The Murder That Shocked Lincoln

The trial of Mary Sheedy and alleged co-conspirator “Monday” McFarland for the murder of Mary’s husband, John Sheedy, caused an uproar. How could a middle-class woman of the Victorian Era commit adultery and murder in Lincoln, Nebraska

We return to the scene of the crime in this 2001 Nebraska History Magazine article titled “The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of the Gilded Age in Lincoln,” written by Timothy R. Mahoney.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
The following episode features ahistoric article from the
Nebraska History magazine. This article may reflect the
language and attitudes of its time and while it offers
valuable insight into the past, may contend expressions or
viewpoints that are outdated or offensive by today's standards.
Any outdated terms do not reflect the current views or
perspectives of the Nebraska State Historical Society.
Welcome to the Nebraska History podcast.
I'm your host, Chris Goforth. Each episode we explore articles

(00:22):
written and published in Nebraska History Magazine.
The trial of Mary Sheedy, an alleged Co conspirator Monday
McFarland for the murder of Mary's husband John Sheedy
caused an uproar. How could a middle class woman
of the Victorian era commit adultery and murder in Lincoln,
NE? Today we return to the scene of

(00:42):
the crime in this 2001 Nebraska History Magazine article titled
The Great Sheedy Murder Trial and the Booster Ethos of the
Gilded Age in Lincoln written byTimothy R Mahoney.
Just before 8:00 on Sunday evening, January 11th, 1891,
John Sheedy, a Lincoln, NE real estate developer, hotel owner,

(01:04):
noted booster and sporting man stepped out of the front door of
his house on the southeast corner of 12th and P streets to
go 2 blocks over to his gamblingestablishment in the Uptown
district. Suddenly, out of the shadows, a
man charged toward him, strikinghim on the side of the head with
a leather covered steel cane. Staggering, Sheedy drew a pistol

(01:27):
and fired several shots, but missed his assailant, who
disappeared down 12th St. into the dark.
Sheedy's wife rushed from the house to help her husband back
into the parlor, then called fora doctor and the police.
As neighbors, including another doctor, gathered, Dr. CS Hart
and the chief of police, Marshall Samuel Melek, soon

(01:49):
arrived, and as the two doctors dressed Sheedy's head wound and
helped him to bed, Malik questioned him about the
attacker. The doctors administered pain
relievers, and Mary Sheedy gave her husband sleeping powders in
a cup of coffee. In the middle of the night,
Sheedy was stricken with paralysis.

(02:10):
He fell into a coma the next morning, and the doctors ruled
out surgery. He died about 10:00 Monday
night, 26 hours after the attack.
From the moment that word of Sheedy's murder spread, through
the arrest, arraignment, and trial of his alleged assailants
to the final verdict in May of 1891 and beyond, the great

(02:33):
Sheedy murder case absorbed Lincoln's attention and elicited
greater excitement than any other previous case in the
city's history. Lincoln residents were shocked
and horrified by a crime considered so heinous that one
booster proclaimed it quote, oneof the most sensational in the
annals of American crime. End Quote.

(02:55):
Local and regional newspapers provided unprecedented coverage,
and the subject dominated conversation for months.
Almost every important Lincoln lawyer was involved and
thousands of spectators, at first mainly men, but by the end
of the trial included many middle class and elite women.
They crushed into the impressivenew Lancaster County Courthouse

(03:18):
at 10th and K streets to watch the proceedings.
The intense reaction made it clear the case was much more
than simply a sensational murder.
Alarmed and shocked by the identity of the victim and the
alleged assailants, many Lincolnites interpreted it as an
indication that tensions roilingbeneath the surface for years

(03:40):
had reached a boiling point. Many also suspected it was a
politically motivated act, representing A deepening
struggle for control of the underlying values and standards
that would dominate Lincoln's future political and economic
development. In addition, procedural
irregularities in the conduct ofthe case and the disposition of

(04:02):
Sheedy's estate, the involvementof certain individuals in the
prosecution, and questionable trial tactics by both the
prosecution and the defense touched off rumor, innuendo, and
speculation that beneath the public melodrama lurked a story
that could compromise the integrity of Lincoln's political
and legal communities, underminethe moral foundations of its

(04:24):
middle class, and threaten its future as a progressive city.
Such concerns reflected a pervasive feeling in the early
1890s that the structure and dynamics of the nation's
economy, political system, society, and culture were
undergoing profound transformations.
People felt the forces of changesweep away much that was

(04:48):
familiar, and a pervasive sense of crisis permeated nearly every
aspect of American life. It seemed to many that all the
rules had changed. Like noteworthy crimes and other
times and places, the Sheedy case opens a window into the
crisis of the 1890s in Lincoln and in urban America in general.

(05:11):
On January 12th, as Sheedy lay dying, Marshall Melek and
Detective James Malone spread word of the assault across
Lincoln's Demimont, a concentration of salons,
gambling halls and bordellos along O&P streets, interrogating
residents and patrons in search of witnesses and information.
Official reaction to the murder was unusual almost from the

(05:34):
first moment it became public knowledge.
On Monday night, when word of Sheedy's death reached the
county coroner, Dr. HL Holyoke, he rushed to the Sheedy
residents, signed the death certificate, and had the body
transported to the courthouse for a coroner's inquest.
The following morning, as Lincoln woke to the news of the
murder, Holyoke impaneled an inquest jury assembled from men

(05:59):
already gathering at the courthouse.
At 9:00 the following morning, January 14th, an unprecedented
number of reporters, policemen, lawyers and politicians,
including Mayor Robert B Graham,crowded the jury room as the
inquest began. A member of the jury, Robert
McReynolds, A prominent reform businessman, moved that the

(06:21):
inquest be held in secret and invited the press to leave.
Suspicious and infuriated reporters called the
unprecedented closed inquest. An illegitimate Star Chamber
eavesdropped through the transform and tried to force
their way into the room. Holyoke moved the inquest to a

(06:43):
small, unheeded meeting room on the third floor.
Though some jury members apparently doubted the blow
could have caused Sheedy's death, the inquest concluded
that he had been murdered, deathresulting from internal bleeding
caused by a blow to the head. The questions remaining then
were who struck the blow and why?

(07:06):
Malik and Malone continued to comb the P St.
Dives, and within hours they found witnesses who, like Mary
Sheedy herself, claimed to have seen a black man of middle
height and build near the Sheedyhouse about the time of the
murder. To the boys of P St., the
description fit William Monday McFarland, a popular patron of

(07:28):
the area's bars and clubs and a Barber at Crampton's Barber Shop
below the stairs of 930 P St. onthe north side, adjacent to
Sheedy's Mac Hotel. Later that day, McFarlane was
said to have been seen on an extended spree on P St. and a
group of rowdy white men went insearch of him, apparently intent

(07:50):
on taking the law into their ownhands.
Two days later, after Malone andMelek tracked McFarlane down and
arrested him in a bar on O Street, taking him to police
headquarters and the loathsome city jail on the southeast
corner of Haymarket Square for questioning, Melek and Malone,
accompanied by Mayor Graham, apparently locked McFarland in a

(08:12):
dark, airless sweat box, removing him occasionally to see
if he was willing to talk. Finally, allegedly coerced by
threats to deliver him to the angry mom, McFarland confessed
to the murder, believing that they had their man.
The police and the County Attorney, Novia Snell, now

(08:32):
needed a motive. McFarland obliged, telling his
astonishing inquisitors, quote, who could hardly believe their
ears and quote, that he had beencoerced into the murder by Mary
Sheedy. About a year before, he said,
John Sheedy, his benefactor, friend and regular at Crampton's

(08:53):
barbershop, had asked him to come to the Sheedy's house to do
Mary's hair. McFarland, a handsome,
personable man, scheduled weeklyhouse calls.
Soon, McFarland and Mary Sheedy were on friendly terms.
On one visit, said McFarland, she seemed distraught, blurting
out that her eight-year marriagewas a sham.

