cc  >> I'd like to welcome you all  to the Wisconsin Historical  Museum, and please help me in  welcoming our speaker, Les who  is going to talk about the  Alonzo brothers, or the Maxwell  brothers, Ed and Alonzo.  (applause)  >> Thank you very much  for coming.  I am Les Kruger  and that is my book.  Couple of words first.  First of all the hat, people ask  me why are you wearing a cowboy  hat?  Well, this is very much a  western story, very much a  Midwestern story.  So many elements of this story  could be right out of Texas, New  Mexico, Arizona but it happens  to be out of Wisconsin.  And it was a case of either the  cowboy hat or the cheesehead.  (laughter)  No, the cowboy hat will do.  Couple comments about the book.  First of all, the language is  very clean. 

 In spite of what's happened in  the past, I wanted a book that I  could be proud of.  I wanted a book that my  grandchildren could read or my  grandmother and not be offended  by the language so that much I  managed to accomplish.  The two individuals involved in  this that are highlighted, Ed  Maxwell and his brother Alonzo  Maxwell, I in no way want to  glorify or turn into an urban  legend.  The real heroes of this story,  of course, are the law  enforcement agencies that were  involved.  It's very much a love story.  A love story between these two  brothers, also a love story  between the two brothers that  they murder.  It also involved an awful lot of  love between Alonzo and his  wife.  In fact, that was a motivating  factor for a great deal of what  happened in this book.  They tell me I can wander around  and take this thing with me, but  I don't know how to do it,  >> It should just, yes, there  you go.  >> Got it. 

 The story, as I said, is very  much a Wisconsin story.  We're off to Durand and in  Durand the courthouse still  stands.  The courthouse today is a  museum, wonderful museum to  spend some time at.  The upstairs courthouse is  exactly the same today as it was  in 1881 when this story actually  occurred.  1881, the main street of Durand  was painted in 1881, and that is  exactly what it looked like.  Things were an awful lot  different back then including  transportation.  We had stagecoach and buggies,  horse and buggies.  Steamships on the Chippewa  River.  The Chippewa River today is far  too shallow to be running  steamships but there they were  then.  Trains, of course, were running  back in the 1880s and even in  death your transportation mode  was considerably different. 

 This was one of the last  stagecoaches to operate in  Wisconsin.  Now, somebody just asked me  recently, minutes ago, why we  never heard of this story.  Largely in part because of this  man.  This was President James  Garfield.  And James Garfield had the  misfortune of being assassinated  just about exactly the same time  that our story was taking place.  He was assassinated by Charles  Guiteau, who was described as a  maniac.  Look at those eyes.  Well, Charles Guiteau  assassinated Garfield and  Garfield passed away just about  exactly the same time, give our  take a week or so, of the time  of the murder of the third  sheriff.  And so each time those things  took precedent in the newspaper,  and the Maxwell story got kind  of buried a little bit in  history in spite of the fact  that they were the objects of  the largest manhunt ever.  The canon, a civil war relic. 

 Those of you that have read the  book or are going to read the  book will find the significance  of exactly this particular  location.  This was in Perryville in  Kentucky.  But the Civil War canon I've  placed up here right now simply  to remind you that this is just  a matter of some 15-16 years  after the end of the Civil War.  And that had a great deal of  reflection on the events that  were to transpire.  You have to kind of keep in mind  the attitudes of the society  back then some 15 years, as I  say, after the Civil War.  Things were an awful lot  different in terms of the way  people felt about things.  There was a very definite line  between right and wrong.  And also to see people walking  around carrying guns and rifles  had a totally different reaction  than it does today.  It seemed to be almost  acceptable.  This is David Maxwell's  tombstone. 

 David Maxwell is the father of  the two boys that we're going to  be discussing in this story.  But I put him up here to remind  us that photography was much  different back then.  It was very, very difficult to  find pictures of people who  lived and died back in the  1880s.  Very often if you had a  photograph taken of yourself  during your lifetime, you're  probably considered very lucky.  Photography was very different.  It was very expensive.  But one other comment I'd like  to make too, go back again, I  hunted for a long time in my  research to find which regiment  this man had been attached to  during the Civil War.  I knew he fought, I knew he was  for the Union, but I didn't know  where he'd been attached as far  as his regiment was concerned.  And I discovered that when you  want truth about an individual  you're looking for some factual  information, you very often find  it on tombstones.  Families didn't have wrong  information chiseled on their  loved ones' stones and so quite  often if I wanted to know  something I'd find the tombstone  and I would get an awful lot of  information there that I  couldn't get elsewhere. 

