Jury Duty and James Bayne

As we do genealogy research it’s not uncommon to look in newspapers and court documents to see where our ancestors may be mentioned.

In most cases we find a will, a probate, maybe some land records or occasional dispute with the neighbors. In this case James Bayne (my 2X Great Grandfather) actually served as a juror for a pretty major case.

The Hartington Herald reported on November 4, 1910 that Mrs Maggie Davis had been arrested on the charge of murder for shooting Ira Churchill. The initial story leads us to believe that Maggie Davis was in process of a divorce from her current husband, Mr Churchill’s first wife had died in February and then in October he married again which seems to have enraged Maggie Davis who had worked in Ira’s home as a housekeeper from March 1908 through August 1910 to the point that she went to Ira’s barn near Coleridge, NE after dinner and shot him three times while he was milking cows. Once in the temple and twice in the breast.

There are several articles in the local paper and the Sioux City News discussing this incident. One from the Hartington Herald on Nove 11, 1910 comments that she “has not seemed sorry that she committed the crime.” It also includes that “Many of the local people are in sympathy with her.”

In the trial Maggie pled insanity. Her story from the Cedar County News on March 16, 1911, states that she and Churchill had illicit relations on the promise of marriage. She became pregnant and induced an abortion herself with a device furnished by Churchill. She also testified that she suffered from severe headaches and dizziness. By all reports the courthouse was packed and Maggie appears to have had multiple “nervous attacks” during testimony.

The jury decided that Maggie was not insane, and she was found guilty of murder in the first degree with imprisonment for life. The Sioux City Journam on March 18, 1911, reported that the City of Hartington was balanced in their opinions of the verdict and that “The men of Hartington probably were more in sympathy with the unfortunate womany than were the women. It was a pretty generally expressed opinion that Ira Churchill deserved what he got…”

The Coleridge Blade reported on March 23, 1911, that the attorney for Maggie Davis asked for a new trial and was denied. I didn’t look further to see if Maggie served her full sentence or what happened to her. Her story is sad, and James Bayne was part of a very publicized story.

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