Dispute over land led to Peterborough’s last hanging
BOOK EXCERPT: Tensions build as Americans try to make a go of it near Warsaw
This is the second of three exclusive excerpts which will appear in The Examiner from Ed Arnold’s latest book Inside Peterborough; Three Murder Stories. This is from the second story that resulted in the Peterborough’s last hanging.
Jackson and Lee went to work on their new land, although Jackson and Saltern were doing most of the work. Through June and July Jackson worked digging the cellar. Lee got the supplies. The two men slept in the car every night, cooking their food on a fire pit, eating products bought at the Peterborough Market, or shooting rabbits. Neither of them drank alcohol.
Cars had no air conditioning or heating, very little but the body, seating, crank and engine. The Salterns didn’t find the two new neighbours’ living conditions unusual.
Jackson got attracted to two hounds at the Saltern house whenever they visited and took them back to the site where he tied them up at night. Lee fed them rabbit or groundhogs.
The Salterns didn’t seem to have any problem with either man, nor did they seem to harbour any racism or dislike for “coloured” people.
Lee started hunting or fishing wth Harry Saltern and even sat at their table for some meals, always offering a prayer and saying grace. Jackson claimed Lee was staying at the house, more often than in the car, even then.
Lee told the Salterns about being in the Spanish-American War, and that he was a captain in the U.S. Army. They started calling him Cap while Jackson, who said he was a sergeant, became Sarge.
Jackson kept more to himself and stayed at the site most of the time.
Lee would go to Norwood, about 45 minutes away, to buy bags of lime and cement for the cellar foundation once the hole had been built.
But trouble began brewing between the two Americans.
It was in July that Jackson learned his name wasn’t on the deed and demanded Lee get that changed. It was also around July 4 that Lee came to the Saltern house and told Mrs. Saltern that he and Jackson were not getting along.
He wanted to pay off the deed and get back to the Soldiers’ Home in Milwaukee, apparently making the offer for the guns and watch. (Jackson said at no time did she mention any such trade of guns or watch.)
One day at the Peterborough Market Square, which then was below the town clock on Water Street, Jackson told Sarah that Lee had borrowed $100 from him for the land. If Lee was a younger man he would tear him “in strings” if the deed didn’t get changed to both names.
By August 17 the deed was changed, adding Jackson’s name, although Jackson said Lee told him, “I wouldn’t live to enjoy it. I paid no attention to his remarks as I knew he was old and fussy.”
While they were getting along well enough to co-exist there were some days Lee reminded Jackson who was boss.
In early October, when the air was getting cold and some frost was starting to appear on the ground, Lee took out his pistol, a .38 Colt revolver he carried in a small pocket of his pants. Jackson said Lee shot “two or three holes at a sapling and said, “if I can hit that three inch sapling as broad as you are you’d be easy.”
Both of them had revolvers.
Lee seldom showed anyone his, while Jackson had a holster and would often walk around the land with it. Lee also had a shotgun while Jackson had a bolt action 12 shooter .22 rifle
They usually carried firearms which wasn’t unusual for anyone in the dense bush where wolves and lynx were common.
Lee had rheumatism that, along with sleeping in the car when it was cold, was starting to bother him.