 Simple things like middle  initials and dates of deaths or  births would appear on  tombstones.  By the way, I spent three years  researching this book, I saw an  awful lot of tombstones.  (laughter)  David Maxwell brought  his family to Illinois and they  did some settlement there.  He had a family, at that time,  of the two oldest boys and one  girl.  And they homesteaded in  Illinois.  Ed Maxwell, the oldest boy, is  the one that managed to sort of  drive this story.  Ed Maxwell started his career in  crime in Blandinsville,  Illinois, where he was working  outside the town on a small farm  but he managed to go into the  town and in Dines store swiped a  pair of pants.  And Dines followed him out to  the farm and managed to find the  pants in the house while the  deputy tried to make the arrest  outside.  Ed, going too fast for me here,  Ed managed to steal the deputy's  horse and off he went with the  warning you will never take me  alive.  He did those same two things  several times during his career,  steal the other person's horse  and swore up and down he would  never be taken alive. 

 He was caught, eventually, and  given one year in Joliet prison.  When he returned from Joliet, he  went to Osco Nebraska.  And in Osco his parents had  moved and were living at the  time, he was looking for his  younger brother, his younger  brother Alonzo.  Osco, by the way, this is a map  of Nebraska to give you a rough  idea where to locate these  places.  Alonzo was absolutely under Ed's  spell.  He had been continually from the  time that they were youngsters,  and when Ed suggested that they  go back to Illinois and pursue a  life of crime there, Alonzo was  all for it.  He was bored in Nebraska.  This kid is 17 years old, he was  looking for some entertainment,  he was looking for excitement in  his life and, as I said, he was  certainly influenced heavily by  his brother Ed.  They started a career that was  just a career of petty crimes.  They were involved in breaking  and entering into houses. 

 If you had anything laying  around your farm, horse  equipment, tack of any kind,    that would probably disappear  too, and more than anything  they were horse thieves.  This is sort of the 1880s  equivalent of car theft today, I  suppose.  But they made a mistake as most  criminals do.  They stole a horse and buggy  from this man.  And Mr. Niece happened to be,  I'm not sure what the American  term for it is, the Canadian  term is crowned attorney.  This is one of the people in law  enforcement you don't want to  mess with.  He has an awful lot of power.  But they made the mistake of  stealing Mr. Niece's horse and  buggy so he sent the forces  after them.  They were located in Beardstown,  and they traveled, by the way,  up and down the Mississippi  River in a skiff and every once  in a while they would put in  somewhere to pick up supplies or  do some more thefts and they put  in at Beardstown.  When Ed went into the general  store to pick up some supplies,  Alonzo stayed in the boat and Ed  was wrestled to the ground by  the sheriff there and his  deputies and then they went down  to the boat and located Alonzo. 

 There was a small gun fight  there; one shot was fired by  Alonzo, but they managed to make  both captures.  They were taken back to McComb  jail where they were  incarcerated.  But neither of these boys were  really crazy about the idea of  staying in jail any length of  time and they hatched a plan to  escape.  The plan was to involve Alonzo,  Ed and one other prisoner.  Well, during the escape, Ed and  the other prisoner managed to  get out alright; Alonzo was  forced to stay.  Alonzo was eventually sent to  Joliet and Ed was captured in  Colchester, I did that in  reverse order, but Colchester  was the place where they had  escaped to.  Alonzo was sent to Joliet prison  and he was given, I believe, it  was five years.  Now keep in mind he started his  five years before Ed because Ed  managed to make an escape to  Stillwater, Minnesota.  Ed was not peaceable by any  stretch of the imagination and  while he was on the levee at  Stillwater, he was shooting his  gun.  That wasn't unusual at that  point but it did catch the  attention of the local forces,  and the chief of police went out  to tell Ed to stop doing what  he's doing. 

