Hanging of William Barger Jackson County Iowa

William Barger was hung in June 1857 by a group known as the Iron Hill Vigilance Committee. Barger had killed his wife in 1854 at Bellevue in Jackson County, Iowa. He had accused her of infidelity. She sued for divorce. At the time of her murder, Mrs. Barger lived with a relative in Bellevue. Barger bored a hole in a fence near the house. Then he waited for her to open the door. When she did, he shot her dead.  

He pleaded insanity and was tried for murder twice. The first jury was hung, and the second found him guilty. After that, Barger’s lawyer didn’t think his client could get a fair trial in Bellevue, so he got a change of venue to De Witt in Clinton County for his third trial.  

The Tipton Advertiser justified the hanging, saying, “That the law was sluggish is evidenced in the time Barger has been suffered to lay in the jail at the expense of the county, even when it was judged and positively known that he was guilty.” In effect, they said, if the law doesn’t do it, the people will.

Hanging of Bennett Warren Scott County

Bennett Warren had a small farm in Liberty Township in Scott County, Iowa. Not much farming got done there. Instead, his house served as a meeting place for the more unsavory element—horse thieves, counterfeiters, occasional burglars, and other frontier badasses. 

Warren never stole horses or counterfeited money, but he helped the banditti by letting them keep the stolen horses on his property. In return, he took and passed counterfeit currency. Each time the authorities arrested Warren, no one would testify against him, so he got off with little more than a slap on the wrist.

On June 24, 1857, two hundred vigilantes crossed into Clinton County from their rendezvous spot at Big Rock. They marched to Warren’s house and took him to a nearby grove.