog.

Sunday, May 29, 2011
Harry Orchard's Colt? Who are P.R.Edington & Rev. Marshall F. Montgomery? Is there an Idaho Pen link? Email if you know these names or have any info.

Saturday, March 6, 2010
Where is Harry Orchard's Colt Single Action Army? Who has it?

Immediately below is the auction description. Unfortunately, it was post-auction when I found it or I might have had this Colt in my gun safe today. However, I was pleased to have the current owner come forth, contact me and provide information and the photographs in this post. I sincerely thank him for doing so. These are the first photographs I have seen of the actual revolver and permission has been granted to publish them here. The auction listing describes the revolver and associated items that were with it.

As a courtesy to the owner, I am not using any names or providing their contact information.  However, we would love to hear your comments, obtain information on this particular gun, previous owners, connections to Orchard, possible sale by Orchard to an Idaho penitentiary warden, guard, etc. Please feel free to email me at: john.t.richards@sbcglobal.net

 

 

 

Byron Johnson Wake by Pat Metzler

I had not spotted this YouTube video until today. Thank you again Pat & Bruce for this peek back at Byron and Assassination: Idaho's Trial of the Century. And most of all, thank you Byron for leaving us this legacy and making it all possible.

If you are receiving this as an email notification, you may not be able to see the YouTube video below. Click on Idaho Meanderings and come to the blog for viewing.

Frank Steunenberg Outstanding Leadership Award

Attorney general honored for work against sex crimes (click here to see the article)
Idaho Press-Tribune
by John Funk BOISE — Idaho Attorney General Lawrence Wasden was caught off guard this week when he received the Frank Steunenberg Outstanding Leadership ...
 

.

Nice to see a familiar face from a few years back. I did not even know there was a Frank Steunenberg Leadership Award. Congratulation Attorney General Wasden for your good work on a cause dear to our hearts too.


2005 with my daughter Caley & Attorney General Wasden under Frank's watchful eyes.

Related Post: 
Monday, January 28, 2008 
Governor Steunenberg's Desk or Desks?

Owen Van Duyn—Continuing from 3/31/13 blog post.

I am finally getting something posted while I have a few minutes. No shortage of material but very busy with life and work so not keeping up the blog lately as well as I would like.

Here we continue the story of Owen Van Duyn (see Sunday, March 31, 2013, Owen M. Van Duyn—Perjurer or Public servant doing his legal duty?).
As in some previous posts, I am utilizing excerpts from Big Trouble. Being it is a rather big book with the regressive/progressive writing style of Lukas, a lot of folks are not able to tackle reading it. So sprinkled throughout the blog I try to give readers a flavor of the pertinent pages that apply to various historical points of interest.

From Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas:
"The new year dawn was cold and clear. At the Canyon County Probate Court, the first business of 1906 was an appearance by Johnson, who presented a complaint charging Hogan with murder in the first degree. Judge M. I. Church, recently recovered from typhoid fever, was on the bench. He issues a warrant and, toward four that afternoon, Nichols and a deputy strode into the Saratoga bar, where Hogan was having a drink—for the first time since his arrival in Caldwell he'd been drinking heavily—and arrested him. Putting up no resistance, he let the sheriff escort him to the office of county prosecutor, Owen Van Duyn, in the courthouse. There Van Duyn advised Hogan of the charges against him."

"...to give his (McParland's) operation the camouflage of routine extradition, it would be necessary for Owen Van Duyn, the county attorney, and M. I. Church, the probate judge, to play out their prescribed roles. Van Duyn would have to file formal complaints against the three federation leaders, and on that basis Church would have to issue warrants for their arrest."