 Ed simply turned the gun on the  chief of police and told him he  had about three seconds to get  out of there or he'd shoot them.  This was very typical of Ed.  The chief of police was very  tactful and he left but later  managed to make the capture of  Ed after he realized he was  wanted in Illinois.  And he was incarcerated then in  the jail at Stillwater.  This fellow, Gladden Farwell,  once again a captain from the  Civil War, was sent to  Stillwater to pick up Ed to take  him back to McComb, Illinois, to  face the music.  Ed had been on the lam at that  point for just a little over a  year.  Gladden Farwell had been a  captain in the Civil War was not  about to take anything from the  likes of Ed Maxwell, and Ed was  taken back to McComb and was  given his time into Joliet  prison.  Notice I put the prison up there  a little bit larger.  And Ed was given, I believe it  was six years, I forgot the  exact numbers now, I think it  was six years, and he'd already  been out a year more than his  brother Alonzo.  During that time right after his  release, Alonzo found himself in  Hersey, Wisconsin, which is just  a little bit north, a very small  community just a little bit  north of Menominee. 

 And while he was in, okay we can  see it there on the map, while  he was in Hersey, he met and  fell in love with a sweet young  thing by the name of Fannie  Hussy.  Alonzo and Fannie were married,  settled into some housekeeping  of their own.  Fannie's stepmother, or sorry,  mother and stepfather lived in  Hersey as well so they had a  support system there as well.  And Alonzo managed to get  himself a job just out of Knapp,  which is immediately next door  to Hersey, working in the bush.  During the winter his axe  slipped and cut the toe next to  his large toe.  Cut it so badly, in fact, that  it had to be amputated.  Now that sounds like a small  incident but it turned out to  have some major consequences for  Alonzo because with the  amputated toe he forever had a  recognizable sign about him.  A little bit today, I suppose,  like having a tattoo.  But he lost his toe and it made  a huge difference.  He also lost his job. 

 That was significant.  He could no longer work in the  bush with this infected foot.  Well, about the same period of  time, Ed was released from  prison as well, and he showed up  in Hersey and came to live with  Fannie and Alonzo.  Fannie by this point was  pregnant, Alonzo was out of work  with little future for any more  income and Ed knew best how to  make a cheap living.  Back to breaking into houses,  breaking into barns and horse  theft.  Well, they didn't just do it in  Wisconsin.  Traveled back and forth on the  Mississippi.  Now I forget a very important  point.  When Alonzo came to Wisconsin,  he made a significant change in  his life.  He changed his name. 

 And when he went to Wisconsin he  was then known as David Lawrence  Williams.  Well, Ed was no dummy.  When he came to Wisconsin to  live with Fannie and Alonzo he,  too, adopted the last name  Williams, he kept his first name  Ed.  And they were then known as the  Williams brothers.  As they began to get into petty  problems, petty trouble again in  the Hersey area, they were known  as the Williams brothers, but  traveling back and forth on the  Mississippi they went back down  to Illinois, their old stomping  grounds, they knew where to  commit crimes easily, but back  there they were still known as  the Maxwell brothers.  Now to answer your question why  these people were so difficult  to research and we didn't get to  hear about them very easily?  Quite simply they were Maxwells  in Illinois, they were Williams  in Wisconsin and don't forget  communication then was not what  it is today.  Using wire service meant the  telegraph for the most part.  But back in Illinois they were  back to house breaking, stealing  from the farms and horse theft.  But they were very well  recognized in Illinois for their  crimes.  Their trademarks were quite  common. 

 Back in Wisconsin they had  stolen another horse and buggy.  They arranged to leave it with  an elderly lady with a promise  to pay her later for the board  of the animal.  This gentleman was under Sheriff  Miletus Knight from Durand.  And he caught wind of the fact  that the buggy had been left at  Mrs. Send's house, got all the  details and went to interrogate  Alonzo's 17-year-old pregnant  wife.  He wanted to know where the boys  were, what they were up to and  he was looking, of course, to  make an arrest.  Well, Fannie Hussy was a very  shy, introverted young lady  apparently and the interrogation  caused her an awful lot of  emotional grief, so much so in  fact that she went into early  child labor and she died.  She lost the baby as well.  The wagon and the horse  supposedly were the excuse that  the boys came back for to find  in Durand, that wasn't the case.  What they were looking for was  revenge for the death of  Alonzo's wife.  Now I want to show you  something, if I can remember  where I put this thing,  something rather interesting  here. 

