About the year 1838, a man whose name was John Bowls, who lived near -the west bank of Blue River Lake, was arrested upon the charge of killing his wife. His little girl, who was about twelve or thirteen years of age, said that her father and mother quarreled, and that her father struck her mother on the head with a large potato, and knocked her down, after which he stamped upon her breast with the heel of his boot, until he killed her, all of which was witnessed by her.
Whitley County not having been organized at that time, the territory which it at present comprises being then embraced within the bounds of Huntington County, there were no courts nearer than Huntington in which to try him ; and, in consequence of the lack of means for the administration of justice, this man, whom every one believed to be guilty escaped the punishment which he doubtless merited. After holding him in custody for a short time, and after a few of the good citizens had visited Huntington several times, making futile efforts to set the machinery of the law in motion against him, he was set at liberty. In a short time afterward he went away, no one knew whither, and his children were sent back to Ohio, whence they had come.
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