Emma's Waterloo

Tom Tisch

Description

Love, jealousy, and murder shake a small rural Michigan community in 1896. The events in this story involve relationships tragically broken by alcohol abuse and its effects on mental competency. Shocking consequences are entangled with deep family bonds, religion, practice of law, and politics. Emma's Waterloo is a gripping example of late nineteenth-century jurisprudence.

Sujets

• Historical
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 18 janvier 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781977239365
• Langue: English

Extrait

Emma’s Waterloo All Rights Reserved. Copyright © 2021 Tom Tisch v3.0
This work is based on actual events. The characters’ names, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents can be historically documented. But all narratives and character interactions are products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is coincidental.
The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.
This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Outskirts Press, Inc. http://www.outskirtspress.com
ISBN: 978-1-9772-3936-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020915863
Cover Photo © 2021 www.gettyimages.com . All rights reserved - used with permission. Back Cover Image © 2021 Tom Tisch. All rights reserved - used with permission.
Scripture quoted from: Holy Bible, Amos 3:6: DOUAY-RHEIMS 1899 AMERICAN EDITION (DRA) Publisher: Public Domain
Outskirts Press and the "OP" logo are trademarks belonging to Outskirts Press, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
This work is dedicated to victims of violence and injustice.
Waterloo, noun, geographical name, often capitalized
waw· ter· loo |

1. Waterloo: a town in central Belgium near Brussels. Napoleon met his final defeat in the Battle of Waterloo (June 18, 1815).

2. Waterloo: a village located in Waterloo Township, Jackson County, Michigan, twenty-five miles west of Ann Arbor; founded in 1830.


Waterloo , proper noun, often capitalized

Waterloo: a final crushing defeat; an unsuccessful ending to a struggle or contest. To encounter one’s ultimate obstacle and to be defeated by it: She met her Waterloo.
Shall the trumpet sound in a city and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, which the Lord hath not done?

