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Thursday, April 16, 2020 MURDER IN PALMVILLE


                                       MURDER IN PALMVILLE

This is story was originally compiled and published in  1994 in
THE RAVEN: Northwest Minnesota’s Original Art, History & Humor Journal.
New maps and captions added April 16, 2020.

On April 16th, 114 years ago today, while clearing brush on his Palmville homesteader, Barney Bjerkhoel, discovered the brush-covered body of a dead man and set in motion a drama of international intrigue that continues to present day. The body was of a man Palmville neighbors knew as John Stuart, one of two men from Dakota Territory who had been wintering with Palmville homesteader William Stephenson in Section 15. Only upon his death was John Stuart’s true identity revealed to be that of Dutch Henry, a notorious outlaw of The Wild Bunch Gang of The Big Muddy Country of northern Montana and Saskatchewan.

Members of the Wild Bunch had included the Pigeon Toed Kid, Tom Reed, Frank Jones, Bloody Knife, Seffick, Duffy, Kid Trailer, Frank Carlyle, Ernie Stines, James McNab, and Birch. With a bounty of over $10,000 on their collective heads, Dutch Henry and the Wild Bunch controlled the Big Muddy country stealing horses and cattle between 1895 and 1905.

It is said Dutch Henry came to Montana on the cattle drives from Texas. People thought he was originally from Holland or of Saxon-German descent as his real name was Henry Yeuch (pronounced ‘yutch’). He had family; two brothers, one a respectable rancher from near Daleview, Montana, who wanted nothing to do with Dutch because of his lawlessness and one called Coyote Pete, also once a member of the Wild Bunch Gang.

The climate in the Big Muddy country got too hot for Dutch Henry after one of the gang was arrested for horse stealing and named Dutch Henry prominently in his testimony. Dutch had been living under different aliases before, to avoid capture, and figured it was time again to lay low for awhile. He began to use the name John Stuart and headed east into North Dakota, leaving his horse, saddle, blanket and pearl-handled revolver at a livery in Kenmare, ND, and then drifted out of town.

Stuart began to drink heavily; keeping low was a severe tax on a former life of free-wheeling lawlessness. Liquor found its way into Stuart’s everyday inactivity with increasing vengeance, until he met a young man who addressed him as Dutch Henry. Stuart didn’t recognize the young man, Alex McKenzie, as a former acquaintance, but as he wanted to keep his true identity unknown, he accepted McKenzie’s company on the trail.

At Ardoch, ND, they met up with Stuart’s friend William Stephenson, who knew Stuart’s real identity and offered them the use of his homestead in Palmville Township. Stuart could then spend a sheriff-free winter and get away from the liquor that haunted his consciousness and common sense. Stuart asked that McKenzie go with them to Minnesota and Stephenson agreed. The three men left Ardoch on November 23rd and arrived in Palmville three days later.

Stuart had McKenzie write several letters to different parties requesting money over the course of the winter. He received mail in answer to these requests in Wannaska where Knudt Lee was postmaster. Stuart paid the travel expenses from Ardoch, totaling thirty-five dollars, for McKenzie, Stephenson and himself with such receipts of cash, but awaited a larger sum of money due him he expected toward the end of December. Stuart had decided to leave Roseau County at that time and head back west.

About Christmas time, Stuart had McKenzie write the livery in Kenmare and say he would come for the horse about March 1st. On December 30th, 1905, Stuart received the cash he had been expecting and paid Stephenson all the expenses incurred by McKenzie and himself the five or six weeks they stayed in Palmville. He reportedly told McKenzie to begin supporting himself and made preparations to leave the next morning, December 31st, 1905, from the Stephenson homestead.

The next morning, Stuart and Stephenson walked with McKenzie to Stephenson’s barn before parting company. Stuart was wearing a heavy makinaw and was dressed warmly for the long walk to Middle River. He carried a burlap sack with his lariat and clothing in it; his money was in an inner pocket of his coat. McKenzie said he was going to look for work and along the way stop at Jim Feeny’s place. He was carrying a 12 gauge double-barreled shotgun because he said he was going to hunt a little along the trail.

When the three men parted company it was about 9:00 am, McKenzie started off southeast, and Stuart and Stephenson started off southwest toward the cut-off road that lead to the Klondike Ridge. Stephenson, carrying a rifle, walked with Stuart to the sandridge where they parted company. Stephenson said that when he left the road and Stuart, he looked behind him and saw a covered sleigh some distance behind Stuart. Stephenson said he never saw Stuart alive again.

