Oceana County MI Archives History - Books .....Mysteries 1882
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Jan Cortez http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00020.html#0004939 December 17, 2008, 6:19 pm

Book Title: HISTORY OF OCEANA CO., CHICAGO, H.R. PAGE & COMPANY, 1882

Oceana has had her full share of mysterious disappearances and murders.  Among 
the first of these was that of the murder of a settler named Green, on the 
Little Point Sable Section, in Benona, near the beach, about the year 1860.  
Two brothers, named Morse, had been living at Green's, following the 
occupation of trapping, and no suspicion was directed to them, until James 
Gibbs noticed, when they were laying the body of the murdered man in the 
grave, the wife of Green gave a significant wink to one of the Morses, who 
answered with a smile.  Mr. Gibbs called attention to this, and the 
consequence was the arrest of Mrs. Green and the Morses, and a coroner's 
inquest, which resulted in nothing.  They moved up back of Pentwater, into a 
log house of an old logging camp, Mrs. Green going along.  On this the 
vigilantes of Pentwater, with Rector as their captain, went up one night and 
surprised them in bed.  They cautiously approached the house, and using the 
trunk of a heavy tree as a battering ram, at one blow sent the door flying to 
the other side of the room, rushed in and seized the inmates, and applied a 
coat of tar and feathers, which was intended as a gentle hint that they might 
fly away, for which purpose twenty-four hours was given them.  It was well for 
the vigilantes that they secured the fellows before they could seize their 
arms, which consisted of seven shotguns, two double-barreled rifles and two 
revolvers, all loaded!  The committee stretched the neck of the elder brother 
Morse, four times, until his tongue protruded, and he became black in the 
face.  Next day the "Widder Green" and her "lovyers" folded their tents, like 
the Arabs, and as silently stole away."  The younger brother Morse, married 
the "widder," and they are now living in comfortable circumstances and 
respected in another portion of this state.  Their true love did not run 
smooth at first.  It is related that a little Dutchman, one of the vigilance 
committee, cast a covetous eye on a splendid rifle, on the night of the 
chavivari, and hid it in the brush near the log house.  When the rifle was 
missed, an investigation threw the blame on the Dutchman, whose mysterious 
movements had been noted, and, despite his denials, he was held down and 
whipped with hazel and beach gads until he roared for mercy and confessed his 
crime.

Next year, in 1861, the Pentwater committee felt moved to regulate one Fuller, 
sone of H H. Fuller, an early settler in Hart, who had been killed by a 
falling tree.  The younger Fuller had been guilty of insulting a young lady, 
and the "boys" went in a body to his house, but Fuller had got wind of the 
expected raid, and stood ready to give his unwelcome guests a hot reception.  
When Rector boldly entered his log house, he was shot dead.  The boys gathered 
up the remains, laid them in a barn, rousing up Mr. Peck and informing him 
that he would find a body in such a spot, and that he would be paid if he 
could bring it up to Pentwater.  A trial ensued, but nothing was done with 
Fuller, who, however, considered the climate rather warm, and emigrated.  
Afterward he is said to have enlisted in the army, but died of fever at Toledo 
hospital.

On Section 1, Greenwood, in a log house with a boarded "lean to," lived for 
years one Isaac H. Cogswell, who had held the office of probate judge of 
Newaygo County, and for five years successively, after his township was 
organized, was chosen its trusted chief officer.  On the death of K. B. 
Stebbins, an early lumberman, he was appointed administrator of the estate, 
and thus honored and trusted he had passed the age of three score and ten.  He 
is said to have been a man sensitive of his honor, and proud of his good name, 
and exact and punctilious in his own affairs, and negligence on the part of 
others worried him.  However this may be, he was called upon to account to the 
judge of probate, then F. J. Russell, on Monday, June 30, 1879; but by 8 a.m. 
on the Sunday previous, he awoke his invalid wife, and burned up the township 
books, the papers connected with the Stebbins estate and a large sum of money, 
remarking the he would show them a trick the devil could not undo.  He then 
tried to persuade his wife to allow herself to be consumed in the flames with 
him.  She replied that she would follow him anywhere in the world, but not 
into the fire.  He followed her out after firing the house and handed her her 
own money and some papers, and then shut himself in the boarded shanty 
attached to the log house.  when help arrived, it was too late, and all that 
was found was the remains.  He is said to have been a man of a very sensitive 
disposition, tenacious of his honor, and easily irritated at what he 
considered the want of punctuality of others.  The Cogswell case is one of the 
causes celebre of Oceana County , and opinion is gratly divided as to whether 
he really persihed on that Sunday morning, or not.  One man is full of reasons 
and arguments showing that he must be still alive.  His next neighbor is as 
positive that he is dead.  Even husband and wife have been known to take sides 
on the question.

The disappearance of Josephus S. Peach, treasurer of the town of Hart, has 
been described in the municipal history of the county.  He took several 
thousand dollars, and is enjoying, in some unknown clime, the fruits of his 
perfidy.  Wherever he is, he cannot be happy, for he can never escape from bad 
company - himself.  To be condemned to live eternally with a thief, is 
punishment enough for him.

The ease of Alonzo Irons, of Pentwater, who was storekeeper for Nickerson & 
Collister, at Crystal Valley, and who disappeared on Friday, June 3, 1881, is 
one of the greatest mysteries of Oceana County.  He is doubtless murdered, and 
buried in some swamp.  His body has never yet been found, but there was not 
the slightest reason that he should have voluntarily taken his life.  He left 
in his shirt sleeves to purchase hay, and was seen n the road near the four 
corners of Crystal, Colfax, Elbridge and Leavitt.  One King was arrested, but 
released, and although the county spent considerable in trying to ferret out 
the perpetrators, the veil has not been lifted.  The county clerk, prosecuting 
attorney and sheriff were directed to use diligent search for the murderers, 
and employed a Pinkerton detective, but in vain.  Some imagine that the 
Indians had something to with the affair; others that a woman was at the 
bottom of the affair.

Additional Comments:
HISTORY OF OCEANA CO., CHICAGO, H.R. PAGE & COMPANY, 1882


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