Horse Thief Stories

1. Stick to Your Own Saloon, Ed

On an April day in 1900, Ed Sauter hitched up his horse and buggy and drove from Ainsworth up to Hobart. In the evening, after he'd finished his business, he drove over to William Meyer's saloon in that part of Hobart known as "Canada" (I wish someone could tell me where that was), hitched the horse and buggy outside, and went in for awhile.

When he'd finished his business in there, he came out to find his horse and buggy gone. He immediately suspected that a man named Bert Blake, who'd left the saloon a little while before him, had stolen them.

Marshal Busse was sent for, and he and William Meyer both set out to track the rig. They were able to track it north along the county line, but where the county line road ended, so did all traces of Ed's rig. They had to abandon the search.

Late the next morning, someone found the horse, still hitched to the buggy, out among the stumps in some semi-cleared land north of the county line road, and returned them both to Ed, who was still pretty mad about the whole thing.

Apparently no one could prove that it had indeed been Bert Blake who stole the rig, so no arrest was made.

If only Ed had stuck to his own saloon in Ainsworth, none of this would have happened.

Or would it? ...

2. Tired of Walking

On the afternoon of October 2, 1902, William Smith (brother of Cyrus), who farmed in the Ainsworth area, came into town on business. He hitched his horse and buggy outside William Raschka's store and went inside. His business there took only a few minutes, but when he came out again, his horse and buggy had vanished.

A traveling salesman with a Crown Point livery who happened to be in Ainsworth quickly volunteered his rig for the search. Smith took it; Raschka joined him, and they set out toward the Smith farm, thinking that the horse had just gotten loose and decided to go home. But when they got there — no horse. They turned around and retraced their steps.

At the junction of (present-day) State Road 51 and 73rd Avenue, Smith noticed hoof-prints in the dust of the road. His horse had been newly shod in a distinctive way — the heel-plates of the shoes stuck out beyond the hoof — and these hoof-prints bore the same pattern. They followed the hoof-prints south.

As the afternoon wore on, the two men continued tracking those hoof-prints: south, then west, then south again, then east as they passed through the town of Winfield. A couple of hours had gone by with no sign of the horse or rig, but still those hoof-prints led them onward, into Porter County, and then south along dirt roads that cut through open fields and sparsely populated farmland.

About a mile and a half northeast of Hebron, they finally spotted the rig up ahead. They hurried to overtake it, which wasn't difficult because it was moving at only a moderate pace.

As they caught up to it, they saw that the driver was a young man about 17 or 18 years old. He was calmly eating an apple and paying no attention to them. Smith jumped out onto the road, ran up and seized his horse's reins, and the horse obeyed his "Whoa!" Raschka quickly climbed up into the stolen rig. The young driver protested at first and put up a struggle, but he was overpowered. His captors took him to Hebron and turned him over to the authorities there, who locked him up.

Someone telephoned to the sheriff's office at Crown Point. Both the sheriff and the deputy being out of town, it was up to the Crown Point postmaster and an assistant to come out and fetch the prisoner back.

The young culprit was Johnny Peters of Valparaiso. He said he'd taken the rig because he was "tired of walking" and just wanted to drive to Valpo. He was taking the scenic route, evidently; he covered a good twenty miles before they caught him, and was farther from Valpo than when he had started.

When his case came up for trial in late November, Johnny's defense was a ridiculous tale about two strangers who had asked him to ride along with them in the rig, then inexplicably abandoned it, leaving him alone at the reins. The jury didn't buy his story. They gave him six months in the county jail. Many locals disapproved of the sentence: they thought Johnny should have been sent to the reformatory, "where he might have been taught a useful trade."

Sources:
♦ "Gets A Jail Sentence." Hobart Gazette 28 Nov. 1902.
♦ "Horse Taken and Found." Hobart Gazette 13 Apr. 1900.
♦ "Steals a Horse and is Caught." Hobart Gazette 17 Oct. 1902.