(09:15):
Then she recounted her story. She arrived in Lincoln from
central Illinois in 1879 as Molly Merrill with her second
husband, George Merrill, the Carpenter and teamster.
Previously, Mary had been married to a man named Mccool,
who was sent to prison. They patronize the dance halls,
salons and gaming establishmentson P St. including a notorious

(09:40):
gambling den at 10th and P St. operated by John Sheedy.
Records of the Merrill divorce hearing in 1882 do not make it
clear whether Mary had met Sheedy before she and Merrill
separated on November of 1880. But about that time, Merrill was
said to have seized Mary in an angry manner, explaining that he

(10:03):
would, quote, not live with sucha damned whore.
End Quote. He locked her out of the house,
sold the furniture, and returnedto Illinois, leaving her quote
uncared for in the city. End Quote.
She went to work as a servant girl at the Arlington Hotel and
was dependent on the charity of neighbors.

(10:23):
In 1881 George returned, and after a brief cohabitation with
Mary, during which he apparentlyspent all his money on gambling
and provided her no support, he left her again.
He briefly moved in with a womanof ill repute, then left Lincoln
for good. Again thrown upon her own
resources, Mary continued working at the Arlington and

(10:46):
patronizing the P St. Salons.
In 1881, Mary, then about 25, met Sheedy, then in his late
40s, who boarded at the elegant New Arlington.
Swept away by Sheedy's flamboyant style, popularity and
power, Mary took up residence with him, first at the Arlington

(11:07):
and then in an apartment over Tunis P Quick Saloon at 10th and
P streets, where Sheedy's casinowas located.
In February 1882, Mary sued Meryl for divorce, and later
that year she and Sheedy were married.
The Sheedy's tried to present a respectable front, first moving
into a small house at 132 N 10thStreet, where they lived for two

(11:30):
years, then into the new house at 12:11 P St.
Nevertheless, Mary told McFarland, marriage suited
neither of them. John was increasingly involved
in gambling in his rooms over quick saloon, he resumed life as
an all around sport and he had aseries of liaisons with other

(11:52):
women. Mary complained about his
absences but he was unwilling tobrook any criticism and they
often quarreled. MacFarlane told police that in
the intimacy created by Mary's lurid tale, they embraced and
their friendship deepened. McFarland said Mary had
described how in 1890, in Buffalo, NY, where she was being

(12:14):
treated for a disease peculiar to women, she and John had a
particularly angry quarrel, and he returned to Lincoln alone in
search of solace. Mary fell in love with a young
dude, a machinist and traveling salesman named Andrew Harry
Wahlstrom, who followed her to Lincoln, living first at a

(12:36):
downtown hotel and then in an apartment in the new heater
block at 15th and O streets. Other witnesses told Melek and
Malone that Mary visited Wahlstrom, sometimes disguised
as a man but later behaving morelike a Cyprian rather than a
middle class woman. She also was observed taking him

(12:57):
gifts, including a diamond ring,staying in his residences for
considerable periods, and openlystrolling with him in public.
As the affair continued, Mary talked of divorce and John,
thrown into a jealous rage, allegedly treated her badly,
threatening to kill her, and placed her under surveillance,

(13:18):
nearly imprisoning her in the house.
Mary continued telling McFarlandabout her ongoing affair with
Wahlstrom and complaining about her husband.
At some point, when McFarland again comforted the distraught
woman, their embrace led to kisses and sexual intimacy.
He showed police a Locket containing a lock of her hair as

(13:40):
evidence of their relationship, but claimed he had been
reluctant to engage in such a criminal relationship.
Nevertheless, he was unable to fend off her advances, and the
affair went on for months, even as she continued her
increasingly reckless relationship with Wahlstrom.
Eventually, McFarlane said, Maryformulated a plan for him to

(14:04):
murder her husband, offering to pay him $20,000 from Sheedy's
estate, which she said was worth$200,000.
He balked, but when she threatened to reveal their
affair to her husband and the police if he refused, a threat
whose implications he clearly understood in the racialized

(14:25):
environment of the 1890s, McFarland agreed to cooperate.
He made two attempts to kill Sheedy, but failed both times.
Mary decided to ensure the success of the third attempt, he
claimed, by slipping poison intoher stricken husband's coffee.
Sheedy's body was exhumed and anautopsy indicated internal

(14:48):
bleeding and the presence of poison, apparently confirming
Mcfarland's story. Mary was arrested and, because
there was no facilities for women in the county jail, was
held at Melek's residence at 25th and P streets.
Harry Wahlstrom was arrested as an accessory and held under

(15:09):
guard at the Capitol Hotel at 11th and P Streets.
A coroner's jury concluded that the case against Mary Sheedy,
McFarland, and Wahlstrom was sufficient to charge them.
On January 26th, 1891, Mary Sheedy and McFarland were
arraigned and charged with threecounts each of first degree

(15:29):
murder and one count each of accessory to murder.
Wahlstrom was charged with four counts of accessory to murder.
Later, the charges against him were dropped for lack of
evidence. As the alleged facts of the
case, established by Mcfarlane'sconfession and supported by
testimony at the coroner's inquest, became public,
Lincoln's society was thrown into a frenzy.

(15:52):
Why did this case strike a response strong enough to
trigger a general crisis of confidence?
First, the murder itself shockedLincoln and raised fears that
crime was on the rise. Having managed to avoid the
disorder, crime and violence so common across the urban
frontier, Lincoln had established A reputation as an

(16:13):
orderly city. Indeed, since its founding in
1867, there had been few murdersand only one Lincoln man had
been executed. Second, the identity of the
alleged assailants and Mcfarland's lurid confession
sent waves of concern and panic through the Lincoln's middle
class and Mary Sheedy's story race profound worries about the

(16:36):
integrity of the class, gender, and racial systems that had
sustained Lincoln society for a generation.
For years, John and Mary Sheedy had been moving on the edges of
Lincoln's genteel society. Although a known gambler, John
was praised for his civic mindedness in downtown
development, his active interestin the affairs of the booster

(16:58):
ethos, his donations to local charities and institutions, and
his magnanimity towards friends among the city's elite.
Mary patronized genteel stores, established A genteel house, and
made a foray or two into Lincoln's middle class social
circles. The possibility that she had
hidden two previous marriages and possibly had committed

(17:21):
adultery, miscegenation, conspiracy, extortion and murder
was a shocking breach of middle class decorum and raised deep
fears that other hosers and charlatans might be living among
them. Such corruption undermined the
middle class sense of ordering, called into question its image
of itself as having been built on strong moral character

(17:43):
cultivated through self-discipline, hard work,
marriage, genteel living and civic involvement.
It also eroded middle class's confidence that it could police
itself and maintain a moral social order.
Moreover, to those who viewed her as a corrupted perpetrator,
Mary compromised A fundamental bourgeois tenet of female purity

(18:07):
and incorruptibility. Worse still was the possibility
that she had not been corrupted but had deliberately used her
sexuality to pursue her own self-interest.
Although many middle class womenmight have sympathized privately
with her rebellion against the stricters of Victorian gender
roles, the image of Mary Sheedy as an agent of female

(18:29):
empowerment and advocacy might have touched already deep
insecurities among Lincoln men and elicited a wave of
misogynistic anxiety. On the other hand, viewing Mary
as a victim rather than a perpetrator offered little
comfort. Her seduction by several men
seemed to confirm growing fears of a predatory threat to moral

(18:51):
middle class women posed by sporting men or dudes of the
male subculture along P St. By 1890, John Sheedy was a well
known figure in the District andin the minds of many
Lincolnites. He stood for the gambling,
drinking, illicit sex and interracial socializing that
many feared was corrupting urbansociety.