"On February 8, Governor Gooding summoned Van Duyn to the state-house for a cursory briefing on Orchard's confession. At thirty-one the state's youngest prosecutor, Van Duyn was a graduate of the University of Oregon, had read law at a firm in Eugene, and in 1900 had moved to Nampa, where he served one year as city attorney. Since his election as Canyon County attorney in 1904, he'd won over 70 percent of the criminal cases he'd prosecuted. A curious-looking fellow, with slicked-down hair, watery eyes, and a prissy mouth—all of this perched unsteadily atop a dandy's high stretched collar—he was pliant and resolute. To McParland's relief, when Van Duyn heard what the detective had been up to he was 'simply dazed, but did not seem to take any offense that this fact had been concealed from him to the present time.' With that, Hawley took over, instructing Van Duyn in exacting detail as to how the complaints and warrants should be drawn up and how to explain what he was dong to Judge Church, Sheriff Nichols, and Nichol's deputies."
 —Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas

More to come.

*If you would like to take a look at the wonderful old Canyon County Probate Court Criminal Docket shown above, rescued by a dumpster diver, meander on over to the College of Idaho Archives in Sterry Hall, Caldwell, Idaho.

Owen M. Van Duyn—Perjurer or Public servant doing his legal duty?

You have seen similar 'postale' cards on this blog as the one below showing the Caldwell Banking & Trust Co. in Caldwell, Idaho. I have various images of the bank, including several of this same view, so I am usually not looking for any more. However, this one is a bit unique in that it was sent, written on, and signed by a significant player in the investigation of Frank Steunenberg's murder, the subsequent arrest in Colorado of Haywood, Pettibone and Moyer, and the trial of Big Bill Haywood. No, not Darrow, Borah or Hawley, but a major force in Idaho legal circles nonetheless— Owen M. Van Duyn.
Click on the image to enlarge for viewing.

We can see that Van Duyn wasted little time in taking over the upstairs of the bank, including Frank's corner office. Written on the front: "Caldwell, Idaho, December 22, 1906. The offices marked with a X are my law offices. Owen W. VanDuyn."

Van Duyn was elected Attorney for Canyon County in 1905, served three terms/six years, and was holding that office when Frank Steunenberg was assassinated on December 30, 1905. This post card was mailed/dated by Van Duyn almost exactly one year later—December 22, 1906.

The core of the prosecution team was, L to R: William Borah; Owen M. Van Duyn, county attorney of Canyon County (standing); William A. Stone representing the Steunenberg Family & other Caldwell interests; and James Hawley.—From Big Trouble.

It was as Attorney for Canyon County, and working in concert with Pinkerton Detective James McParland and Governor Frank Gooding, that Van Duyn swore out a complaint (sometimes referred to as the perjured affidavit), against Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone.

So was it perjury or was Van Duyn acting legally within the sworn duty of his office?  And what about the subsequent apprehension of Haywood, Pettibone and Moyer in  Colorado by Idaho authorities and transport by train back to Boise to stand trial? Kidnapping or a legal arrest?  What is your opinion?  More to come.

I have not researched to any degree, but I am guessing the card is addressed to Owen's sister in Oregon where many of the Van Duyn's resided and had attended school.

Jack London and the Idaho Miners - Coeur d'Alene Press: Lifestyles

Jack London and the Idaho Miners - Coeur d'Alene Press: Lifestyles: The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea-Wolf are just three of hundreds of writings by Jack London read by children and adults around the…

Another new 'old' photo of the demolished Steunenberg gate from a different angle.

Just when I thought there could not be any newly discovered photographs of the gate after Governor Steuneneberg's assassination, here is another one I acquired just weeks after the other "new" one surfaced. This came in today's mail.

No penny postcards here.  More later.....

Also see:
Friday, January 30, 2009
"The Gate on 16th Avenue" - A Century Ago and Today

A Little Irish Doctoring

Irish Clover

Being St. Patrick’s Day is coming upon us, I started looking through a few items from the Irish side of the family in search of that spark to ignite a good story. So we are putting Steunenberg aside for a moment and moving over to the Richards' and specifically the Costello Irish roots of my paternal grandmother.

