Histories: Trempealeau Co. Historical Accounts:
"History of Trempealeau County Wisconsin,
1917":
Chapter 10:
The Olson Lynching
-As
transcribed from pages 202 - 204
Hans Jacob Olson was lynched at his home about three miles from Blair
on the night of Nov. 24, 1889. Olson, on June 8, 1885, was
convicted of setting fire to the building of B. K. Strand, a Blair
merchant, on Dec. 29, 1883, by loading a stump with blasting powder,
the stump being afterward conveyed to Mr. Strand, who put it in his
stove, where it exploded. Rumor had it that Olson did not take
the stump to the merchant's woodpile personally, but furnished it at
the request of another person and left it at a place agreed.
Olson was sentence to five years in State's Prison. He was
released in the spring of 1889 and almost immediately, upon the
testimony of his wife and son, was put under bonds to keep the
peace. Unable to furnish bonds he was sent to jail, where he
served some six months. The term expired in November. Of
the events which followed, it has been said:
"The hanging took place at his home on the 24th day of November,
1889. He lived in a small log house and a few feet from one of
the windows was a burr oak tree with a branch sticking out from the tree
almost horizontal, and on this tree he was hung. The day was
Sunday and word had been quietly given out in the neighborhood for the
people to come to a certain place near Charles Johnson's farm where
there was a vacant house at that time. The place of meeting was
about one mile from Olson's house. Charles Johnson was the
instigator and leader, and had encouraged the mob of forty or sixty
men, that no jury would ever be found to convict them. Most of
the men who followed Johnson had the idea that the purpose was to drive
Olson out of the country, but Johnson probably knew what would be the
result from the beginning, for at this vacant house they provided
themselves with two ropes, one a heavy well rope and the other a
smaller rope, probably taken for the purpose of tying him, as they knew
Olson to be a man of extraordinary strength and a very determined
man. At the place that the mob met, a son of Olson's met with
them, and after going within sixty rods of the house the mob sent
Olson's son to reconnoiter. He went to the house and found his
father asleep and came back and reported the fact to the mob. The
mob went to the house and I think four men went in and took him from
the bed and called him out under his tree. He refused to go and
they put the rope around his neck and pulled him up, held him a short
time suspended, then let him down and renewed their demand. Then
they strung him up again, this time keeping him suspended so long that
when they let him down they found he was not able to stand, so they
carried him into the house, laid him on the floor until he
revived. Someone in the crowd asked his wife what they should do
with him and she told them to take him away. They then took him
out in front of the house barefooted on the frozen ground, and asked
him to leave the country. His reply was this: 'This is my
home, and I will not leave it till God takes me away.' He was
then strung up the third time and left hanging until morning.
During the whole time he never resisted. His strength was such
that probably no two or three men, or even more, would have been able
to handle him had he made resistance. Whether his courage was
moral courage or simply animal courage, it is difficult to say, but
certainly the courage shown was of the highest kind in its class.
After the hanging the mob dispersed, with the exception of two members
who remained all night with the wife and children and to screen the
window so that the corpse would not be visible, the woman hung up a
blanket, and twice during the night made coffee for the men who
stayed. Early the next day an inquest was summoned, and Charles
Johnson was foreman of that jury, and the decision of the jury was that
Olson had come to his death by hanging by persons unknown to the jury.
"The same day the district attorney issued a warrant for the arrest of
Johnson and some thirty others on the charge of riot. Johnson
went to the district attorney's home at midnight and made dire threats,
but in spite of this, warrants were issued charging Johnson, the widow,
the son, and a neighbor with murder. Charles Johnson, Bertha M.
Olson (widow), Ole J. Hanson (son), and Ole J. Sletto were convicted of
murder in the first degree and sentenced to life. More than fifty
others who took part were convicted of riot. Most of them paid
their fines. All four were pardoned by Governor Peck after having
been in prison for something over five years. The people who took
part in this killing were most, if not all, good, peaceable,
law-abiding citizens, and some were men of excellent character.
Mr. Johnson, who was the leader, claimed to be afraid of Olson - afraid
that he would burn his property or injure his family. Johnson was
a men of acute intelligence, had been chairman of his town several
times, was president of a Farmers' Trading Association, and in fact a
leader in all municipal affairs in his neighborhood. Johnson,
after his return from prison, stayed in and about Blair for several
years."