(19:13):
Monday, Macfarlane's involvementfurther rationalized those fears
and conflated them with rising racial tensions that accompanied
the growth of Lincoln's small black community in the 1890s.
Middle class people in Lincoln and throughout the northern
United States increasingly believe that interracial mixing
threatened American social order.

(19:34):
Though most townspeople seem to believe Mcfarlane's confession,
he did, after all, repeat it three times, and most thought
Mary was guilty. The aggressiveness of the
prosecution raised concern and generated sympathy for her.
To many, it appeared that she was not only a victim of male
predatory sexual behavior, but also of male vengeance, greed,

(19:58):
professional ambition and publiccorruption.
Those who believed that Mary wasinnocent were even more
convinced that she was the victim of a corrupt conspiracy
among greedy police officials, boosters, businessmen and
lawyers who wanted control of John Sheedy's estate, whether
through loyalty to Sheedy or a desire to settle past scores.

(20:22):
Whichever way one took it, her story and the murder case itself
undermined the integrity of the booster ethos, shook middle
class confidence, and exposed deep racial, gender, sexual,
moral and psychological tensionsthat threatened social order in
Lincoln's complacent post frontier society.
Above all, Sheedy himself, his reputation, and his twenty year

(20:47):
involvement in city affairs raised the prospect that the
murder was a political act carried out in the context of an
ongoing political struggle. That prospect elevated the
reaction to events surrounding his death to genuine shock about
the state of urban life in Lincoln.
Since his arrival from Council Bluffs, IA in 1869, Sheedy had

(21:09):
been a central figure in a personalized, predominantly male
commercial booster ethos that was willing to tolerate
virtually any business, including the shady and in some
cases outright illegal enterprises of the Uptown
district, as long as they continued to fill the city
coffers and remained confined toa specific part of town.

(21:32):
By the late 1880s, Sheedy had become the focal point of a re
energized effort by reformers toclean up the city.
Every time he evaded the reformers, they escalated their
efforts to get him, using increasingly aggressive tactics
that skirted closer to the margins of legality and
morality. Meanwhile, he also gained

(21:55):
enemies among his competitors, clients, and employees in the
Demimon. Although his murder threw the
city into an uproar, it is striking that it elicited so few
expressions of surprise, sorrow,or even regret.
Most Lincoln Nights apparently did not believe the murder was a
random event, and most apparently considered it the

(22:18):
just desserts of a corrupt, immoral player in the ongoing
struggle between good and evil. But the self congratulatory tone
that usually accompanies the triumph of good was notably
absent, perhaps suggesting some concern about the methods
employed. In this case.
Such concern reflected A deeper fear that beneath the public

(22:40):
face of events lay corruption and conspiracy that reflected A
deepening political and culturalcrisis.
By 1891, a gradual shift in the ethical climate of public
affairs, underway for years, seemed poised to breakthrough.
Increasingly, the traditional business as usual city politics

(23:01):
dominated by a small booster elite making use of insider
information, personal influence,patronage, and even vigilantism,
was being stigmatized as corruptand immoral from the start.
Comments in the press on irregularities, inconsistencies,
and unexpected turns in the casefocused on the actions of

(23:24):
certain individuals involved in the arrest and prosecution of
Mary Sheedy and McFarland. Concerns about undue influence
first surfaced when John Sheedy's brother, Dennis Sheedy,
A merchant businessman and vice president of the Colorado
National Bank of Denver, arrivedin Lincoln to make sure the
murderer was prosecuted. He brought 2 Pinkerton

(23:45):
detectives, offered a $500 reward for the capture of his
brother's murderer, and sought to no avail to prevent an
inquest from being held. Concerns about a broader
conspiracy were raised when Dennis Sheedy contacted John
Fitzgerald, president of First National Bank.
Fitzgerald also was an influential railroad contractor,

(24:07):
real estate developer, prominentreformer in local politics, and,
from 1886 through 1890, the president of the Irish National
League. Dennis Sheedy knew Fitzgerald
through banking and railroad construction business, and
probably knew that Fitzgerald and his lawyer, Turner Marquette
of the firm Marquette de Wiesen Hall, were embroiled in a legal

(24:29):
struggle against Jay Gould, the notorious financier who
controlled and managed a vast system of Western railroads.
Dennis Sheedy probably believed he could count on Fitzgerald to
acquire the best legal counsel in Lincoln on his behalf.
It is less clear whether or not he knew that Fitzgerald and John
Sheedy had been long time adversaries in local politics

(24:52):
and the real estate business. Since the mid 1880's the two had
squared off on opposite sides inthe struggle between the
reformers and the boosters. They had recently competed for
parcels of downtown real estate,and a month before the murder
Sheedy had filed a series of restraining orders to block the
construction of street railway tracks in front of his house by

(25:15):
a company in which John Fitzgerald was an officer.
Only 10 days before the murder, Sheedy had defended his
litigation against Fitzgerald ina letter to the Nebraska State
Journal, saying that he had suedthe company without any previous
consultation with Fitzgerald. The motives of Dennis Sheedy and
John Fitzgerald seemed clear to some observers when it became

(25:38):
publicly known that John Sheedy,with an estate estimated at
100,000 to $200,000, had died without leaving a will.
Thus, under a state law enacted in 1889, Mary Sheedy would
automatically inherit half and the rest would go to siblings or
relatives. But it seemed ominous that only

(26:00):
9 days before the murder, the Nebraska Supreme Court had ruled
that a person, quote could not take by inheritance the estate
of a person he murders. End Quote.
Making it in Dennis Sheedy's financial interest to have Mary
convicted. And it seemed more than
coincidence that a week after the murder, Fitzgerald, John

(26:21):
Sheedy's former adversary, whosemotives for wanting to control
Sheedy's estate were very different from Dennis Sheedy's,
who appointed by the county court along with Mary Sheedy as
the administrator of Sheedy's estate.
The influence of Fitzgerald and Dennis Sheedy on the case did
not stop there. As was the common practice of

(26:44):
the time, various lawyers, including, very briefly, William
Jennings Bryan, scrambled to carry out investigations of
their own, put together defense strategies, and offer their
services to the accused. Eventually, Mary hired Jesse C
Strode and Royal D Steams, John Sheedy's longtime lawyers who

(27:05):
had recently been involved in his fight against the street
railway. In April, 2 lawyers on the
reform side of city politics, LWBillingsley and JE Philpott,
were appointed to defend McFarland at his request.
Meanwhile, Dennis Sheedy, following a practice that was
still legal in the 1890s, hired 2 lawyers, Frank M Hall and

(27:30):
Genio M Lambertson, to assist County Attorney Novia Snell in
prosecuting the case. Snell was a reform politician
with close ties to Fitzgerald. Hall was a partner of
Fitzgerald's law firm, Turner Marquette, and a prominent
attorney for the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad, as well

(27:50):
as a criminal lawyer. Lambertson was city attorney and
an associate of Mcfarland's attorney LW Billingsley.
To many Lincolnites in 1891, such maneuvering in both the
prosecution and defense by prominent reform adversaries of
Sheedy indicated some kind of corruption.

(28:10):
Were Dennis Sheedy, Fitzgerald and their attorneys prosecuting
Mary in order to get a convection at any cost and thus
control the entire estate? Or, since Fitzgerald was already
an administer of the estate and its control was probably assured
anyway, was his involvement intended to cover a deeper
conspiracy by assuring Mary's conviction to obscure the truth

(28:34):
of Shady's murder as revenge against a long time adversary
and political act in the struggle between reform and
corruption? Such suspicions and fears of
conspiracy, the truth of which remains inaccessible behind a
fog of conflicting evidence, speculation, gossip, and
hearsay, reflect the intense concern at the time about how

(28:56):
deeply corruption had penetratedAmerican life and affected
reformers, boosters, and the legal community as well.
The Sheedy case marks a moment in Lincoln's history when, as in
other cities in the period, reformers and boosters were
shocked to discover that their styles, strategies, and tactics
had become almost indistinguishable, and many

(29:18):
concluded that real change wouldoccur only if modern reform
strategies were implemented. The journey to this moment in
Lincoln's history had begun in the 1870s when groups of
merchants, manufacturers, businessmen and lawyers
established the booster ethos most favored and orderly open

(29:39):
economic climate that provided opportunities to as many people
as possible. They speculated in real estate,
open businesses and professionaloffices, and built office
blocks, hotels and places of entertainment.
They also were active in city government as mayors, City
Councilman, sheriff's justices and judges.