 Now remember what I said that  Alonzo changed his name to David  Lawrence Williams when he went  to Wisconsin and that's what he  was married under, by the way.  The obituary for Fannie got part  of it changed.  He was then in the obituary  recognized as Alonzo Williams  but by the time the tombstone  had been erected for her as a  marker for her on the grave,  he's now recognized as Alonzo  Maxwell.  That was kind of significant.  But down at the bottom, I think  we'll go to the next frame.  No, I took it out.  Can you back up just one a  little bit?  The inscription at the bottom,  this is very characteristic back  in that time period was to put  inscriptions at the bottom of  the tombstones.  Usually they were a quote from  the bible or some significant  passage from a book but this one  quite obviously had been an  inscription from the heart.  I'm suspecting that it was  probably written by her mother.  It's addressed Dear Fannie. 

 I was able to make out  individual words, short words in  it, but for the most part it's  illegible.  Which is really unfortunate but  time has simply made it  illegible; I couldn't read it.  Alonzo and Ed spent a couple of  nights weeping over Fannie's  grave in the cemetery and during  that time he was making it  definite that he wanted revenge.  By the way, she's buried right  next to her sister who passed  away some years before.  That's the sister's grave and  this one is Fannie's.  They took the ferry and crossed  the Chippewa River into the town  of Durand, and while they were  there they came looking for  Miletus Knight.  But the operator of the ferry  recognized them and made a  beeline after they crossed the  Chippewa, made a beeline for the  sheriff's office.  It turned out Miletus Knight was  not there, but Milton Coleman  was.  Milton Coleman was actually the  sheriff from Menominee, and he  was passing through town with a  prisoner.  He put the prisoner in the  Durand jail for the time being  while he was to have supper with  his brother Charles, who was a  young sheriff from Durand, and  Charles and Milton were planning  simply a meal for the evening  when they got word that the  Maxwells were in town. 

 Well, I indicated in my book  that if the story has a hero  at all it's this man.  His name is James Anderson.  When you go to the back chapter,  the last chapter I call it their  final chapters, in fact you'll  learn a great deal more about  James Anderson.  He eventually became a Senator,  he became quite a dignitary in a  number of other fields in the  state of Illinois.  But while he was sheriff in --  he sent out postcards to all the  nearby states alerting them to  the Maxwell brothers.  Now remember in Wisconsin they  were known as the Williams  brothers, and so he was the one  that actually sent out the red  alert for these guys.  Well, the gun fight in which the  two brothers were killed, the  two Coleman brothers, the  sheriffs, took place just about  where this intersection is  today.  At that time the intersection  did not exist, there used to be  a house located here.  When the Maxwells came down the  road, they were recognized by  the Coleman brothers and the gun  fight that ensued probably took  maybe 30 seconds, and at the end  of that time Milton Coleman and  Charles Coleman both lay dead in  the streets.  The two Maxwell brothers managed  to make it and escape. 

 They had both been wounded but  in the meantime Charles Maxwell  died in the streets of Durand,  he was buried in the Durand  cemetery.  Milton Coleman was taken back to  Menominee.  Now they said that the day he  was buried, there was nobody  left in the streets, they were  all out looking for the Maxwells  as part of the posses.  And Milton's funeral had to take  place a few days later when  people had returned to be able  to do it.  They made their escape into the  Ogalla River bottoms and that's  a picture of part of it.  As you can see that's pretty  thick stuff, but these boys knew  the bottoms like the back of  their hand and they were able to  hide themselves for quite some  time.  In the meanwhile the largest man  hunt ever was taking place all  through the area around Ogalla.  Part of the people that were  leading that hunt were what was  known as the Ludington Guard.  I can never remember these  people's names but I remember  this guy's middle name, sorry  his nickname, is Buck and Buck  eventually became sheriff of  Menominee as well, took over the  position.  What they did not know was that  the Maxwells, the Williams,  whatever they called themselves,  had managed to make it back to  the Mississippi again and headed  back to the land they knew best  and back to Illinois. 