Sometimes you don’t have to look too far and have to recognize when the story has already been written for you. Like many celebrations, St. Patrick's day has been lost in the American tendency to use most any real or imagined holiday for personal promotion, cheesy decorations and cards, the sale of anything that can be artificially linked to the day at hand, drunken excesses and for this particular day—everyone suddenly claiming Irish ancestry. Hence, the celebration of St. Patrick has tended to lose its religious and cultural roots. One can still enjoy a good pint of Guinness (I will!) without the need to pee on history and a public street. 

The following story was written by Linda Evans, a new resident back in the 1980’s at the Huntington Assisted Living Facility in Morro Bay. She is writing about another resident by the name of Mary Costello-Richards—my grandmother. I could write a lot of kind things about my Grandma Mary. Heck, I'm her grandson and she spoiled me silly. There is not a shred of anything bad or negative among my memories—only kindness, cuddling, cooking and—Irishness. 

I think the true test is not with a grandson, but when a perfect stranger comes upon you and what they leave with afterwards. The following says it far better than I ever could. 

This story was circulated either as part of a Huntington Newsletter or done independently by Laura—not sure which. The copy I have in not dated. I place it early 1980’s. I have retyped it here for easier reading but have attached the original too. I changed a couple of minor punctuation marks but otherwise left it just as written.    

Open Letter by Laura Evans

  DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE 

There’s a delightful play by Moliere which, when translated, means “The Doctor in Spite of Himself.” We have such a doctor here at the Huntington. She would be incensed if anyone called her a doctor; she might even “get her Irish up." But for all practical purposes she is a doctor-of mental therapy. I don’t know her married name; she was christened Mary Costello in Country Mayo (Ireland) where she was born.

She has no office; she is available for consultation during the second sitting of each meal, daily, at her chair just outside the dining room.

My first consultation was the day after my arrival. I was suffering from acute self-pity. My heart was suffused with grief for Laura Evans, who had to leave home and friends to live in big, cold, unfriendly Huntington. I had just come from dinner (which, because I was forced to confess is delicious, added to my sulkiness), and I was gloomily plodding homeward when a voice as Irish as a yardful of shamrocks called “A very good evening to you!" I stopped, enchanted, and found myself responding in kind—and what is more, cheerfully. We talked and I found that County Mayo is not far from County Cavan, birthplace of the McCaffrey’s, of which I am one.

I left, fairly skipping to my room, thinking, “What a delightful person and what a happy place this is.” She has that effect on everyone; it’s like standing before a cheerful fire, sharing in the generous warmth. She doesn’t say anything spectacularly witty, but I have noticed that people leaving her after a short visit walk with a more sprightly step and wear a broader grin.

Shortly after our first meeting, I asked her if she wouldn’t prefer to eat at the first sitting, we had a vacant place at our table. “Thank ye, darlin’, I can’t”, she answered. “My place is saved for me at the second sitting right next the door.” “Y’see, I can’t go but a step or two alone.”

Perhaps that’s her secret. Life has played a droll little trick depriving her of her ability to go ”but a step or two alone”, but providing a second sitting for her, with a chair “right next the door.”
—Doctor in the House by Laura Evans

(Here is what I am calling Laura's  moral to the story).

Who’s New?

Let’s all stop to greet a new person in the hallway, or a new neighbor in the dining room. You might find that newcomer to be one of life’s great treasures—a new friend. Starting a new life in an unfamiliar place can be a painful and frightening experience. A friendly smile or a few words of encouragement can make a big difference when you feel strange and alone.—by Laura Evans

The Doctor and John

Thank you Laura, and thank you Doctor Grandma Mary. What a counselor you were—with lessons continuing to be learned today. And to think I had to go to college all those years to get those initials after my name! The lessons of your Irish Kindness were far more valuable than all the so-called education that was to come. I may have to go see if I can find that seat—"right next the door." 