This is a trail map, apparently hand-labeled, of the numerous trails between Palmville, as designated within the 1901 area, and the 1902 area of Poplar Grove Township. The Thief River Falls Road is clearly marked. It changes directions in Section 21. Dutch Henry's body was found in the second section west(left) of the numerals 1901. This map indicates the confluence of Mikinaak (Mickinock) Creek and the South Fork of the Roseau River, one section east and two sections north of 1901.
This is a map of Palmville Township with the indication line of the Treaty of Old Crossing of 1863, west of the line. The "Wagon Road" shown is what is called The Wilson Road in 2020. See how it changes direction in Section 21. (Current day, 2020, it goes east from Section 16.) Dutch Henry's body was found on April 16, 1906, in Section 7. Stephenson lived in the northern half of Section 15 where Stuart (Dutch Henry), McKenzie wintered in 1905.

McKenzie returned to the Stephenson homestead about 1:00 pm. The shotgun empty of the only two shells that McKenzie had carried and his pants were covered with snow. Stephenson and Charles McNamee were eating lunch and Stephenson asked McKenzie what he had shot.
“I shot a chicken but it was too poorly to bring home.”

Stephenson said McKenzie spent a restless night and then left for Wannaska to catch the stage for Roseau. McKenzie was said to have spent money freely in Roseau saloons and the left on the train for parts unknown.

Four months later, on April 16, 1906, Barney Bjerkhoel cleared the brush from near his house a few rods off the Klondike trail. He pulled away the brush from what appeared to be a blowdown, only to discover the mutilated body of a dead man. Notably frightened, Bjerkhole rode to alert his neighbors: Ole Barhals, A.H. Cranes and Alex Gulseth. Together they went back to inspect the body, then Gulseth rode to Roseau to inform the authorities.

News of Dutch Henry’s death spread quickly as lawmen from Montana and the Northwest Mounted Police from Saskatchewan sought positive identification to put Dutch Henry’s death to rest. The NWMP went to great lengths to identify his body and as a result, ordered a reduction of manpower in the border country south of Moose Jaw.

Dr. Lawrence Parker, Roseau County coroner, testified that he had identified the shot and the wad found in the wounds to be that of BB and finer shot of that of a shotgun shell. He also indicated that the entire jaw and part of the neck were shot away. Parker said that the man had been struck from behind and then shot two times as he lay upon the ground. Either shot was sufficient to cause death. Parker also indicated that an inner pocket had been turned inside out as though something had been snatched from it.

In May 1906, with a warrant for his arrest, Roseau County Sheriff John C. Richmond, found McKenzie in a barn in North Dakota drinking beer with several other people. McKenzie had Dutch Henry’s horse and all his gear in his possession. McKenzie denied ever being in Roseau County upon his arrest, but later on the trail with Sheriff Richmond, admitted that he had spent the winter at Stephenson’s homestead.

McKenzie was charged with First Degree murder for killing Dutch Henry on December 31, 1905, in Section 7, Palmville. Many local homesteaders were called as witnesses for the State and a partial list includes: John Bengston, Knudt Lee, Peter A. Johnson, John Grimstad, Mary & Gertrude Gavelin, John Ehlert, Barney Bjerkhoel, and William Stephenson.

John Stuart, a.k.a., Dutch Henry had been seen on the trail by several witnesses who had described him as an older man, short in stature, wearing a heavy makinaw coat and carrying a burlap sack. They also testified that they saw another man on the trail a short distance behind him; he carried a double-barreled shotgun. They identified the man as the defendant, Alex McKenzie.

John Ehlert testified that while driving his canvas-covered sleigh down the trail on Sunday, December 31, 1905, he had met an older man carrying a sack. Ehlert said he had greeted the man but received no reply. Farther down the trail, Ehlert said, he met a another man. The man was tall and younger; he walked fast as though hurried. Ehlert testified that the man asked him if he had seen anyone on the trail ahead. Ehlert replied, he had. The man asked Ehlert, “How far?” Ehlert replied, “Just a little way.” Ehlert testified the man he saw on the trail as Alex R. McKenzie.

Peter Eklund was driving his horse and sleigh on the trail when he heard two shots and his horse jumped at the sound. He told of seeing blood on the sleigh tracks where something had been dragged. He thought nothing of it as he thought someone had shot a deer and loaded it into a sleigh.

The state proved that McKenzie had obtained Stuart’s horse in North Dakota on an order purportedly signed by Stuart that directed the livery owner to deliver same to one J. Cummins. It was shown that McKenzie, under the name of J.Cummins, secured the horse on the 10th of March and sold it for one hundred dollars. McKenzie denied any and all direct circumstances connecting him with the crime. He testified that the order for the horse was genuine and it had been prearranged that he meet Stuart at Ardoch about March 1st. McKenzie said he sold the horse because he thought Stuart would not show, as there was a bounty on him there for three hundred dollars. The defense proved that such a reward had been offered.