 This time they managed to get  off the Mississippi and over to,  I don't think it shows on here  very well, but the Illinois  River runs almost parallel to  the Mississippi.  And they found themselves  recognized by a sheriff in the  town of Pearl while they were  out squirrel hunting, he was out  squirrel hunting with his son  but ran into the Maxwells, and  they had managed to convince him  that they weren't but he  believed that they were.  It's now fall, by the way.  The murder of the Colemans had  happened in July, we're talking  now September of 1881.  They had been located up here at  Pearl.  By the time the posses managed  to pick up their trail again  they're all the way back down  here.  And this is only a distance, by  the way, of probably about 30  miles but remember everybody's  on foot and horses, and they  found themselves down in this  area here around -- and we're  going to talk a minute about Fox  Creek.  They managed to make their  escape through the bush.  Again, this is country that they  knew very well.  They found themselves at a  Mrs. Ames' house. 

 And what they did was very  characteristic again of the time  period.  They simply went up to the house  and asked if she would supply  them with a breakfast.  You have to remember too this  was common back then.  There were no hotels, there were  no restaurants in the way there  are today, and people simply  asked for a meal somewhere and  either worked it off in the hay  field or worked it off in the  wood pile.  And it was quite acceptable  then.  And to see two men walking  around with rifles in their  hand, as I said earlier, nobody  really thought much about it.  Mrs. Ames gave them their  breakfast and after breakfast Ed  offered to pay the lady.  She said no, no that's fine.  That was just the kind of lady  she was.  But Ed was a pretty decent sort  too, and don't make any mistake  about that. 

 In fact, sometimes when he was  in jail often he used to ask for  Christian material for reading  material.  But he was actually a pretty  nice guy except for the fact  that he killed sheriffs.  (laughter)  Well, he took a 50-cent piece  out of his pocket  and gave it to the young  9-year-old girl.  After finding out what happened  shortly after that, the little  Ames girl hung on to that  50-cent piece for quite some  time, in fact I was able to  track it as late as 1956.  I don't know where it is now.  When they left they headed out  and across the cornfield.  At about the same time the posse  was coming down the road and  recognized that somebody was on  the other side of the cornfield  carrying a rifle.  One of the posse members rode  across the cornfield to catch up  with them there and the other  posse member, one of the other  deputies, a man by the name of  John Churchman, rode down Fox  Creek.  Sheriff John Lammy, you can't  make it out in this picture but  there's an open field on this  side.  The trees only grew along the  edge of Fox Creek, and Sheriff  John Lammy rode the field  parallel to the creek. 

 Well, when they got together,  the fellow coming from the other  end and John Churchman coming  from this end met but they  hadn't found anybody in the  creek until exactly that point  when they did meet the fellow  with the gun jumped up.  The gun fight took place.  During that gun fight John  Churchman was badly wounded.  The other man had his rifle shot  out of his hands and his rifle  was destroyed at the time and  the two of them took shelter  behind a tree.  John Lammy rode down from field  and into the creek bed.  John Churchman yelled to him,  John hide, they're both named  John by the way, hide because  this man will shoot you.  And just at that point when John  Lammy dismounted from his horse,  and he was shooting as we went,  he took a bullet in the head and  died.  John Lammy was a very well  respected sheriff in the town of  Hardin.  To this day he has the largest  tombstone in the cemetery.  And that was courtesy of the  entire town, the entire farming  community around it, all getting  together, chipping in and buying  that man the biggest tombstone  they could find, that money  could buy. 

 Simply says while in the  discharge of the duty of sheriff  of Calhoun County.  But, as the said, to this day he  still has the largest tombstone  ever.  Just a side note, as a result of  the research that I did on this  book, John Lammy was recognized  on the fallen officers memorial  in the state of Illinois.  He had somehow been missed,  somehow been overlooked, I took  it upon myself to find out why  he wasn't on that list.  May of 2007, he was inducted on  the National Monument in  Washington, DC.  Well, the Maxwells continued on  after that fight and headed for  Iowa.  Their family was still back in  Osco, Nebraska, and they headed  off for Nebraska.  When they, we're going to be  looking at this area right now.  Osco's over here.  They got as far as the area  around Grand Island, north of  Hastings, and there they asked  again for shelter for the night. 

