Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

9. The Wisconsin Desperadoes

dUD 9 The Wisconsin Desperadoes The fateful year for the Maxwell brothers was 1881, and it began with Ed’s release from prison. Having completed his six-year sentence by serving only four years and three months—with time off for good behavior—Ed was set free on January 21. Despite the claims made in his 1877 letters and the assurances that he had probably given to Warden McClaughry on the day he got out, he was not reformed. The rigors of prison life notwithstanding, Ed was apparently in good physical condition. Perhaps as an effort to shake off his clean-shaven convict appearance and make a more refined impression, he started wearing a black mustache and a goatee. More than one newspaper later reported that he was “good looking,” and no one would have guessed that the striking, intelligent, twenty-seven-year-old man had served two terms in the penitentiary. Of course, Ed received a train ticket to Macomb, and he probably stopped there, if only to get, or attempt to get, the money that he had possessed when he was arrested, which was supposedly being held for him by his lawyer, Damon G. Tunnicliff. Whether or not Ed was successful, he did not stay in town. It was, after all, the dead of winter, when the cold, barren landscape, with its windblown, isolated farms, seemed to reject any hope of meaningful work and social acceptance. No one in McDonough County needed or wanted him, and he knew it. i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 138 3/22/11 2:00:10 PM 139 The Wisconsin Desperadoes Ed realized, of course, that his parents were homesteading in Nebraska, and he had at one time considered going there. But according to a later newspaper report, Lon had written to Ed at the penitentiary, advising him that Nebraska would be “unhealthy”—surely because of the vigilante violence there. In any case, Lon was now in Wisconsin. So Ed’s first objective, undoubtedly, was to see his brother, to determine if he still had a partner, a comrade, a sidekick with whom he could make a name for himself as a desperado. Lon’s response to Ed’s arrival must have been mixed. He was, of course, glad to see the brother who had been his protector, his mentor, and his companion in earlier years, but his life now had a different focus and his future lay with Fannie and the world of logging—or so he thought. One newspaper source mentions that Ed “assisted Lon with his woodcutting job”—at least for a time. The foot wound that had occurred just before or just after Ed arrived might have made Lon temporarily dependent upon his brother’s assistance, and thus more susceptible to his entreaties about continuing their career as robbers—or at least cooperating briefly when Ed turned to robbery. A much later, retrospective source indicates that Ed began stealing horses and keeping them temporarily at the farm owned by Fannie’s stepfather, William Thompson, where Lon and Fannie frequently stayed, but that often unreliable account may be based only on assumptions about Ed’s probable activities or on local storytelling. In any case, that source also suggests how difficult it might have been for Lon, who truly needed help, to avoid involvement with Ed, who was not making an effort to go straight. One thing is clear: The brothers started spending time together when Lon wasn’t working, and that apparently included practicing with guns. A Chicago Times correspondent, who interviewed mill hands and others at Hersey after the Maxwells had become notorious, filed the following report: I could fill a column with the marvelous shots both brothers made in sport of this kind last spring. Among the many items in my rough notes are the following: At a distance of forty paces Lon would shoot off a revolver in each hand, hitting together a couple of sweet potatoes tossed up by the hands of a person seated on the ground. At eight rods [132 feet] Ed would knock an oyster can off a fence post with a shot from his right-hand revolver, and before i-xvi_1-408_Hall.indd 139 3/22/11 2:00:10 PM Dime Novel Desperadoes 140 it reached the earth, would put a ball through it from the “navy” in his left hand. Coming up the railroad track together at one time...