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Non-Fiction:JOHN MCELVOY
Published in 1876
If the majesty of the law is to be duly vindicated
in Nebraska, the next person to expiate his crimes on
the gallows is John McElvoy, the boy murderer.
This young man, not yet nineteen years old, is a native
of Illinois, born at Joliet, and learned the printer's
trade there. He afterwards moved with his father's
family to Chicago, and was there employed upon the
New Covenant. In the spring of 1878, he floated
westward with the current of immigration. At Lincoln,
Nebraska, he met a woman whom he had known
and loved in early boyhood. She claimed to be a lone
widow seeking a livelihood in the far west as best she
could. Man is the victim of woman's wiles, and Mc-
Elvoy is not the exception that proves the rule, and
forthwith they were legally made man and wife. The
honeymoon was not yet a fortnight old when the
widow's living husband appeared and claimed his
wife. With an eye to money interests she renewed
her relations with the first husband, and McElvoy
moved on toward the setting sun, and halted at Hastings,
in Adams county. Finding no employment
there for the tramp printer, he went into the country
to work on a farm. While living with Henry Stutzman,
an honest German farmer, the two had some
little difficulty that rankled in McElvoy's mind. They
lived together alone, far away from neighbors, and
one night as the old man lay in his bed unsuspicious
of impending danger, McElvoy raised a double barrel
shot gun to his arm, and taking deliberate aim, he
sent the old man's soul on its flight over the dark
river. No reason has been assigned for this murder.
He was tried and convicted, and will be executed at
Hastings, Nebraska, on the 20th of May, 1879.
Finish