 They passed themselves off as  goose hunters, but unfortunately  they made the mistake of course  of calling themselves goose  hunters when they're using heavy  rifles.  Another sheriff and deputies and  a posse got together and had  been alerted to the fact that  these two men were here.  When Alonzo left the two-room  cabin that they had been in.  He went out the to barn for  either a nature call, check on  the horses, whatever, that was  the time for the posse to take  on Ed by himself.  And they managed to capture Ed  in the building, got him  manacled, and at that point Ed  let out a war hoop which was a  call, signal that he had had  with Alonzo when Alonzo came  back with guns blazing.  There was a tremendous gun fight  outside of the place, but  unfortunately Alonzo had a  limited amount of ammunition for  his gun.  Ironically, all the ammunition  for that gun, Ed had.  It was a short gun fight, and at  that point Alonzo disappeared.  Ed was taken back to Pepin  County to Durand to face the  music.  This, by the way, is the gun  that was captured from him that  night. 

 Before they took him they had  his picture taken.  Well, he wasn't going to make a  good picture.  He did this deliberately, tried  to disguise himself so that the  picture wouldn't reflect just  exactly who he was.  Now they insisted he either take  a picture or else.  So he finally decided to get a  haircut, get a shave, smile for  the camera.  There's another story behind why  they had to have the picture and  I'm going to let you discover  that one in the book, it was  some mistaken identities.  That picture, by the way, always  reminds me of Charles Manson.  Think back a few years.  It does look like Charles  Manson.  He was put on the train, taken  back to Menominee where he was  then deboarded from the train,  put on buggy and across the  Chippewa River back to the  courthouse in Durand. 

 The courthouse in Durand today  looks exactly the same, as I  said earlier, today as it did  then.  And that's just pretty much what  it looked like when Ed Maxwell  stood there and said not guilty.  Well they determined they had  enough evidence to hold him for  trial.  At the top of the stairs, the  courthouse by the way is on the  second floor, at the top of the  stairs Ed made his last journey  down the courthouse stairs.  At bottom of the stairs a group  of men on this side ushered all  the sheriffs and deputies down  the hall that way.  Ed was taken out the front door  still wearing this ball and  chain on his leg.  He was handcuffed wearing the  ball and chain and he was taken  out on the front lawn where he  was lynched.  Remember now, Wisconsin didn't  have capital punishment.  I don't think it's ever had  capital punishment.  Lynching in Wisconsin was quite  common apparently. 

 The first sheriff that was ever  murdered in Wisconsin was also  killed by pair of brothers who  were also taken out of the jail  and lynched in the town of  Stevens Point.  Well, Ed Maxwell met his end on  that tree which no longer exists  because there's now an addition  put on one of the courthouse  buildings.  Well, everybody wants to know  what happened to Alonzo Maxwell.  Read the book.  (laughter)  Well, the story is  this way.  What I was able to learn was  there was actually a possibility  of two stories, both of them  took me out to Montana.  The first story suggested that  he had been caught for something  else, was going to be sentenced  to a trip to Deer Lodge.  On the stagecoach ride to Deer  Lodge he was handcuffed but  managed to escaped out the  stagecoach window.  Two years later a skeleton was  found in the desert still  wearing handcuffs.  Made a wonderful story and I  wish it was true, but all the  research I did found that none  of it was true. 

 There were no records whatsoever  of either the arrest, the  stagecoach, anybody finding any  kind of body in the desert.  But the second story is little  bit more plausible, suggested  that he had taken up farming  once again by himself.  And this time found himself in  an argument with another man  over a woman.  He was living apparently under  the name William Spencer.  He was acquitted of the murder  of the other man and simply went  on living on as William Spencer.  Well, a little bit later William  Spencer, and by the way there is  an S under there, I could make  it out just barely but it's  under there and the records all  show it's Spencer, in 1915 blew  his head off with a shotgun.  Whether or not it really was  Alonzo Maxwell, I think only a  DNA test would ever prove it for  sure, for certain.  Frankly, I've always been a  little skeptical about that  story as well.  If I were taking bets my first  bet would be placed I think he  went back somewhere to Nebraska  close to his family, but again  no way to prove that one either.  He was known for living under an  alias so this works I guess. 

