- MURDER OF HENRY LANVERMEYER IN HORSE CREEK COLORADO.
====================================================
Information by Mrs. Wilbur Howe and
The BCD Centennial Edition June 14, 1973. page 463.
Early in the evening of a cold Christmas day in 1906, people in the Horse Creek area were appalled by a murder in their midst.
Lars Lebeerg, a stranger and a self-styled anarchist, who seemingly without cause, killed Henry Lanvermeyer with a hammer. He had asked for food, and had eaten at the table with the George Purvis family.
Before leaving that home he had asked for a bed for the night. His host offered him the use of the bunkhouse, wich the stranger declined.
LeBeerg stopped at the Henry Lanvermeyer house and asked, again, for a night's lodging. He was told that they did not have a room for him. The irate young traveler went into a field and set fire to a haystack.
The blaze soon lit up the sky. Lanvermeyer's neighbors came to assist in extinguishing the fire. Among them were Mr. Purvis, William Marlman, and John Marlman. The men parted and went in different directions in search of the arsonist.
George Purvis and another neighbor found a body, wich after a difficult task, identified the man as Henry Lanvermeyer. His head was badly beaten, his throat was slashed, and there were deep wounds to the scalp.
About two o'clock in the morning, John Marlman met a stranger riding Mr. Lanvermeyer's horse near the Horse creek bridge. The man was asking directions about roads. During their conversation, he told Marlman that he killed a man earlier in the evening. John had noticed that his hands were stained with blood. He knew that he had found the murderer. Without much resistance, John Marlman took the man to town and turned him over to the sheriff.
On December 27, 1906, a group of about thirty hooded, well-organized men went to the jail and over powered the sheriff, two of them stood guard and the other broke the jail bars and took the prisoner by force, to a telegraph pole down the street. Lars Lebeerg, a twenty-one-year-old man was the first man to be lynched in Bent County.
Henry Lanvermeyer was in his early thirties. He was a prosperous farmer and a well respected citizen in the county. He left a wife, Louise Lanvermeyer (Marlman) and a eight-year-old daugther, Dorothea, to mourn his loss, as well relatives and friends in the community.
|
1866 - 1906 (40 jaar)
: Adres
: Locatie
: Stad/Dorp
: Gemeente/Graafschap
: Staat/Provincie
: Land
: Nog niet ingesteld
