This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
A hundred years ago, Rock Island still had its share of heinous and nefarious villains who perpetrated dastardly deeds of the kind one finds now only in cartoons. But even Rock Island was not prepared for J. B. Frahm, the sewing machine salesman, who, in June of 1875, ended up in the Rock Island County jail on a serious charge: "wanting to get married real bad."
The object of Mr. Frahm's attentions was a young Rock Island girl named Mary Wendt. Over the objections of her parents and the Rock Island Chief of Police, to whom she was related, she returned those affections. One day in May, she disappeared while in Mr. Frahm's company. The abduction, as it was called, made newspaper headlines for several days until the pair was discovered in their secret hideaway and separated. A charge of vagrancy was preferred against Mr. Frahm, but his lawyer got the inditement quashed.
From then on, Chief of Police Martens kept an especially watchful eye on the pair. A few weeks later he caught Mary Wendt walking along Western Avenue. As he watched, a carriage driven by the sewing machine salesman pulled alongside and slowed down. Mary got in. An arrest was made. Chief Martens took the girl home to her parents and the sewing machine man off to jail. The new charge: wanting to get married real bad.
The trial was adjourned for a few days to give Mr. Frahm time to gather several Rock Island witnesses. In the end, he threated to sue the Chief of Police for false arrest and demanded $5,000. For some reason the charges against him were withdrawn.
By this time, the local newspaper was happy to report, Mary Wendt, "the silly girl who wanted to throw herself away on an unprincipled adventurer," had thought the better of the matter, and has promised to remain with her mother and give men the cold shoulder."
There is no indication in subsequent issues of the newspaper what wanting to get married real bad did to the sales of sewing machines in Rock Island, but knowing something about local women, we can make some assumptions. I'm confident that sales must have plummeted as young Rock Island women, forewarned by the publicity about Mr. Frahm' strange longings for the married life, refused to even look at his machines.
Rock Island Lines with Roald Tweet is underwritten by Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
