tence to the penitentiary of one of the most brutal murderers that ever escaped the merited gallows.
This trial afforded a fine field for the display of the arts of attorneys. The circumstances were at once pathetic and fiendish. There was no one who could have absolute knowledge of the crime, except the brute who had no mercy, and the child who died in terror of his violence and lust. The tongue of the former was mute; that of the latter was in the quiet of the grave. But in spite of the care with which the criminal is hedged in by the rules of courts, the granting of new trials upon technicalities and matters of form, and the glamour that makes a hero in the court-room of every cowardly murderer, the web of circumstances was so woven about Glyndon that he could not escape.
Among the court trials in the history of the county, few have been watched with greater interest than was that of John J. Bell, a defaulting school fund commissioner. Suit was brought upon his official bond, and the cause was tried at the October term of the district court for 1859. Judgment was obtained against Bell and certain of his sureties, in the sum of $4,553, and for costs of suit.
Bell was elected to that office in 1856. Those were flush times. The lands of the county had rapidly advanced in the market. As long as there were Government lands to be had at $1.25 per acre, other lands, except those most desirably located, were affected in price by that circumstance. During the winter of 1855-56, however, capitalists absorbed all government lands, and there was a rapid appreciation in estimated values. The market soon jumped to $2.50, then to $3, and soon thereafter thousands of acres were held at from $5 to $10 per acre, and some were sold beyond these figures. The spirit of speculation was abroad, and a man who had not gold coins in his pocket had small consideration. There were many selections of the 500,000-acre grant of school lands in Story County, some of which were valuable timber lands, and the sale of these came under the authority of the commissioner. The handling of so much money, with the contagion of speculation all about him, probably turned Bell's head. He invested for his own use what did not belong to him, hoping to square his accounts from returns to be had at greatly advanced values when he should be willing to sell. But the tide turned. The ebb set in. The undertow took him so suddenly that he could scarce take breath before he was drawn under. Some of his sureties were swamped by the same current, but most of them were steady-going men, and were able to pay the debt. Bell's property became liable. The principal hotel in Nevada, with barn and other improvements connected, which then stood on the southeast corner of Block 32, and was afterward removed and enlarged into the present Hutchings House, had probably absorbed most of the missing funds. A dry goods store and bad credits had more than taken the remainder.
The General Assembly, by an act which became a law on the 2d of April, 1860, extended relief to the sureties, E. Armstrong, John Hempstead, Isaac Hague, Amariah Mullen, T. J. Westlake, S. S. Webb, William Lockridge, E. G. Day, D. J. Norris, James Hawthorn, Abner Bell, Charles D. Berry and Jonathan Statler, by authorizing the county judge to make them a loan of the amount for five years, with annual interest. At or before the expiration of this period the property was sold, and the deficit made good by the sureties.
The trial in the contest to declare the county bonds invalid, which were issued for the building of the court-house. in 1874, was one of no little interest. This may be classed as a part of the county-seat fight. Nevada having been