(29:59):
In time, they founded the Lincoln Board of Trade for the
mutual benefit of all and the Lincoln Commercial Club to
promote economic development andinfrastructure investment.
They petitioned the City Councilto great streets, build cisterns
and drainage systems, install streetlights, establish a night
watch and regulate traffic, and replace those rudimentary

(30:22):
improvements with modern water and sewage systems, paved
streets, electricity, improved police and Fire Protection, and
a uniform system of addresses, streetcar service, public
schools and hospitals To financeimprovements, boosters
campaigned for bond issues, higher city debt and higher

(30:43):
taxes. Annual budgets grew, hired
experts and bureaucrats replacedpatronage politicians, and
Lincoln, it seemed, was on schedule to become a growing
modern metropolis. In the 1880's, the city's
economy continued to grow, but no manufacturing base developed.
Boosters, apparently failing to understand that the city's

(31:05):
location relative to regional and national markets, not a lack
of entrepreneurial activity, wasresponsible for the dearth of
manufacturing proposed initiatives to attract
manufacturers. When development grants,
stipends, subsidies, and grant abatement schemes failed, some
boosters shifted their attentionto railroad rates, launching

(31:27):
investigations and filing lawsuits against Chicago,
Burlington, and Quincy in particular, and supported the
formation of a state transportation board.
But Lincoln had been a Burlington town since 1870, and
many manufacturers, merchants, and professionals were dependent
on CB&Q for their livelihoods. Thus, the new Bite the Hand that

(31:51):
Feeds You mentality opened a fissure in the unified booster
ethos that had prevailed for 15 years.
The attack on the railroads marked a shift in perspective
along some members of the business and political
community, who began to approachLincoln's economic frustrations
by focusing on correcting perceived failures rather than

(32:12):
on using government to stimulatelocal development through
traditional means. The result was a factionalizing
of city politics and the emergence of two groups with
conflicting strategies for promoting development.
One group, relatively traditional boosters, sought to
maintain a tolerant, wide open economy with urban commercial

(32:33):
culture, using city government to stimulate development through
economic incentives and rewards.They remained untroubled by the
customary influence peddling andpatronage systems that supported
certain developers and toleratedthe mild lawlessness of P St.
salons and gambling halls. Subculture.
In opposition were the reformers, merchants, lawyers,

(32:56):
clergymen, and other professionals who launched
sporadic attacks against the disorderly, primarily male
subculture with its social evilsof alcohol, gambling, and
prostitution that accompanied development in most railroad
towns and other new cities across the West in the 1870s.
As unity in the commercial and political community eroded, the

(33:18):
two factions became involved in a political struggle that,
because of the small size of theyoung city, became hopelessly
intertwined and corrupted. Policy development was thwarted,
and Lincoln was left ill prepared to respond to more
serious economic and social challenges of the next decade.
With the formation of the Prohibition Party in 1880, the

(33:40):
reform movement became organized.
Moving beyond simple demonstrations against salons,
they launched a series of regular temperance meetings and
formed a Red Ribbon Club that quickly gained 2000 members.
In doing so, they gained supportfor their political campaign to
increase saloon license fees, renewing an effort first

(34:01):
undertaken in 1877 by Mayor Harvey Wesley Hardy.
In 1880, the Prohibition Party ran a slate of reform candidates
for local offices. Significantly, following the
lead of reformers in other Western towns, but preceding
those in nearby Omaha by 20 years, they organized a quasi

(34:22):
vigilante political action organization called the Law and
Order League. In 1883, reform lawyer and
former police judge Robert E Moore was elected mayor and
launched a campaign to reform laws controlling liquor sales,
especially from bars and Tavernsalong O&P streets in the Uptown
district. Moore and the Law and Order

(34:45):
League were challenged by traditional boosters who argued
that a more open city was betterfor business and downtown
development. In 1885, Carlos C Burr, a real
estate developer, lawyer, and commercial booster, ran as the
Republican candidate in a three-way race for mayor against
Democrat reform booster John Fitzgerald and former Mayor

(35:07):
Hardy of the Prohibition Party. These first salvos in the
struggle between reform and commercial booster strategies
triggered a series of events that by 1892, would fragment the
boosters and expose the degree to which corruption and
compromise had blurred their differences.
The Law and Order League marked a new departure for the

(35:28):
reformers who would no longer seek to reform urban life
through moral suasion alone. In the tradition of citizen
vigilante movements that often emerged within or along the
booster ethos, the League organized a citizen directed
legislative and legal campaign to target offenders and put them
out of business and in jail. The League's legal and

(35:52):
legislative strategies threatened to undermine the
personalized regime of city lifein which influential men,
including centrist commercial boosters such as Barr, merged
self-interest with the interestsof the city in pursuit of
wealth. For Burr and other downtown
developers, business, whether legitimate or illegitimate,

(36:13):
provided revenues that enhanced the city tax base and generated
further growth and development. To Burr and his circle, insider
deals influence money and arrangements among real estate
developers, the City Council, the police, and entrepreneurs in
the P St. subculture, including monetary consideration,

(36:36):
kickbacks, rent taxes, and initiation fees to city
officials and the police in return for freedom from
prosecution was good business and good politics.
Sheedy had been a key figure in the business as usual realm.
A real estate developer and builder, he had purchased the

(36:56):
last open parcel of land in the business section at the
southwest corner of 12th and P streets and was commended by the
press for improving the city in the summer of 1885.
In June of 1887 he was praised for building a three story stone
faced hotel Mac AT932P St. constructed with innovative

(37:17):
deeper footings for increased wall support.
He made most of his money and exercised his power as a
sporting man and a common gambler with a reputation across
the West, enhanced by association with his cousin, the
famed Chicago gambler Pat Sheedy, and perhaps funded by

(37:37):
him as well. Sheedy had become a man of
wealth and large influence in the City Council.
Influence he enhanced by providing venues for the male
sporting subculture in which blacks and whites, workers,
laborers, sporting men, travelers, businessmen,
entertainers, and nymphs. Tupaev enjoyed relatively safely

(38:01):
a drink, a cigar, a game of cards, Faro or roulette, and
sex. By the late 1880s, Sheedy's
gambling establishment was at the center of the Uptown
district between 9th and 12th onP St.
The district held Taverns, salons, gambling halls,
clubhouses, Barber shops, one ortwo colored gambling dens, and a

(38:23):
few houses of prostitution, possibly after 1887, including
the Hotel Mac. Most of the 20 or so houses of
prostitution in Lincoln in the 1880s and 1890s were in boarding
houses down the hill from the Government Square on 9th and
10th Streets in a district called the Tenderloin.

(38:45):
Through his influence, Sheedy apparently protected
establishments in the district. To frustrate reform legislation,
he placed his own people in the City Council or controlled
council members with bribes. He evaded arrest and prosecution
by buying off the police and thepolice court judge.