 Well, I called the story  "Brothers in Blood."  I took that out of a newspaper  article that had been written  back in the 1880s about these  two boys.  It was actually, I think it was  the McComb paper.  But I added this much to it as  well, it's The True Story of Ed  and Alonzo Maxwell because there  were so many, so much  misinformation out there, so  many other stories that came  close, but I had an awful time  sorting out fact from fiction  and part of that happened,  you'll discover when you read  the chapter dealing with the  sensational St. Paul Press,  St. Paul Pioneer Press.  The editor had sent a reporter  to Durand to cover the trial of  Ed Maxwell.  That was suppose to have  happened at 10:00 o'clock in the  morning.  Something went wrong.  We're not sure what.  But in any event the trial was  postponed to 2:00 o'clock that  afternoon.  Now whether the reporter had to  meet a stage, catch the right  ferry, got bored, who knows, but  he left.  And when Ed Maxwell was finally  lynched after 2:00 o'clock in  the afternoon the reporter  caught wind of it when he was in  Menominee, but he wrote the  story anyway. 

 Now it wasn't very factual.  It wasn't true and he got into  an awful editorial match with  the editor of the Durand  newspaper.  But in any event to this day  anybody researching this story  seems to find their details from  the original story written by  the St. Paul Pioneer  Press reporter.  And I can always spot the wrong  ones because he makes reference  to hang him, burn him, I forget  what the other one, lynch him I  guess it was that the crowd was  suppose to have yelled.  Well, none of that had ever  happened along with a number of  other details.  So I've called my book the true  story, and I will stand behind  anything that's written in the  text, and as I said I spent  three years researching it so I  know it's the true story.  Okay, at this point does anyone  have any questions they'd like  to ask my able assistant Grace?  Grace is my ears.  I don't hear very well.  That comes from 30 years in the  classroom.  (laughter)  Does anyone have any  questions?  >> How many people did they  eventually kill?  >> As far as I know they only  murdered the three sheriffs. 

 Ed Maxwell was not a bad  individual.  Neither was Alonzo, as far as  that goes.  They seemed to be pretty decent  people.  The only time they ever got into  the gun fights was when they  were first pressured to do that.  In fact their father made that  similar comment about them that  they were good men and they'd  been shot at first.  It was all self-defense  according to dad.  That's not the way the rest of  the officers saw it.  >> Why was so much of this  centered up in Pepin, Pepin  County?  >> Why was so much of the story  centered up in Pepin County?  >> I suppose because that's  where the original killings took  place.  They had lived in Dunn County  which is north of Pepin.  But when Fannie's parents moved  to Pepin County that brought a  lot of the action back south  again. 

 And so that's where the first  two sheriffs were killed was  actually in Pepin County, not  Dunn County, and I believe  that's the reason for it.  >> Were they killed in Pepin?  >> Yes, they were.  Now the third sheriff was killed  in Calhoun County.  But that was in another state   entirely.  Those by the way were the only  two law officers ever killed in  Pepin County.  Let's keep it that way too.  >> How did you get interested in  this story?  What was your background?  How did you get interested in  this story?  >> I'm going to have to write  this down.  Everybody asks me.  I love ghost towns.  That's sort of a forte with me. 

 I love crawling around in ghost  towns, and I was looking for a  story to do for a magazine  article that dealt with a murder  that apparently took place in a  ghost town just outside of  Menominee called Fall City.  Long story short, it turned out  the murder I was chasing didn't  take place that way.  There was a murder but it wasn't  really a story.  But while I was researching that  I happened to come across an  article or a line that said this  was about the same time the two  sheriffs were murdered in  Durand, and I just wanted to  know a little bit more about  that.  It was just curiosity.  But the more I dug into that  story, the more questions I got.  It just became so intriguing.  It was unlike any other murder  story I've ever come across.  I guess the love elements  involved kind of intrigued me a  little bit, and the more I got  into it I just found it such an  intriguing story that I couldn't  let it go.  Because there were the aliases,  the two states, so many  different law agencies that were  involved, I just had to know the  end of the story. 

