Lou’s View – Jan. 15, 2015
The Sheriff and the Horse Theif
by Lou Bernard
June 1, 1904 started out as an ordinary day for Hendry Dill Loveland.
Not that Loveland had a whole lot of ordinary days. Loveland’s life was filled with exciting and interesting events. These included an actual war and a three-year term in law enforcement, plus a childhood making dangerous bladed objects.
Henry Dill Loveland was not your ordinary guy.
He was a Civil War veteran and an ex-sheriff of Clinton County—He grew up in Lamar, working for his father’s axe factory. He’d joined the Civil War, with some help from his older brother Wilbur, in 1864. He was fourteen years old at the time. A photo exists of Loveland in uniform, and he cannot really have been fooling anyone—He looks like a little boy playing dress-up. They must have been pretty hard up for soldiers.
Family legend has it that he put a piece of paper in his boot with the number eighteen written on it so that he could honestly say he was over eighteen. Family legend also has it that he purchased a sword and rifle for thirteen dollars to fight the war, and that his horse was shot out from under him on his sixteenth birthday.
He ran for sheriff in 1899 and won, spending the next three years as sheriff of Clinton County. He was respected, known as an honest and good man, and made a lot of arrests during his term.
After he retired, he joined up with his son in Antes Fort, and they ran a store together. Which is what he was doing at about five AM on a Wednesday afternoon, the first day in June 1904, when a man rode up on a horse.
The Clinton County Times later described the visitor as “A dapper young fellow of medium height and build and light complexion.” The horse appeared to be a good one, and it was for sale. The man explained to Loveland that he was selling the horse, and asked if maybe Loveland would be interested.
Loveland agreed. You’d think an ex-sheriff would know better, but apparently anyone can be talked into anything, or so a whole battalion of Nigerian princes keep telling me. He bought the horse for twenty dollars, and threw in a pair of new shoes.
The man shook Loveland’s hand, took the money and the shoes, and headed on foot for the local railroad station, catching a train into Lock Haven.
After work, Loveland decided to try out the horse. He rode it into Jersey Shore, where he was promptly informed that it was stolen. The horse had been taken from the barn of Edward Hughes of Linden the previous night, and the thief had trotted right over to Loveland’s store first thing in the morning to unload it.
“Imagine his chagrin,” said the newspaper.
Loveland gave the horse back to Hughes, which was the honest thing to do. Clearly, he didn’t feel very good about having been ripped off. The Times said,”The space in his pocket previously occupied by the greenbacks felt like a hole in a doughnut.”
A bit later, Loveland’s son Blaine rode into Lock Haven, looking for the man. Asking around, he found out that a man fitting that description had arrived by train in Lock Haven. His name was John Johnson, of course, which makes you wonder why Johnsons and Smiths are so prone to being con artists.
He found “Johnson” and accused him of the theft. Johnson confessed, giving back the twenty dollars (and, presumably, the shoes.) The newspaper said he “made things good and was allowed to go his own way.”
So all’s well that ends well….Everyone ended up happy. Hughes got his horse back, Loveland got his twenty dollars back, Blaine got the satisfaction of solving the crime. Even Johnson didn’t have to serve any jail time. If only our criminal justice system worked this efficiently all the time. Maybe we need to put it to a test. Are there any ex-sheriffs out there who want to buy the Jay Street Bridge?
