52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 33 Family Legend - A Bible and a Gun

The 52 Ancestors prompt for this week is "Family Legend". It isn't unusual for a family to have some sort of legend. Maybe it's a legend surrounding the family's arrival in a country or that there's an ancestral castle waiting to be claimed. Maybe it's a story about how you're supposedly related to someone famous. You could explore how you proved or disproved the story. Then there are the "tall tales" that seem to get taller at every telling!

My father told me quite a few stories about his grandfather's adventures as county sheriff during the 1920s. Charles Creeden was the County Sheriff of Mercer County, OH from 1923-1927. One legend I've been able to prove during Charles' time as sheriff involved a skirmish at the opening of the Mercer County courthouse where Charles turned the fire hoses on an unruly mob. I was also able to find an article about the arrests of farmers for having stills (or hootch!) on their farms during prohibition.

Another of my father's stories involved a gunfight that broke out when Charles and his deputies tried to serve papers on a local pastor. They approached the person in question on his way to church and he pulled a gun out from under his bible and shot at them! A bullet grazed Charles in the head and left a scar. The sheriffs shot back and the shooter was arrested.

I've searched for a newspaper article on this story before with no luck, but this time I had some success.

The above article was published in the News-Journal in Mansfield, OH on March 24, 1925 and is available on Newspapers.com. It seems to confirm most of the story. It's interesting that it doesn't mention Charles being shot, but I'm guessing the injury was fairly minor. It also doesn't mention the details about a pastor or pulling the gun out from under a bible, so hard to say if that is true or if my great-grandfather was just adding a bit of color to the story! Given that Hein was on his way to church, it certainly seems possible.

One final thing I wondered about was the levy of execution mentioned in the article. According to Nolo.com, this is a court order authorizing a levy on (or seizure) of property or other asset to satisfy a creditor. No wonder Mr. Hein didn't want to answer the door when the sheriffs came to his house!

#52Ancestors is a series of weekly family history prompts developed by Amy Johnson Crow.

Thriller Thursday - Hootch!

My great-grandfather Charles Creeden was county sheriff of Mercer County, Ohio from 1923-1927. One of the issues he dealt with was illegal liquor production during the prohibition era in the US. This article was published in the Lima News on November 28, 1924.

The article goes on to name the farmers and what each of them were caught with. Most of them had stills hidden on their farms and several gallons of whiskey. The lowest fine was $300 for having 1 1/2 gallons of whiskey in the house. The highest was $600 for having a 32 gallon barrel full of liquor, plus 12 gallons of "hootch" in jugs.

According to my father, resentment from the farmers remained a long time after my great-grandfather's term as sheriff. Sometime in the 1940s, Charles took my father to see the farmhouse he grew up in. The farmhouse was on a farm north of town and was no longer in use. The current land owner yelled at them to get off of his land and the farmhouse was burned down a short time after their visit. Charles told my father that the bad blood was due to the arrests he made during prohibition, so it was interesting to see a story about the raids.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Sheriff's Badge

My brother-in-law was looking through an old toolbox of my Dad's when he discovered a sheriff's badge! It was my great-grandfather Charles Creeden's badge when he was Sheriff of Mercer County, Ohio from 1923-1927. The badge is still quite shiny and in good condition. What a find!

Sheriff Charles Creeden and his wife Anna

Treasure Chest Thursday is a posting prompt hosted on Geneabloggers with the main focus being a family treasure, an heirloom or even an every-day item important to your family. A special thanks to Leslie Ann Ballou of Lost Family Treasures for suggesting Treasure Chest Thursday as a daily blogging theme!

Thriller Thursday - Riots at the Courthouse!

Lima News depiction of the courthouse on Sept. 2, 1923

My great-grandfather Charles Creeden was Sheriff of Mercer County, Ohio from 1923-1927 and his wife Anna served as Jail Matron during that time. Charles' brothers Daniel and Joshua were deputy sheriffs. These were some exciting times with Prohibition and bank robberies, but one story my father remembered stands out and I wanted to see how much of it I could verify.

As my Dad's story went, the Klan had a parade in town, most likely as an anti-Catholic demonstration. Their leader was arrested for disturbing the peace and was being held in the Mercer County Jail. Members of the KKK showed up to demand the prisoner's release and a standoff ensued. Charles was at the front door of the jail and Anna was at the back door. She was said to be a very good shot! The group came up and demanded that their leader be released, but Charles said that wasn't going to happen. The gang said, "Who's gonna stop us, you and what army?". Charles pointed to the roof where his deputies and members of the Knights of Columbus were standing with guns raised and said, "That one!". The story gets a little hazy as to what happened next, but some kind of melee broke out and there were injuries on both sides. Well, I should mention that my Dad inherited the Irish storytelling gene and his stories tended to get better with age! I didn't know how much of this was true, but figured at least some of it had to be.

Ancestry.com has the Lima, Ohio newspaper online, so I tried finding mention of an incident involving the Klan in Mercer County, but didn't have any luck. I also searched for sheriff and Creeden with various spellings and found some interesting stories, but not this one. My luck turned when I was contacted by a Mercer County historian Joyce Alig about doing a story on my family's Mercer County connections. She had edited a book on the courthouse and remembered an incident where men showed up in sheets at the dedication of the courthouse on Labor Day weekend in Sept. 1923. With the date narrowed down, I was able to find an article about the disturbance.

Lima News, Sept. 4, 1923

According to this article in the Lima News, there were riots at the courthouse dedication involving over 500 people! My great-grandfather's name was misspelled Breedon and there is no actual mention of the Klan, so that explains why I couldn't find it. Ouch, sounds like the sheriff and his men didn't make out too good! Joyce warned that the news could have been exaggerated by the time it got to Lima.

It is interesting that the Klan is never mentioned by name, but several things in the article match my Dad's story. I bought a used copy of Joyce's book on the Mercer County courthouses and she captured some eye witness accounts of the incident in the book. Some of the accounts mentioned a KKK speaker and one mentioned the sheriff getting the fire hoses out.

Celina Newspaper, Sept. 4, 1923

In the Celina article, the incident is labeled a "Regrettable Disturbance" as opposed to Riots. Quite a difference! While it doesn't sound like as large a disturbance as reported in Lima, the articles agreed on quite a few things. Both articles mentioned an anti-Catholic speaker and group, but neither mentioned the Klan by name. Both were in agreement that the sheriff tried to break up the crowd by spraying them with water from the fire hoses. No mention of the Knights of Columbus on the roof, but there was mention of 12 deputies and other officials being involved. The articles also both mentioned that the speaker was arrested for disturbing the peace.

All in all, it looks like most of my Dad's story was true. I found it interesting that neither newspaper mentioned the Klan specifically. In the Lima newspaper, there was a detailed article on Sept. 2, 1923 about a recent initiation ceremony held by the Klan, so they were definitely active in that area. That article was right next to a writeup about the new courthouse before the dedication. The rest of the Celina article is below. Thanks to Marj B. for sending it to me!