(39:05):
He also influenced city policy and reformers believe that
Carlos Burr, mayor in 1885 and 1886, and others who turned a
blind eye to Sheedy's business practices and vice in general,
were influenced by Sheedy and others on the P St. and
Tenderloin subculture. Burr, they charged, was, quote,

(39:27):
a friend and associate of gamblers and thugs, End Quote,
and was accustomed to spending his time at Sheedy's gambling
hell, using it, as other politicians had, as an
unofficial headquarters. Indeed, so pervasive was
Sheedy's power that some desperate reformers began to
contemplate using their adversaries tactics to put him

(39:49):
out of business. The mayoral campaign of 1885 was
a confrontation between reform and the status quo.
Byrd defeated Reform Democrat Fitzgerald by only 30 votes,
with Prohibition candidate Hardya distant third.
Fitzgerald filed A protest with the City Council and instructed
his lawyers, Co Whedon, Novia Z Snell and Andrew J Sawyer, all

(40:15):
ardent reformers and Law and Order League members.
Sawyer was president. To protest the council's planned
meeting to ratify the vote the following evening, Reform
Council members supported the objection, but the council met
and affirmed Burr's victory. Reformers were convinced Burr
had stolen the election. Mayor Burr focused his attention

(40:39):
on urgent infrastructure needs, however, and law and orderly
council members were able to pursue their reform agenda.
In November of 1885, they reorganized the Police
Department and established a newpolice code, increasing
enforcement in the Vice districtthrough a system of beat
officers who were prohibited from entering Taverns, salons,

(41:01):
and gambling places, and from accepting drinks and cigars,
apparently a common practice previously.
The new code also made the acceptance of any fee, reward or
gift from any person arrested orfrom any person in this custody
immediate grounds for dismissal from the force.
Gave police night sticks and firearms and required them to

(41:24):
attain a search warrant before entering a place where they
suspected illegal activity was occurring.
The new code, in short, reduced influence by replacing personal
interaction between the police and business operators with
professional rules and procedures.
Harrison D Littlefield, a self styled law and order policeman,

(41:44):
began walking his beat on P St. on December 1st, 1885.
He observed that Sheedy's establishment above Quick's
Saloon was crowded at all hours by a clientele that included
Mayor Burr and prominent membersof the town elite who were
drinking, smoking, playing stud horse poker, roulette and Faro

(42:05):
and consorted with prostitutes. Quick's Saloon, one of the
finest liquor and billiard establishments in the city, had
long been a focal point for reformers.
The Ladies Temperance Society had demonstrated in front of
quicks in February of 1874, and the next evening a group of
saloon patrons retaliated in thetradition of urban male

(42:27):
subcultures that cultivated sarcastic and ironic behavior to
vent social tensions by dressingin women's clothing and carrying
out mock raids on quicks and nearby salons.
The saloon also had been a quasiofficial headquarters for
political clubs. Fraternal orders.
Quick was a member of the Knights of Pythias sportsmen,

(42:48):
and, since Quick also raised livestock, Lincoln's cattlemen.
In the early 1870s Quick served as a City Councilman and from
1873 to 1887 as Fire Chief, and his saloon became the unofficial
clubhouse for politicians and firemen, enhancing its role as a
center of Lincoln's male subculture.

(43:09):
In the early 1880's the Law and Order League had twice tried to
close the place, but both cases were dismissed early in 1885,
with the cooperation of the police, the league initiated a
sweep of the vice district, and several operators, including
Sheedy, were arrested, but he evaded prosecution.
In November, the police receivedcomplaints about Sheedy's

(43:31):
casino, but the plaintiffs changed their story and refused
to give testimony of value and no charges were filed.
In early 1886, however, after a month of surveillance, League
President Sawyer and League's lawyer Frank Lewis and Officer
Littlefield were ready to take the battle against corruption
and vice to another level. On January 20th, Littlefield

(43:55):
filed a complaint in the County court of Judge Charles M Parker
charging Sheedy, August, Gus Sanders, and others with
operating an illegal gaming establishment.
Search and arrest warrants were issued and the police raided
Sheedy's establishment. Saunders was arrested, but
Sheedy again evaded arrest, thistime because he was at home

(44:17):
recuperating from a stab wound inflicted by Jay Patterson,
another gambler, in a late nightaltercation on P St.
Released on bail, Saunders retaliated by suing the Law and
Order League for illegal entry. Judge Parker, unlike many judges
across the Midwest who took a dim view of the quasi vigilante

(44:38):
activities of groups like the League, threw out the suit and
summoned Saunders to appear on the gambling charge.
When Saunders failed to appear, Parker declared him in contempt
of court and issued a warrant for his arrest.
Meanwhile, the case against Sheedy and Saunders was sent to
District Court in response to the Law and Order League's

(45:00):
success in court. Mayor Burr and council members
who opposed the League's activities supported Judge
Parker's opponent in the April election.
Their candidate, Albert Parsons,was elected.
Parsons, a lawyer who had spent much of his previous four months
representing defendants in casesbrought against them by the
League, did what he was expectedto do.

(45:23):
He threw vice cases out of court, allowed Sheedy to reopen
his casino and resumed the monthly collection of fines from
gambling and prostitution establishments.
In fact, in order to avoid reporting funds received to the
city clerk, Parsons went door todoor to collect the cash.
Most proprietors cooperated. It was just good business to

(45:46):
reduce the risk that one would be pulled in a police raid.
By fall 1886, Judge Parsons was ignoring most liquor and vice
arrests, including two more of John Sheedy.
In frustration, the Law and Order League targeted other
saloon keepers, gamblers and madams, in particular Myrtle
Stewart and Anne Tripp. The City Council passed stricter

(46:09):
liquor laws and ordinances against the desecration of the
Sabbath, hoping to trigger more prosecutions.
Significantly, police officers identified with the Law and
Order League grew more aggressive physically.
The League's legal defense of a police officer sued for assault
by a citizen suggests that the League and the Reformers were

(46:31):
beginning to believe that physical force could be useful
in establishing social order. In April of 1887, perhaps
encouraged by a growing NationalLaw and Order League urban
reform movement, Lincoln voters elected a new Reform Council and
a new mayor, Andrew J Sawyer, who had been president of the

(46:52):
Lincoln Law and Order leak since1885.
Sawyer increased police vice raids and through closer
scrutiny of the police court, pressured Judge Parsons to
follow through with the prosecution of vice cases.
Meanwhile, Sheedy and Saunders continued to pressure Parsons to
thwart police efforts and dismiss cases that they

(47:14):
continued to pay him fines. In May of 1887, Tunis Quick died
suddenly, and though it's unclear exactly how events are
related, only a little more thana month later, on June 21st,
Sheedy and Saunders were arrested for unlawfully keeping
in rooms located in the second story of Quick Saloon, certain

(47:37):
gaming apparatuses and devices for the purpose of playing games
of chance. Apparently Quick's considerable
influence had protected Sheedy from prosecution. 2 days later,
Sheedy and Saunders were fined in police court by Judge
Parsons. They appealed in District Court,
but lost. It was apparent that Parsons was

(47:58):
no longer able to stand up to the Law and Order League and was
indeed cheating Sheedy by accepting protection money from
him. Sheedy and Saunders said nothing
in response to the charges, but soon tried to replace their
former associate with a more effective police judge.
Neither John Sheedy Saunders norfellow gambler AJ Hyatt could

(48:22):
have predicted the course of events that would result from
their cynical appearance before the City Council on August 1st,
1887, to file a citizen's petition presented by their
lawyers, Jesse C Strode, charging Police Judge Parsons
with blackmail and embezzlement.Parsons, they charged, assessed
fines against gamblers and pimps, then kept the money for

(48:45):
himself. Rather than questioning Sheedy
and Saunders motives, Law and Orderly Council members saw an
opportunity to pursue their own goals and formed a committee to
investigate the charges. On September 19th, the committee
delivered its report. Parsons had accepted money and
later estimated at $1430 from Saunders, Sheedy and other