Read more about Irish kindness:
Irish Kindness, Chapter 89, pages 204-205

Wild West Assoc. Convention, Boise, ID July 10-13, 2013

The Wild West is coming back to Idaho. Here are a couple photos you have probably seen before showing a little bit of the Wild West that was for hire in Boise during the Haywood trial in 1907. Click on the photos to view on my Fold3 account.

Below is my response to questions Bob Sobba asked through this blogs Guest Book. Since I can't put links in the guest book, and the lights have been turned off in the lower portion of the blog for some unknown reason, I am putting my response here as a general post.  

Bob will be presenting on the Steunenberg Assassination at the Wild West History Association convention taking place this year in Boise, Idaho on July 10-13. 

2/3/2013

Hello Bob. Thank you for your inquiry and comments. I had noticed a while back on the Wild West Association website that you had a presentation planned at the WWHA convention coming up in Boise.

I believe the John S. (there is a brother of the Gov. named John) you reference is actually Frank W. Steunenberg, the youngest son of Gov. Frank & Belle S. Sometimes referred to as Frank Jr. (I will use that notation), he was five years old at the time his father was murdered. Frank Jr. later attended Walla Walla College, graduated in 1924 and entered the Adventist ministry. He has two surviving daughters.

Belle was of course a devoted Adventist by the time of  the assassination. Gov. Frank, as near as I can determine, was not—but at the very least tolerated and accepted Belle’s zeal for Adventism. It was clear a spousal agreement had been reached that the children would be reared in the Adventist church although my grandfather Julian, the eldest child, was somewhat resistant. He relented, attended Walla Walla College circa 1903-05, and met my grandmother Francis—from a family (Beardsley and Wood) with deep roots in the Walla Walla Valley and the college. He was from then on an Adventist for life. 

No doubt, as an outgrowth of her faith, Belle expressed forgiveness toward Orchard and did have some contacts with him in prison.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Mrs. Steunenberg Pardons Slayer Of Her Husband 
The nature and frequency of those contacts has always been hard to determine. Perhaps in person, perhaps through correspondence, and the provision of religious literature no doubt occurred. I am not sure if my grandfather Julian ever visited Orchard in-person but he may have stopped by the prison at the prodding of his mother. Grandpa Julian never spoke about it as those events were taboo around the kitchen table or house.

Although Frank Jr. was indeed later upset about the attention given to Orchard, and lack of given his father, he had actually contributed to Orchard’s story with publication of his book, Greater Love, in 1952. In this small book, Orchard, his alleged religious conversion and forgiveness toward him are the primary topics. The Steunenberg family and Gov. are not the focus—Orchard is.  Toward the end, Frank Jr. mentions a 1911 letter that Orchard wrote to my grandfather Julian “who was not at the time a Christian.” I do have a couple 1909-1911 letters from Orchard to Belle and one to Julian (missing a second page). They are posted on my blog. I recovered these (for a price of course) with several other items. 
Saturday, December 29, 2007 
Letters from Assassin Harry Orchard 

Frank Jr.’s later book (1974), The Martyr of Idaho, was a part of his effort to correct what he then realized had been the glorification of Orchard while his father was relegated to a footnote in history. The book borrows and expands on the family related history mentioned briefly in Greater Love, and takes a more personal family focus both pre and post assassination. Orchard is minimized and there is no discussion of forgiveness, just a mention of God’s judgment. In the text portion covering the bombing, Orchard is hardly mentioned by name and usually referred to as one of the gangsters, murderer, the arrested man, thug”, etc. Here is a news article that came out shortly after publication of the book.

I would be very interested in a copy of the letter from the Caldwell Library if you have one or I can contact the library directly. I am not aware of, nor have I ever seen, any photo of Orchard with Belle or other Steunenberg family members. I have heard that Orchard declined any pictures with Belle or Julian based upon his not being worthy of such.

I will continue to give this more thought and browse my own archives for any relevant facts. Please keep me posted on your progress and preparation for the presentation in July.

With Regards,
John