In rebuttal the state surprised the defense by introducing a letter written by McKenzie and signed John Cummins and received by livery owner O.P. Moline of January 5th., offering to sell Stuart’s horse for one hundred dollars. McKenzie denied the letter was in his handwriting.

The postmark and the testimonies of the people on the trail that fateful Sunday, the last day of December 1905, put Alex R. McKenzie behind bars for the rest of his life. Or did it?

While researching information for this story at the Roseau County Museum research department, in 1994, I discovered a newspaper copy addition to the Dutch Henry family files that was not there in my earlier forays. During the on-going research of then 90-some years of Roseau County newspapers, someone had come upon an article about Alex McKenzie and put a copy of it in the folder. The article was from the Greenbush Tribune dated October 17, 1913. The headline read:

                                                         IS FREED FROM PRISON

Alex McKenzie was released from Stillwater Penitentiary in August of 1919 because of his ill health and incurable tuberculosis. He was having daily hemorrhages and was not thought to live long. As McKenzie was a Canadian citizen by birth, the governor of Nova Scotia, himself pressured by McKenzie’s parents, put political pressure on the governor of Minnesota to release McKenzie. The provincial governor had received a report that Dutch Henry had, in fact, been killed sixty miles south of Moose Jaw by Northwest Mounted Police in 1910. He and others had encouraged McKenzie’s pardon but the pleas had little influence on the board until McKenzie’s physical condition had become serious.

This left me in a dilemma. I had just written the entire Dutch Henry story by hand in rough draft form and thought we were ready to go to print on Joe’s computer. This new development furthered a new mystery; if Dutch Henry wasn’t murdered in Palmville, who was? Was the 1910 report true? Was Dutch Henry, the wild and woolly outlaw from Montana, really killed in Saskatchewan? Has Palmville no claim to fame (other than the Palmville Press, of course) 

I recalled a newspaper article that I read in the Roseau Times-Region about a writer from out west that was researching the Dutch Henry story for a book, (that he later published, titled "Outlaw tales of Montana" author Gary Wilson). So getting his name and address from the Roseau County Museum curator, Ardyce Stein, I wrote him and asked about my new findings. He replied,

“You can disregard the latter story of Dutch henry’s second death; for the first one finished the old guy off . . . the second story was apparently made up by a bunch of cowboys having some fun. A Superintendent Sanders of the Northwest Mounted police inquired of his border Wood Mountain outpost about the validiy of the story and found it to be completely false.”

Whew!

But the plot thickened recently, when in 2018, Joe McDonnell paid tribute to the story of Dutch Henry, and soon afterward, Stuart McFarlane of Roseau, sent me an email stating in the 1913 Roseau County Atlas he found a Wm. Stevens in Section 18, not a Wm. Stephenson.

So I called Brit Dahl, the curator at the Roseau County Museum, and asked her to verify the Stephenson name in the newspapers for me. Was it in fact Stevens or Stevenson? Did I write it down incorrectly? I saw that I had even spelled Stephenson differently in THE RAVEN issue copy, using it as Stephanson a few times. (The editor was obviously asleep.)

Brit verified that William Stephenson was the name in the May 1906 and 1974 & 1975 issues of The Roseau Times-Region. Stevenson was the spelling in the August 1906 edition of the newspaper; the name McKenzie was also spelled a couple different ways. She suggested I use the Stephenson name.

On April 13, I called the Register of Deeds in Roseau, explaining my dilemma. "I want to verify ownership of Section 18 in Palmville in 1905. Is it William Stephenson or Wm. Stevens?"

The woman came back to say, "I have a William Stephenson in Section 15, its patent registered in 1909 from Homestead. And a William Stevens, in Sections 18 & 19, in 1910 , from a deed with Jacob and Martha Bru."

Great, there were two of them; which one is which? Further in the story, Stephenson and Stuart (Dutch Henry) leave the Stephenson place going southwest to the cut-off road that lead to the Klondike Ridge, and McKenzie left the Stephenson place heading southeast “to look for work and stop by Jim Feeney’s place.” I called the Recorder again, just this morning, to find out where Jim Feeney lived in Palmville in 1905; she said “The northwest corner of Section 14.”

Bingo, the correct name is Stephenson. For Stuart and Stephenson to head southwest to the cutoff road to the Klondike Ridge, Section 15 fits, as does McKenzie's statement he was going to stop at Jim Feeney's to look for work. 

Dutch Henry was buried in an unmarked grave in The Forgotten Cemetery in Section 16, Poplar Grove Township.



Comments


  1. Has the forgotten cemetery been found?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. And if so...when do WE get to visit it?

      I hope the story is true because I loved it!

      Delete
  2. What a grand story! Crime suspicious and proven characters. Travel, death, and mayhem. And all in a the vicinity of our Wannaskan World. Will there be a sequel? JP Savage

    ReplyDelete

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