(49:10):
gamblers as well as others like operators of houses of
prostitution. Parsons, through his lawyer LC
Burr, Carlos Burr's brother, andDG Courtney, charged that the
petition was brought forward to maintain the rule of bad
character in the city, called the evidence fraudulent and
questioned the council's authority to remove him from

(49:33):
office. The committee agreed to give
Parsons a public hearing in early October.
Anticipating the worst, however,Parsons sought to block the
process. The day before he was scheduled
to appear, his lawyers argued before Federal District Judge
David J Brewer in Saint Louis that his clients rights of due

(49:53):
process had been violated by a conspiracy of gamblers and
reformers in the City Council who wanted to remove him from
office. Brewer issued an injunction
forbidding the mayor and councilto remove Parsons or take any
further evidence or vote upon the question of guilt.
Furious at this infringement on home rule, Mayor Sawyer and the

(50:17):
council met anyway, tried Parsons in absentia, found him
guilty of malfeasance in office,declared the office vacant, and
appointed a new police judge, Republican lawyer HJ Whitmore.
On November 17th, Judge Brewer declared the Mayor and City
Council in contempt of court, levied a fine, and ordered the

(50:39):
Federal Marshall to arrest them and bring them before him in
Omaha. On November 21st, the Mayor and
Council transformed their arrest, appearance before Judges
Brewer and Elmer S Dundee and six day incarceration in an
apartment in the Douglas County Jail into a mythic struggle
against unbridled power. With self consciously theatrical

(51:03):
rhetoric and behavior, they portrayed themselves as a band
of brothers comparable to the Irish rebels defending home rule
against federal power, a pervasive concern in the
political culture in the 1880s. When the counsel's lawyer, Gino
Lambertson, rushed to Washington, DC to appeal the
case before the United States Supreme Court, it received

(51:26):
national attention, including that of President Grover
Cleveland. The Supreme Court's decision a
month later declared that Brewerhad overstepped his
jurisdiction, a great victory for the mayor and the council.
Briefly, Lincoln was in the national spotlight.
At home, the drama coalesced various reform factions into a

(51:47):
unified front against a common foe.
The triumph of the mayor and council actually strengthened
the Reform Party. The City Council soon launched A
reinvigorated police campaign, although it is not entirely
clear how the events related. Sheedy did not benefit from his
complaint against Judge Parsons.His gambling hell remained

(52:10):
closed for months, and when it reopened, he faced continual
harassment by two aggressive newLaw and Order policeman, James
Malone, who joined the force in 1887, and Samuel Melek, who was
a Lancaster County Sheriff from 1884 through 1890 and the police
chief from 1890 through 1895. Malone was twice arrested for

(52:33):
assault in 1887. Melek was arrested for assault
several times between 1886 and 1890.
Although the evidence is circumstantial, it seems there
was a movement afoot involving the Law and Order League, Malone
and Melek, and perhaps some boosters and lawyers to get John
Sheedy apparently something of amarked man.

(52:54):
He was assaulted 3 times from 1888 through 1890, one attack
leaving him with a hole in the back of his skull.
Because of his crimes and his corrupting influence on city
life, many Lincolnites had decided that Sheedy had to go.
Apparently they were willing to look the other way, even if a
vigilante solution to the town'ssocial evil problem risked

(53:18):
conflating reform with the corruption it sought to
eliminate. It is in this context of the
bitter 5 year struggle that Sheedy's murder and the trial of
Mary Sheedy and William McFarlane in 1891 acquired
deeper meaning. Whether or not there really was
a conspiracy against John Sheedy, he had become a critical

(53:41):
figure in town politics and the social and cultural tensions
those politics reflected. The possibility that his murder
was a political act politicized the trial of Mary Sheedy and
McFarland, making it another episode in the ongoing struggle
of reform against corruption in which Sheedy had played such a

(54:01):
prominent role. The trial began on May 4th, 1891
in the District Court of Judge Allen W Field at Lancaster
County Courthouse. Frank Hall opened for the
prosecution before a jammed courtroom.
The prosecution had accepted thedefense request to try Mary
Sheedy and McFarland together. The defense obviously hoped that

(54:25):
if the case against either defendant was weak, both would
be acquitted. But Hall, Lambertson, and Snell
no doubt recognized that only bytrying them together would they
be able to indirectly enter Mcfarland's confession against
Mary Sheedy in a separate trial.It would have been quickly
disallowed as hearsay, and even under these circumstances, it

(54:48):
was feared that Judge Field might not allow it to be
considered as evidence against Mary.
Hall argued that they intended to prove that Mary Sheedy and
McFarland were both guilty of murder and accessory to murder
based on Mcfarland's confession and supporting circumstantial
evidence. To corroborate a theory that
Mary Sheedy and McFarland had both murdered John Sheedy and to

(55:12):
establish Mary's motives, the prosecution attorneys presented
evidence gathered by Malone, Malik, and their own
investigators. The evidence was focused on her
relationship with Wahlstrom, herplan as evidenced by several
witnesses testifying that they saw Sheedy and McFarland
together near the Sheedy's houseshortly before the murder and

(55:34):
her poisoning of her husband forseveral days.
The witnesses, directed by Lambertson, told a story quote
putrid with the odor of moral rottenness and quote a smutty
tale of adultery, miscegenation,bribery, extortion, and murder.
They also presented evidence of Mcfarland's activities that

(55:55):
corroborated his confession, hisinvolvement in the plan, and his
purchase of the murder weapon. Hall, Lambertson and Snell
played on illicit sex and risingracial tensions, evidenced by
police crackdowns on black establishments and increased
complaints of racial incidents Uptown.

(56:16):
But in general, the case againstboth defendants was based on
Macfarlane's confession, the murder weapon, and corroborating
circumstantial evidence. Local newspapers declared it an
open and shut case against McFarland, but wondered if the
case was strong enough against Mary, since there was some
question whether or not Mcfarland's confession could be

(56:37):
used against her. Defense attorneys Jesse Strode,
Royal Steams, LW Billingsley andJudge HW Weir of Boise City,
Idaho, who joined the defense atthe suggestion of Mary's uncle,
undermined every detail of the prosecution's case.
Mcfarland's confession was made under duress, though he did not

(56:59):
testify. He later said that he had
confessed falsely in the fear ofbeing lynched.
The prosecution argued he confessed on three separate
occasions clear evidence of the truth of the confession.
The Sheedes weren't happily married.
Testimony placing Mary Sheedy and Wahlstrom together was
false. The idea of a relationship
between McFarland and Mary Sheedy was revolting, unnatural,

(57:23):
and absurd. The defense attacked the
prosecution's preposterous argument that a white woman's
alleged black lover would, with the promise of a bribe, murder
the husband so she could go off with another man.
Moreover, they produce several character witnesses who
testified that Mary was a propermoral woman and it was absurd to

(57:45):
imagine her as an adulteress or a murderer.
They also vigorously resisted all efforts by Lambertson and
Hall to introduce evidence of Mary's relationship with Sheedy
before they were married, her previous history and her alleged
relationship with Harry Wahlstrom, along with her
character, reinforcing the point, which was supported by

(58:07):
Victorian gender attitudes, thatit was absurd to suppose that a
woman could commit such a crime.Evidence that Mary openly
mourned her husband and was not seen gaily playing the piano in
her parlor the afternoon of his death as testified by a
prosecution witness, strengthened the idea that she

(58:27):
was not a cold hearted murderer.Playing on the sympathy for Mary
Sheedy that Paul and Lambertson unrelentingly assault on her
character had elicited, Stearns and Strode had her present
herself in a court as a moral middle class widow dressed in
black and so emotionally wroughtby her husband's death that she

(58:47):
barely acknowledged Mcfarland's presence, implying that the two
scarcely knew each other. Near the end of the trial, the
defense shifted tactics and filed a motion objecting to Hall
in Lambertson's participation inthe prosecution on the grounds
that they had not been appointedby the court but had been hired
for fees by private parties. In the ensuing debate over the