 Unfortunately, my trips out to  Montana didn't give me  everything I wanted to know but  I was sure happy with what I did  find.  >> Will your book ever be on  audiotapes?  >> Will the book ever be on  audiotapes?  >> That's a good question.  First of all, I can't read, I  just look at the pictures so  they'd have to get a really good  reader to put it on audiotape.  (laughter)  >> Well, I have a  vision problem so I would love  to read your book but I can't  because of my vision but I do  listen to a lot of audio  biographies and things like that  and stories.  >> And if I had three or four  nights for you I'd come and sit  and read it for you.  (laughter)  I've actually been  kind of pleased because I had a  number of people comment on the  fact that they've read it either  in one or two sittings.  I had one fellow tell me just  sat up all night reading the  story.  He said I just couldn't let that  one go.  I've had people tell me that  they've read this book three and  four times.  So that sort of thing has been  encouraging. 

 Whether anybody makes an  audiotape, I don't know.  >> I see up on top there's a  quote that says it's from a  descendent of Ed and Alonzo  Maxwell.  >> I tried to contact  descendents of all the main  people involved in the story,  and I had an awful time locating  anybody that was related to  Maxwells.  I took a stint for seven months  and went teaching in China, and  while the I was in China, this  is some, almost a year later, I  had posted something on a  genealogy board, I get a note  from a fellow saying I think  you're looking for me.  We had some emails back and  forth, he contributed a great  deal of information to me that  was quite helpful.  Literally at the last few  minutes, last few days I was  able to put some of that  information in the book.  I had some rewrites done.  When I got the book published I  notified him right away that it  was ready and he was one of  these fellows that read it all  night.  And I just had to use his  comment.  I have to admit I was a little  fuzzy on how one of the  relatives of the Maxwells might  feel. 

 But later he put me in touch  with another fellow and both of  them were quite amenable and  they accepted the fact that  their relatives weren't exactly  Puritans.  >> So Ed and Alonzo, did they  have any siblings?  Did they have siblings?  >> Yes, they did.  Their sister, a lady by the name  of Flora Maxwell, went on to do  absolutely nothing outstanding.  One other brother died early as  a child.  I think he passed away at age 7.  In the chapter I labeled "Their  Final Chapters," you'll read  about their youngest brother  George.  George Maxwell has just been  recently inducted into the  Nebraska Hall of Fame, sports,  for trap shooting.  Now that may not sound terribly  outstanding.  Ed and Alonzo were expert  marksmen as well, I guess it  runs in the family.  What was outstanding about this  particular individual was that  he was a trap shooter with one  arm. 

 I can't shoot a shot gun with  two arms, but this fellow was a  leader with one arm.  So I guess marksmanship run in  the family.  >> So that's where the  descendants came from probably  is him and the sister?  >> Yes, apparently.  I never thought about their  family tree that way.  One chapter that I'm kind of  proud of in the book actually  veers away, you'll find several  times I veer away a little bit  from the story and tell some  stories about the people  involved, and I put a chapter in  there about Charlie Coleman.  Charlie Coleman was one of the  brothers who was murdered in  Durand.  He had also been in the Civil  War.  He stood beside that canon, in  fact, that I showed you earlier.  And he was badly wounded during  the battle of Perryville, and  the story of his sister locating  him, it was a marvelous story  and I just couldn't leave that  out of book.  And then when I got into that  part of the story that dealt  with the doctor that treated all  of those wounded or as many  wounded as he possibly could on  the battlefield of Perryville,  it was just too good to leave  out of the book. 

 So you'll find I've had so many  comments on that particular  chapter.  That was something else I was  trying to do with this book.  As I said, I didn't want to  glorify the individuals on the  book cover.  But trying to give you an  insight of what life was like in  the 1880s.  How did people live in Illinois  and Wisconsin during the 1880s.  So I picked out a lot of pieces  like that.  And if anybody has a copy of the  book in front of them just flip  through it and you'll see the  italicized paragraphs that are  just off the story a little bit  and at the same time reflect  something about the story.  (applause)  Thank you, very much for coming.