This is Roald Tweet on Rock Island.
In 1837, a party of some twenty emigrants arrived in the small community of Bellevue, Iowa, county seat of newly formed Jackson County. Their leader, W. W. Brown, was no slugabed. Soon, there was a Brown Hotel catering to travelers, and a Brown meat market for the locals. Brown was soon a respected city father.
There was only one small suspicion. For some reason, the crime rate suddenly increased along the Mississippi Valley—counterfeiting, horse stealing, and that kind of thing. Among those who suspected Brown was the county sheriff, Captain Warren, especially when one of the Brown's men, Godfrey, drove into town with an exceedingly fine team of horses. The sheriff arrested Godfrey and took him to Brown. Brown suggested that the sheriff distribute handbills describing the horses to see if anyone claimed them.
Sure enough, five days later, a man named Jenkins appeared to claim his stolen horses, describing their markings in detail. He intended to shoot Godfrey, the thief. Brown was mortified that one of his men was a criminal. He took Jenkins to where Godfrey was chopping wood. Godfrey saw them coming and began to flee across the frozen river heading for a wooded island. Jenkins fired several times. Godfrey cried out and fell.
A sheriff's posse failed to find Godfrey, who was assumed to have drowned or died from his wounds. Jenkins claimed his stolen horses and drove off with them.
Brown's reputation was redeemed. He was nominated as the Democratic candidate for the state legislature. Bellevue citizens ordered Sheriff Warren to lay off, and life returned to normal.
That is, for ten days, or so. One afternoon, the Honorable E. Brigham of Wisconsin appeared in response to the stolen horse handbills. He described the horses in even greater detail then Jenkins had. They were clearly Brigham's horses.
The sheriff realized he had been duped. Jenkins had been one of Brown's accomplices, who had only pretended to shoot Godfrey. Godfrey had escaped; Jenkins had disappeared with the horses. Brown returned to running his hotel, a more mysterious figure than ever.
Rock Island Lines is underwritten by the Illinois Humanities Council and Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, with additional funding from Humanities Iowa, the Iowa Arts Council, and Augustana College, Rock Island.
