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In the early seventies, there settled in East Ward, now Turtle Creek township, a young German immigrant, named John Miede. From his dark complection, he was usually referred to as "Black John."
Early in 1879, he was joined by a brother just arrived from Germany, named Michael. There was another brother named Joseph, but he was a different kind of man. John and Michael were turbulent, dangerous men, but Joseph was highly respected by his neighbors.
In 1879, there settled in the same neighborhood, two young men named Henry Kolway and Frank Steinhuber. Kolway had a wife seventeen years old, who was not able to determine right from wrong. During the summer, Michael took her from her husband, and she lived with the Miede boys at their cabin. Michael told her that he had bought her from Kolway, and she thought the transaction was regular and was contented with the arrangement.
Kolway and Steinhuber were inoffensive men, and it is thought that Kolway was well pleased to be rid of the woman, but others in the neighborhood were much wrought up over the matter. Feeling ran high against John and Michael. One day when they were absent, the house of the Miede brothers was burned with all its contents. It is not thought that Kolway and Steinhuber had any part in the destruction of the house, but the brothers believed that they had, and made threats to be revenged.
On October 27, 1879, John and Michael killed Kolway and Steinhuber, Kolway by means of a gun and Steinhuber with an ax. The bodies were placed in two small holes in the ground and cleverly concealed with fallen leaves. |
In a few days, the victims were missed by their neighbors, and suspicion was directed toward the brothers. Michael was absent begging to obtain means to build another house. John was arrested and at a hearing before John Bassett, Justice of the Peace, he made a confession of the crime. That night he was confined in the log jail then standing on the courthouse hill. It was generally known or believed that the prisoner would be lynched that night; but no steps were taken to prevent it.
John stated that he would not live to see the morning and he gave his coat and a few personal effects to an attendant to be delivered to his brother, Joe. In a short time the mob appeared, and John was taken from the jail and hanged in an oak tree near the Lutheran Church.
Michael was apprehended at Spring Hill in Stearns County, and brought to Long Prairie. A hurried hearing was had before Justice Bassett in Ward Township, and the prisoner was spirited away to the jail in St. Cloud where he was held until his trial.
In March, 1889, he was brought to Long Prairie, tried, convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to life imprisonment in the state's prison at Stillwater. All efforts in the years that followed to secure his pardon or parole, were unsuccessful, and he died at the prison, on February 6th, 1925.
The prosecuting attorney was John D. Jones, a young man serving his first term as county attorney. Fifty-two years afterward, the accompanying photographs were found among Mr. Jones's private papers, and presented to the county's historical collection.
Pictures taken by M. L. Smith, the first photographer in Long Prairie |