(59:12):
motion, Stearns and Strode argued that Hall and Lambertson
were in the case to convict Maryat all costs to ensure that the
individuals who hired them, who most knew to be Dennis Sheedy
and John Fitzgerald, received most of John Sheedy's estate.
Although the motion failed, Steems and Strode had introduced
to the jury the idea of improperoutside influence or even a

(59:37):
conspiracy of powerful men and reformers to frame and convict
Mary Sheedy. It was a suggestion made several
times in the press, that was sure to strike a nerve among the
growing number of Nebraskans, nodoubt including members of the
jury, who believe that unbridledpower of the railroads, with
their monopolistic shipping rates, was squeezing the income

(01:00:00):
of Nebraska farmers and businessmen.
Corrupting state and local government and undermining the
integrity of the judicial systemand democracy in general, this
populist sensibility had provided fertile political
ground for the development of the Farmers Alliance, and the
following year would generate the founding of the Populist
Party in Omaha. In thus playing to the jurors

(01:00:23):
prejudices, as Hall later charged, Strode skillfully
undermined Mary's motive to acquire her husband's estate.
After all, since the estate already was controlled by
Sheedy's adversaries, she probably would not be given much
anyway, and it distracted the jury with the conspiracy theory.
When the defense rested its case, Novia Snell, in the best

(01:00:46):
effort of his life, followed by Judge Weir and then Frank Hall,
who spoke with unparalleled eloquence in the annals of the
Lincoln Bar, reasserted in theirclosing arguments the validity
of the confession and the other evidence, and the presence of
motive, opportunity, and abilityof the defendants to commit

(01:01:07):
murder. Hall in particular reasserted
the soundness of the case and confronted the conspiracy theory
head on, discounting as absurd the idea that the prosecution
was in this solely for blood money and defending the right of
the citizen to support the prosecution and offer a reward.

(01:01:28):
In their closing, Stearns and Strode hammered away at the
confession, punched holes in theflimsy circumstantial evidence,
undermined the prosecution's evidence of motive, and played
upon sympathy for Mary Sheedy, whom they characterized as a
wronged woman. Then Strode again raised the
conspiracy issue, remarking thatMister Hall was a member of a

(01:01:52):
firm of railroad attorneys. Hall took the bait, angrily
denouncing Strode in open court as appealing in an
unprofessional and unmanly manner to the prejudices of the
jury, whom he suspected might all be members of the Farmers
Alliance. In doing so, he played into
Strode's hands by again distracting the jury from the

(01:02:15):
evidence of the case. In his instructions to the jury,
Judge Field reiterated that although the defendants were
being tried together, the case against each should be
considered separately. He also instructed the jury not
to consider Mcfarlane's confession as evidence against
Mary as he clarified the definition of circumstantial

(01:02:37):
evidence. Later, on May 28th, the jury
went into deliberation as local newspapers, expressing concern
that Mary Sheedy would probably get off, proclaimed the
defendants guilty. The following afternoon, the
jury returned with its verdict, not guilty on all counts for
both defendants. Spectators in the courtroom and

(01:02:59):
standing outside exploded into cheers, punctuated by some
hissing. The press proclaimed the
decision of miscarriage of justice and expressed concern
that even the legal system was corrupt.
But even as the shocks swept through Lincoln society and the
legal community, something in the response seemed amiss.

(01:03:21):
Not only was it unclear who had murdered Sheedy, it was also
quite unclear what had transpired in the prosecution,
and a pall of suspicion was castover the actions of all
involved. Newspapers suspiciously
scrutinized the motives, tactics, strategies and
procedures of police, prosecutors, lawyers, the mayor

(01:03:43):
at the time of the murder, who was Robert B Gramp, whose term
ended in 1891 in April, and various groups of townspeople,
making it seem as if the truth were inaccessible.
Critics of Merrick Graham declared that he had, quote,
sought to close his term with a blaze of glory at the expense of
justice. End Quote.
Melek and Malone were accused ofhaving been blinded by ambition

(01:04:07):
and willing to gather evidence at any cost.
Doctor Holyoke's unexplained closing of the inquest raised
the specter of a conspiracy to convict Mary Sheedy and
McFarland without due process. Dennis Sheedy's involvement also
drew comment. He had interfered in the local
investigation by bringing in Pinkerton detectives, had

(01:04:28):
offered a reward for informationleading to the arrest for the
murderer, and had hired Frank Hall to back up the county
prosecutor, Novia Snell, an old friend of John Fitzgerald, whose
role was also questioned. Fitzgerald had been appointed an
administrator of John Sheedy's estate.
Even though he and Sheedy were adversaries.

(01:04:49):
It appeared that he and Dennis Sheedy were bent on convicting
Mary, guilty or not, so they could gain control of John
Sheedy's entire estate. Also questioned were the actions
of individuals who sought Mary Sheedy's conviction but then
seemed to side with her at critical moments in the case.
It was unclear, for example, whyChief of Police Malik allowed

(01:05:13):
himself to be befriended by MarySheedy while she was in custody
at his house. Even stranger was his
appointment by the court after the trial to replace Mary as an
administrator of John Sheedy's estate.
He and his old friend John Fitzgerald, both Reformers and
Law and Order men, had worked together for years to bring down

(01:05:34):
John Sheedy and upon Mary's acquittal, now controlled the
estate. This seemed to fit suspiciously
well with Fitzgerald's decision,apparently at Dennis Sheedy's
request, to hire Frank Hall, andit seemed to corroborate
suspicions of a plot against Mary.
Finally, when Mary was acquittedand the alleged plot backfired,

(01:05:58):
the very men who prosecuted her with such determination gained
control of the estate anyway. It's suggested to some that the
prosecutors had covered themselves for either outcome
and had achieved their goal. That scenario would explain the
presentation of what some believed was a weak case against
Mary. And it suggested an even deeper

(01:06:21):
conspiracy to sacrifice McFarland but acquit Mary and
thereby assure that all the lawyers involved would be paid.
If she were acquitted, she wouldhave her share of the estate,
administered by Melek and Fitzgerald, from which to pay
Stearns, Strode and Weir the following year.
Melek and Fitzgerald, as estate administrators, along with

(01:06:43):
Dennis Sheedy, resisted Mary's efforts to acquire a larger
share of the estate. Meanwhile, newspapers seem more
interested in speculating about the lurid details of a noted
criminal case and pandering to apopular fascination with
malfeasance rather than digging for the truth.
A show trial. The case involved some of the

(01:07:04):
city's most prominent lawyers and deepened public concern
about the motives and impartiality of Lincoln's bar.
The trial seemed more important to lawyers as a career boosting,
indeed career defining opportunity.
JC Strode's obituary 30 years later made note of the case.
For example, various observers, while recognizing that the

(01:07:25):
lawyers pursued justice by working as hard as they could
for their clients, even if it meant true guilt or innocence
was not determined, question themotives, tactics, and the
actions of lawyers on both sides.
The motives of Frank Hall, a railroad lawyer for the
Burlington and Missouri RailroadCompany and a partner of John
Fitzgerald's lawyer, Turner Marquette, were questioned from

(01:07:48):
the start. When Hall drew attention to the
issue of undue influence by apologizing to the jury for
being a railroad lawyer with no criminal law experience, and
then stepped easily into Strode's trap, further questions
arose. In fact, there was no death or
criminal law experience on the prosecution team.

