The Great Cow Caper of 1882: Son’s blunder leads to theft of Mount Vernon justice’s cow

Many a father has gritted his teeth at some boneheaded mistake or other committed by his teenaged son.

There may be various ways he can deal with it, but I’m pretty sure we can rule out the path taken by Knox County resident John Butcher in 1882: It’s just not a great idea to steal from a justice of the peace.

This debacle allegedly began with a maneuver by Butcher’s 16-year-old son, Walter.

According to various news articles from early September 1882, Walter Butcher sold a cow earlier that year to prominent Mount Vernon attorney and justice of the peace C.C. Baugh, a highly respected local legal figure and Civil War veteran.

(Aside to longtime readers of these columns, as well as readers of the author’s book In These Haunted Hills, we briefly met C.C. Baugh before, when he was examined for potential relation to the ghostly Sophronia “Baugh” of Ball Cemetery infamy, whom research finally proved to actually have been named Sophronia Balch.)

We know no further details of this bovine transaction, but it is a safe bet to guess that Walter’s father, John, was not happy with the price for which Walter sold the cow, because he attempted to file a writ of replevin, which would have required the county sheriff to seize the cow, pending the outcome of a lawsuit.

But the case failed. Although John clearly felt that the cow was more his property than his son’s, a jury of Butcher’s peers decided that it wasn’t, and that the sale to C.C. Baugh was sound, even if Walter Butcher’s retail skills weren’t.

John wasn’t one to take an injustice sitting down. Instead, he decided to take back what he
thought was his, and to force his son to assist him in the crime. Where exactly this took place isn’t clear from the newspaper accounts.

Baugh lived on Vine Street in Mount Vernon at the time, and one would guess that it was no longer standard practice to house livestock in town by 1882.

If it were so, that would be a brazen crime, indeed. But a perusal of the 1871 county atlas identifies Baugh’s house as being at the (then) far end of Vine Street, at the intersection with Catherine Street, near the edge of town.

Though Vine Street was extended later on past Center Run, that wasn’t the case in 1882. It’s possible to imagine that Baugh may have had enough room on his sizeable property to have a barn.

The house at that corner today may be the same one that Baugh lived in, but the property was later broken up so that numerous other houses are nearby, as well. It was originally a property of at least a few acres, judging by the atlas map.

It is also possible that Baugh had the cow housed at a farm just outside city limits. Since Baugh was a mover and shaker, perhaps he was friends with Mount Vernon’s most prominent mover and shaker of that period, Columbus Delano, who had a farm just southeast of town, which is today the campus of Mount Vernon Nazarene University.

It is plausible that the Butchers could have liberated the cow from this spot, and then moved it to a field near Miller’s Mill, hiding until the following day, when they’d undertake the long trek back to Butcher’s farm.

This mill was located along the Kokosing River near the spot where Glen Road turns east as it meets the river. The body of water that served as the mill’s race is today known as Delano Run, from Columbus Delano’s property.

It would make sense that the Butchers might have snuck into Delano’s barn and led the cow to a field by the mill, where they hoped to hide it until nightfall, when they would begin the flight southward.

Unfortunately for the Butchers, an anonymous tipster saw them and alerted law enforcement about the operation, and directed them to the field in question. The Knox County Sheriff, John A. Schnebly, headed out to Miller’s Mill, but found the cow already gone.

Thus began a tracking operation as the lawmen followed the cow’s rather obvious hoofprints until they caught up with John, Walter, and the cow near Brandon.

They were apparently on their way back to John Butcher’s farm, on Butcher Road near the Licking County line in Pleasant Township in extreme southern Knox County. John was arrested, and the cow was returned to Baugh.

John Butcher ended up being indicted for grand larceny by the Knox County grand jury later in the year. After the prosecutor offered to reduce the charge to petit larceny, Butcher agreed to stop contesting the charges against him.

He ended up serving 10 days in the county jail for his crime.

Turns out the cow caper wasn’t Walter Butcher’s only brush with high drama. Four years later, when he was still not yet of adult age (which was 21 in those days), he somehow managed to procure a marriage license for himself and 13-year-old Lulu Darling of Centerburg.

Quietly taking her back to his folks’ house, they were about to start the marriage ceremony when Lulu’s father burst in and forbade it. He unceremoniously dragged Lulu back home to Centerburg.

Lulu’s moping must have been something awful, for a week later, Mr. Darling relented and allowed his daughter to marry Walter Butcher. It was not, alas, destined to be the romance of the century, for just five years later, Lulu sued for divorce on the grounds of “gross neglect of duty” by her husband.

The divorce was granted. Lulu went on to get married three more times, ending up living in Toledo.

Walter remarried and spent the rest of his life quietly in Knox County, where he passed away at the age of 81 in 1947. He is buried in Mound View Center.

His irascible father lived out his days on Butcher Road, where he died in 1901 and was buried in Simmons Cemetery just outside of Homer.

Justice Baugh and the cow apparently lived happily ever after.