John Heslop was a famed friend to Ontario rebels. Was he shot by an outlaw cattle-rustler with a cancerous right eye?
Madge Merton was a rare being in Victorian Ontario - a mainstream female journalist who was front and centre covering gritty stories like murder.
Merton was hard at work in March 1892 at the trial of two men accused of the home invasion murder of John Heslop, a prominent citizen of Ancaster near Hamilton.
Madge Merton was the pen name of 24-year-old Elmina Ella Susannah Elliott, who also wrote under the pen names Clip Carew" and Frances Burton Clare."
At the time of the trial, Canadian women couldn't vote or couldn't run for public office.
Merton found herself unapologetically drawn to the murder trial.
All Hamilton is talking of the trial," Merton wrote for the Toronto Globe on March 22, 1892, and so what more was to be expected of a woman with an hour free than that she should go to the court house, especially if she had been gravely assured by her most particular cousin that there were lots of ladies there' and you really should not miss it?'
We went."
This was a high-stakes legal battle, held at a time when the death penalty was still enthusiastically administered.
Heslop was a 78-year-old farmer who was the first reeve of Ancaster Township, the first warden of Wentworth County and clerk and treasurer of Ancaster.
He was shot dead when hooded men burst into his gothic revival stone house on Mineral Springs Road on the outskirts of Hamilton around 2 a.m. on Jan. 27, 1891.
The septuagenarian went down fighting, which was true to character.
He had been helped rebel leader William Lyon Mackenzie flee the country after the failed 1837-38 Rebellion.
When the investigation by Hamilton police into Heslop's murder appeared to be sputtering, Ontario premier/ attorney-general Oliver Mowat put provincial Const. Det. William Greer in charge of the case.
The reputation of every man, young and old, withing a radius of 15 miles was inquired into," the Globe reported.
That led to Greer taking a hard look at Jack Bartram, a white man in his mid-50s who lived close to the Six Nations Mohawk Reserve by Brantford.
Bartram has for years borne the reputation of being the hardest man on the Grand River, and was the terror of that section of the country," the Globe reported.
At the time of the murder, Bartram was slowing down somewhat from back in the 1870s, when he led a gang that was wanted by police for burning barns and houses and robbery, including the theft of more than 100 sheep from Six Nations.
He lived in the United States for a few years, where he is wanted on several charges," the Globe reported. The authorities in New York State report that he is one of the most notorious crooks and thieves that they have ever had to deal with."
Greer zeroed in on Bartram as a likely suspect for the Heslop murder, and caught wind that George Douglas and Samuel Goosey, two of Bartram's associates from Six Nations, were in New York State.
He brought them back across the border, and not long after that, they decided to avoid the risk of the noose and testify against Bartram and his nephew, Jack Lottridge, who didn't have a criminal record.
A reporter who visited Bartram in jail found him to wearing a neat grey suit and reading a biblical pamphlet.
The ageing rustler was also in the habit of wiping his cancerous right eye with a handkerchief.
Interest was intense in the trial, which began on March 15, 1892. It was held in Hamilton's imposing county courthouse at 50 Main Street East, which has since been destroyed.
The length of time that justice has been in a trance," wrote Merton, the peculiar cruelty of the murder and ... seeing the prisoners for the first time brought back most vividly, the cold snowy morning when an excited man (a neighbour who heard a horse and wagon fleeing the scene) gave an outline of the robbery and crime, and we thought of the quiet home and the country near to Ancaster which had looked so peaceful under a winter sky."
Reporters seeking entry literally climbed over railings and the masses to watch.
Earlier in the week, a Globe reporter excitedly noted: At about 1:45 the court house was literally jammed, and the constables stated that no one could possible get in. The reporters, however, managed to climb over the balustrades, were lifted over the heads of the excited crowd, and secured the seats."
Court heard the home invaders thought they could get $2,000 of township funds from Heslop's home. They ended up with a quarter of this, plus some rings, broaches and other jewellery.
Court also heard that, when two of the intruders reached the second floor outside his bedroom, Heslop attacked them with a chair and drove two masked men down to a stairway landing.
Then he was shot, dying within minutes.
The jury heard from a string of former Brantford jail inmates, including a 19-year-old named H.B. Smith, who was locked up for bigamy.
The jury heard from the inmates that Bartram confessed to the Heslop murder to fellow inmates with words like: I had to shoot him or he would have knocked me down with a chair" and that he would bet that old fellow would not hit anybody else over the head with a chair."
They also heard that Bartram feared a trip to the gallows, once reportedly saying: My God! If Jack Lottridge says 10 words, then I'm a goner for sure!"
Defence lawyer John Crerar reminded the jury the key prosecution witnesses were not of peerless character.
When you go to the jail for witnesses you cannot expect to obtain men of untarnished character," Crerar said.
The defence also countered with plenty of alibi evidence. The jury heard that the accused killers were actually at a Six Nations funeral at the time they were supposedly plotting the robbery.
Court also heard that police broke the law when they brought key witnesses back from Lewiston, New York.
Why did you come back without extradition?," Crerar asked Goosey.
Goosey said he was having a drink in a bar next to Frank Miller, chief of police for Lewiston, when everything went black.
When he woke up, he was across the border in the town of Clifton, later known as Niagara Falls.
Well, Miller gave me a drink that put me to sleep, and I did not know anything until I found myself in Clifton lock-up," Goosey said.
The Globe reported the prisoners were pale and anxious" as the jury deliberated for 3 hours
Then they delivered verdicts of not guilty for both accused.
Bartram ended up back in jail after he was immediately rearrested on a cattle rustling charge.
There never was a conviction for Hislop's murder.
A month after the trial, on Easter Monday in 1892, columnist Elliott (aka Madge Merton) married Joseph E. Atkinson, who went on to become publisher of the Toronto Daily Star.
Elliott took her pen name Madge Merton" to the rival Star, using it to push for the rights of women and children.
Woodend, Heslop's old home on Sulphur Springs Road, is now the headquarters of the Hamilton Region Conservation Authority.
Peter Edwards is a Toronto-based reporter primarily covering crime for the Star. Reach him via email: pedwards@thestar.ca