(01:08:09):
In spite of his disclaimer, Halldid have some criminal law
experience, and Dennis Sheedy also had hired Jeannie O
Lambertson, who had been AUS attorney from 1878 to 1887 and
had secured the City Council's vindication in 1887 after
returning to private practice. Tactics such as the risky

(01:08:30):
decision to permit the defendants to be tried together
were questioned as well, though there were many that had no
other way to get Macfarlane's confession before Mary Sheedy's
jury. Risky too was their apparent
overconfidence, their overly formal rhetoric in the closing
arguments, and their surprising excitability at number of times

(01:08:52):
in the case. Which led some to wonder if,
rather than pursuing Mary's conviction, they had conspired
to sacrifice McFarland to make it seem that justice had been
served while purposefully offering a weak case against
Mary to assure her acquittal. Perhaps what appeared to be 1/2
hearted effort reflected a certain ambivalence about the

(01:09:15):
case. Perhaps they were unwilling to
press for a murder conviction and a possible death sentence.
But no woman, even to this day, has been executed in Nebraska,
and the sentence probably would have been life imprisonment.
Or perhaps they were inclined toexonerate her, seeing some
measure of self-defense in her act.

(01:09:36):
Perhaps they considered the murder to have done the city a
favor. As lawyers who had encountered
each other for years on opposingsides of the ongoing struggle
between the Law and Order Leagueand John Sheedy, the prosecution
team had represented clients who, for a variety of reasons,
had long since lost patience with Sheedy and wanted to see

(01:09:58):
him brought down. They may have seen Sheedy as a
man whose departure from Lincolnor life would not be grieved.
Perhaps for the prosecution and defenders alike, justice had
already been done with Sheedy's death, even if his murderer was
never brought to justice. Who really murdered John Sheedy

(01:10:19):
and who else was involved seemedtoo many Lincolnites a question
that nobody really wanted to answer.
In the larger battle of good versus evil, they may have
concluded Sheedy had received his due and the end justified
the means. Though the defense attorneys
Stearns, Strode, and Weir were pleased with the outcome, and

(01:10:41):
the prosecutors seem to feel that they had done the best they
could, public opinion focused onthe lawyer's efforts to acquire
large fees for the case of more than ordinary importance from
Sheedy's estate or from the District Court.
After perfunctory expressions ofjoy or disappointment over the
verdict, the prosecutor scrambled to recover costs and

(01:11:03):
fees from the court while the defense attorneys pursued their
fees. Indeed, the day of the verdict,
Charles Gates Dawes, a prominentlawyer and businessman, wrote to
his friend JD Cox, reporting noton the verdict, but on the
scramble for fees. He noted having heard that
Colonel HW Weir of Boise City, who has arrived late in the case

(01:11:25):
to back up Stearns and Strode, objected to the proposed fee of
$15,000 and lopped off $2500 to make it $12,500 for Strode and
Stearns, equivalent to over $200,000 today.
Dawes wrote that he got involvedwhen we're counsel for Misses
Sheedy asked him to research Sheedy's real estate holdings

(01:11:49):
because we're expected he would have to take a mortgage for his
fee. Dawes wrote that he got involved
when we're counsel for Misses Sheedy asked him to research
Sheedy's real estate holdings because we're expected he would
have to take a mortgage for his fee.
Dawes thought we're an able and genial gentleman who has a tough

(01:12:12):
client and Misses Sheedy. Dawes gave we're the
disappointing news that Sheedy'sestate was worth only $54,500,
consisting mostly of the Hotel Mac, the Sheedy residence,
another downtown lot and 80 acres in Clay County.
In any case, because the estate was controlled by John

(01:12:32):
Fitzgerald and indirectly by Dennis Sheedy, Mary Sheedy,
though acquitted eventually indirectly paid part of the
prosecuting attorney's fees as well.
Mcfarland's lawyers were renumerated by the court.
The day after his acquittal Monday, McFarland, dressed in a

(01:12:52):
new suit of clothes, left town to visit his mother in Kansas.
Mary Sheedy, after visiting her mother in Iowa, eventually
returned to Lincoln. She sold the shitty house later
in the year and the following spring was living in rooms at
1452 O Street, still listed as widow of John.

(01:13:13):
Later in 1892, she left Lincoln to marry Max Brust, a traveling
salesman for the American Tobacco Company in San
Francisco. On March 1st, 1893, using the
name Mary Brust and in need of money, she sued the estate for a
larger monthly allowance than the $83.33 that she was

(01:13:34):
receiving. The county court ruled against
her, but she appealed, and Dennis Sheedy brought in Frank
Hall to argue the case in District Court.
The judge dismissed the case, declaring that Mary had already
helped herself to the household furniture, a horse and buggy,
and $500 that she had therefore already received an amount to

(01:13:55):
which she was by law entitled. By 1900, Max Brust had settled
down as a storekeeper, and soon thereafter the couple apparently
left San Francisco. It is difficult to measure the
effect of the trial on Lincoln, though events had raised
questions about the similaritiesin the tactics of reformers and
the corrupt powers they aim to reform.

(01:14:17):
The outcome and the evasive responses to it seem to confirm
the faults of the existing judicial system, as well as the
gender and racial structures implicit in the booster ethos.
With Sheedy gone, the way was open for the Law and Order
League and other reformers. A month before Mary Sheedy's
acquittal, Austin H Weir, not tobe confused with the defense

(01:14:39):
attorney, had been elected mayoron a Citizens Reform ticket,
which CG Dawes called a great triumph for honesty and reform.
The convoluted meccanations of the trial raised deep concerns
about the endemic corruption in public life and broaden the
constituency supporting reform. Meanwhile, emboldened reformers

(01:15:00):
broaden their cause to include social as well as political
reform and the elimination of vice.
Several progressive organizations were founded in
1892 and 93 and calls for reforms and and calls for
reforms in city and state governments and the railroads
highlighted the conflicts of interest and corruption at the

(01:15:22):
heart of the booster ethos. Then the crash of 1893 hit
Lincoln hard, forcing many companies into bankruptcy,
throwing thousands out of work, and leaving the street very
quiet. In the fall of 1893, as people
stepped back and considered the corruption of the system, a
great wave of reform in municipal and state governments

(01:15:44):
before notoriously corrupt sweptacross Lincoln, opening up a new
chapter in the city's history. Though the timing of Sheedy's
murder and resurgence reform maybe merely historical
coincidence, it is striking nevertheless.
The advantage Sheedy's removal gave reformers, however, was

(01:16:05):
undermined during the recession that followed the crash of 1893.
Like other groups, the booster reforms faced crisis and
decline, and increasingly local initiatives failed, were cut
short, fell short of expectations, or drifted
aimlessly. In the mid 1890s, after years of
growth, the core groups of Lincoln's booster culture, the

(01:16:27):
Union Club and the Chamber of Commerce suffered a wave of
departures and resignations for 10 years or more.
Wholesale changes in city personnel and declines in
membership left the survivors struggling to pursue their
social agendas in a declining city.
The booster ethos had lost its dynamic force, leaving it

(01:16:47):
vulnerable to conservative reformers in pursuit.
A conservative ends Across the nation, the rising tide of
reform and the crash of 1893 spurred the rise of
progressivism and the conversionof boosterism into city planning
and scientific municipal administration.
In Lincoln, the same convergence, moving dynamically

(01:17:09):
along a different trajectory, shaped an increasingly
conservative urban culture. Instead of taming the metropolis
and serving as handmaiden of development, reform emerged as a
strategy to slow or control social modernization and
liberalism. After 1900 and even through the

(01:17:29):
1960s, conservative reformers and boosters continued
anachronistically to employ a closed, personalized style of
elite leadership. The legacy of the crisis of the
1890s would run deep in Lincoln's history.
Thank you for listening to the Nebraska History Podcast.
To learn more about the NebraskaHistory Magazine, to listen to

(01:17:51):
more podcasts, or to support ourpodcast by becoming a member of
the Nebraska State Historical Society, go to
history.nebraska.gov/podcast. And don't forget to subscribe to
the podcast and get notified when we release new episodes on
your favorite podcast platform. Until next time, I'm Chris
Goforth.