'Wild' West-ern Wisconsin
By John Russell, Scenes of Yesteryear
Monday, August 4, 2008 11:06 AM CDT
 |
|
Click to enlarge image
Author John E. Hallwas, a professor emeritus at Western University in Illinois, spent 10 years researching and writing the story of the infamous Maxwell brothers.
Submitted graphic/For Dunn County News
|
|
|
Click to enlarge image
|
Think about it, where was the “Wild West” in the United States? I suspect that most of us living in this land of forests and verdant prairies of Wisconsin have the vague idea that those cowboy and Indian lands of the prairie west of the Mississippi deserved the title of the “Wild West.” We have a tendency to forget that the Pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock must have had some second thoughts when they saw that first sunset over a truly wild west.
After the American Revolution ended in 1783 and the subsequent Louisiana Purchase in 1803, the “wild west” had a new horizon — the nation west of the Mississippi River. It was then the gentrified press of eastern newspapers featured stories about the bad men of the plains, paying scant attention to the still “wild’ Wisconsin.
There were isolated incidents such as Raymond Holzse holding up stagecoaches in northeast Wisconsin in the 1890s that were reported, but those incidents paled when compared to the exploits of Edward and Alonzo Maxwell, two brothers living in Hersey in 1881.
Bad blood
This brief career of murder and mayhem by the two brothers began when Ed, just released from a prison in Joliet, Ill., came to live with Alonzo in Hersey in early 1881.
Alonzo was living there with his very young wife, and working in a stave factory in Knapp. It was then that the two brothers first began their lives as horse thieves and burglars in western Wisconsin and Minnesota. They spent much of their time in the Eau Galle, Dunn County, and surrounding area.
Ed’s arrival in Hersey was not a good move. It interrupted Alonzo’s efforts to earn an honest living to support his loving young wife who was expecting a child.
Ed evidently convinced his brother about the easy methods of gaining wealth through crime. They were active enough in the area to draw the attention of area lawmen, and when the two brothers were spotted just north of Durand, the time to apprehend them had come.
Risky business
It just happened that Dunn County under sheriff Milton Coleman was in town with a prisoner heading for Wabasha, Minn. When he heard that the Maxwells were in the area, he put his prisoner into the Pepin County jail and joined his brother, Charles, the former sheriff of Pepin County, and Pepin County under sheriff, Miletus Knight, in an attempt to capture the Maxwells.
In her booklet, “They Died at Their Posts, A True Historical Account of Murder and Lynching on the Wisconsin Frontier, 1881, 1976,” Christine Granger Klatt wrote:
“Several citizens who knew their mission told the officers not to run so great a risk in attempting to capture, without assistance, two such desperate men, armed to the teeth with revolvers, double-barreled shotguns and Winchester rifles, and urged them to take a posse of armed men along. But they declined all assistance and went alone, each armed with revolvers and double-barreled shotguns, loaded with small shot.
“They proceeded up the street leading to the Eau Claire road, enquiring of parties as they went along if they had seen any armed persons. Arriving at the house of a man named Dorchester, they made inquiry of a couple of boys who were on the porch. The boys had seen no such persons, and came out to the gate.
Showdown
“It was now in the dusk of the evening, between eight and nine o’clock. While they were talking, Milton looked down the street toward the village and saw two men walking side by side, coming towards them, close to the fence by which they were standing. Charles was talking to the boys, when his brother said, ‘Hush! There they are now.’
“The Colemans cocked their guns, and the men continued to approach leisurely. Milton stood near the fence and Charles stepped about six feet from the fence and two or three feet to the rear of his brother. Both held their guns at a ‘ready.’ Milton brought his gun to his shoulder, leveled it on Alonzo and said, ‘You are my...’ He never finished his sentence, for that instant the Williams [Maxwells] fired, and the fatal ball passed through his neck, breaking it, and severing the veins and arteries in its course. At almost the same instant Milton fired and fell dead. After firing the second shot, Alonzo turned and ran back down the street where they were first seen.
“Seconds later Charles Coleman was shot and killed, and Ed Maxwell escaped, but now the brothers had these murders on their records.”
New books
This month two major books about the Maxwells have reached bookstores throughout the nation: “Brothers in Blood, The True Story of Ed and Alonzo Maxwell,” by Les Kruger, and “Dime Novel Desperadoes, The Notorious Maxwell Brothers,” by John E. Hallwas.
Both books go into great detail about the renegade brothers and their exploits, not only in Wisconsin, but also in a half dozen states in the Midwest.
Author Kruger, of Owen Sound, Ont., a former school teacher, spent three years researching and visiting he sites of the brother’s exploits. His book is illustrated with more than 50 photographs and maps.
John Hallwas, a professor emeritus at Western University in Illinois, spent 10 years on his story of the Maxwells. He notes that dime novels and tabloids, such as “Boys of New York,” illustrated the exploits of the Williams Brothers, the alias used by the Maxwells.
His hard cover book, also profusely illustrated and with a helpful index, is the better of the two books in my opinion, but anyone interested in the brothers should have copies of both books in their library. You will not be disappointed.
State’s largest manhunt
On the back cover of “Brothers in Blood,” Kruger notes,
“Ed and Alonzo Maxwell, a pair of petty burglars and horse thieves, shot their way into history in 1881 on the streets of Durand, Wisconsin. As an act of revenge for the loss of Alonzo’s beloved teen-aged wife, they gunned down two lawmen during a savage gunfight. The killings on those quiet streets that night stirred up something ominous in the area’s citizens.
“This sparked Wisconsin’s largest manhunt. The Maxwells terrorized the Midwest as they eluded capture. Three months later, they cemented their place in infamy by killing another sheriff and wounding two deputies during a brazen daylight gunfight in Hardin, Illinois. Another shootout with the law and Ed’s capture at Grand Island, Nebraska set the stage for a dramatic finale.
“No other desperadoes in American history have killed as many lawmen. Jesse James, Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin, the Daltons, and other “bad guys” pale in this respect to the Maxwell brothers.”
Hallwas also notes, “Public outrage sparked the largest manhunt for outlaws in American history, involving some twenty posses who pursued the desperadoes in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, Missouri, and Nebraska.”
Mob rule
A comment on the book jacket states, “Every overview and encyclopedia of American outlaws will need to be revised, and the fabled ‘Wild West’ will have to be extended east of the Mississippi River, in response to this riveting chronicle of major American desperadoes who once thrilled the nation but have since escaped historical attention for well over a century.”
When Ed was eventually captured at Grand Island, Neb., he was brought back to Menomonie and placed in the Dunn County Jail, a two-story brick building on the southwest corner of Ninth Avenue and 10th Street, currently a parking lot serving Our Savior’s Lutheran Church.
There was some concern about sending him on to Durand because of the possibility of mob rule. Ed was taken to Durand to await trial.
On Saturday, Nov. 19, 1881, after he made his initial plea of “not guilty,” he was dragged from the courthouse by an angry mob that immediately hanged him from a tree on the courthouse grounds.
John Russell, a local photographer and Dunn County resident, writes a weekly column for The Dunn County News. He is curator emeritus of the Dunn County Historical Society. |
Archives