346 | HISTORY |
Edward Soper was a young man living three miles southeast of Tipton, and Alonzo Gleason was staying at various places in that vicinity, having no regular occupation. In the spring of 1857 these two young men, in company with three other bad characters, stole a valuable horse belonging to Charles Pennygrot, who lived two miles from Lowden. With this horse and another they had stolen from near Solon, they started for Illinois to dispose of the property. By traveling nights and avoiding the public roads, they escaped without detection, crossing the Mississippi and going on to the Illinois River. Here they sold the horses and after some weeks returned to Cedar County to resume their stealing. But the citizens became aroused and caused their arrest by the sheriff. They were taken to the old court-house at Tipton on the 2d of July, confined in a room on the ground floor, guarded by twenty men selected by the sheriff, John Byerly. About midnight a large body of Regulators overpowered the guard, seized the prisoners and conveyed them to a grove on the farm of Martin Henry, south of Lowden. The Regulators came from all directions, generally armed, until more than two hundred had gathered. They organ-