The Holy Bible
Book of Amos, Chapter 3, Verse 6
C ONTENTS
Introduction
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two: Back in Time
Chapter Three: Time to Leave
Chapter Four: The Windmill
Chapter Five: Conflict
Chapter Six: Letters
Chapter Seven: Jackson Circus
Chapter Eight: Storm Clouds
Chapter Nine: Ambush
Chapter Ten: Morning After
Chapter Eleven: Day of the Funeral
Chapter Twelve: Still Alive
Chapter Thirteen: Newspapers
Chapter Fourteen: Jackson County Jail
Chapter Fifteen: Reality
Chapter Sixteen: Defense Strategy
Chapter Seventeen: Prayerful Exoneration
Chapter Eighteen: Melancholia
Chapter Nineteen: Preliminary Arraignment
Chapter Twenty: The Other Victim
Chapter Twenty-One: Examination before the Court
Chapter Twenty-Two: Private Service
Chapter Twenty-Three: Examination, Continued
Chapter Twenty-Four: Building the Defense
Chapter Twenty-Five: Arraignment
Chapter Twenty-Six: Prosecution Strategy
Chapter Twenty-Seven: One Week before the Trial
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Heydlauff Trial
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Next Step
Chapter Thirty: Headlines
Chapter Thirty-One: Perjury
Chapter Thirty-Two: Frustration
Chapter Thirty-Three: Christmas
Chapter Thirty-Four: Charles Blair’s Letter to the Editor
Chapter Thirty-Five: Reaction
Chapter Thirty-Six: Examination of the Perjury Charge
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Richard Price’s Letter to the Editor
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The New Year
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Albert Frank’s Tavern
Epilogue
Aftermath
Historical Photographs and Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Notes
I NTRODUCTION
On Sunday, May 31, 1896, an event of horrific magnitude took place in the small village of Waterloo, Jackson County, Michigan. The lives of three young individuals from three prominent families, whose lineages went back generations to neighboring hamlets in southwest Germany, were destined to collide in the parlor of a local farmhouse.
Not a Coincidence
The events leading to that day started seventy-one years earlier, in 1825, when news spread that plentiful inexpensive land in America’s Great Lakes region had become reachable by the opening of the Erie Canal in New York State. Opportunistic Germans and others who left their countries for a variety of reasons began streaming into various eastern coastal ports, including New York City. Those arriving in New York mainly boarded available boats on the Hudson River. They then traveled north to Albany, where the new canal began, eventually disembarking in the city of Buffalo on Lake Erie. The canal allowed the lands surrounding it to become easily accessible, and many cities were established along its path. Those whose goal it was to reach what was then known as the American Northwest traveled by lake boat from Buffalo, following Lake Erie’s southern shore to ports westward bordering the states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, and to the Territory of Michigan where Lake Erie meets the Detroit River. It was an arduous journey that often took up to a month to complete.
Prior to that year little had been known about the area that was to become Jackson County, located in southeast Michigan, about thirty miles west of the early settlement of Ann Arbor. This region was mostly unexplored, except by the few who, in the service of the government as land surveyors or protectors of the settlements around Detroit, were sometimes obliged to travel there. Those who did followed established Native American Indian trails. Along the way they would have encountered packs of gray wolves, black bears, Mississauga rattlesnakes, and swarms of mosquitoes as they charted the land. Early surveys had concluded that most of the land was too marshy for cultivation, so little attention was paid to it until fur trappers reported otherwise. They correctly surmised that much of the land had valuable agricultural potential.
With that news, government officials met with the region’s naive indigenous people and made treaties in preparation of making the land available for settlement. On July 6, 1818, the sale of new lands outside Detroit was opened.
In the winter of 1829, the Michigan Territorial Council in Detroit passed an act establishing several new counties in the forested wilderness to the west, including Jackson County. A new road was commissioned to access the land, and was built over a well traveled Potawatomi Indian trail several miles north of the established Detroit-Chicago Road , which had been constructed by the federal government in 1825 over an ancient Sauk Indian Trail, which began at the banks of the Detroit River and terminated at Fort Dearborn, an army installation located at the mouth of the Chicago River on the southern shore of Lake Michigan in Illinois. This new road, aptly named Territorial Road, served as a pathway for settlers into the newly opened land. The first recorded settler to what would become Jackson County, Horace Blackman, from Tioga County, New York, arrived in July 1829. Others arrived that year, and soon the first hamlet in Jackson County was founded and named Jacksonburgh, later called Jacksonopolis and, ultimately, Jackson. Word was sent to their families and friends that, with hard work, there was abundant opportunity and to come before it was gone.
As the news made its way east to New England and across the Atlantic, more pioneers began making the journey. Many stopped at the Detroit land office, located at the corner of Jefferson and Randolph streets, to purchase land from the federal government. One hundred dollars in cash would purchase an eighty-acre plot. Title to the land had one caveat: the buyer was required to build and occupy a structure on the property. Before leaving for the rough country, pioneers acquired vital provisions for their journey, along with wagons and work animals.
Rugged Pioneers
Pioneers typically constructed a rudimentary wooden lean-to for temporary shelter as they prepared materials to build a permanent log cabin. Building materials came from harvesting the plentiful virgin hardwoods that included trees of oak, hickory, and chestnut. Once felled, the logs were trimmed, measured, sized, and notched to fit a rectangular foundation approximately twenty by thirty feet. The roofs were often gabled to allow sleeping lofts. Gaps between the logs were commonly chinked with stones and strips of wood, followed by ropes of oakum or moss, then finished with a daubing of clay mixed with lime that was wet-troughed to seal it. The same process was used for the interior. A stone fireplace, used for both cooking and warmth, was usually positioned near the center wall. The fireplace was vital for survival, as the winters in Jackson County would often bring freezing temperatures. The floors were constructed of slabs of roughly hewn timber; the roof was built the same and covered by wood shingles or thick bark. As additional space was required, these cabins could be expanded using the same process. Construction of wood cabins required minimal tools, including a broad axe and hand saws. Using the same tools, skilled settlers could construct bed frames, tables, and chairs from the same local resources. As they labored, these industrious pioneers dreamed of a future when their humble log cabins would be replaced by stately homes as they prospered from their cultivated fields.
Once their cabins were completed, settlers were faced with clearing the forest of trees and underbrush. This was a grueling task. Many trees were cut and trimmed for use as lumber for outbuildings. Others were felled and split to burn in the fireplace. Then tree roots had to be cut and the stumps pulled up. Other trees may have been girdled the bark was cut away from around the base of the tree to kill it before f