State v. Gardner

The defendant and appellant, Gardner, a homesteader in what is still a vast wilderness-in the northern part of this state, was a typical pioneer, industrious, courageous, and self-reliant. He was a postmaster and mail carrier at the time of his arrest. The best citizens of the neighborhood in which he then lived and in which he had formerly lived testified to his good reputation. His character was that of a quiet, peaceable, law-abiding man. He had had trouble with William Garrison, living alone on a piece of land two and a half miles north of his place. Garrison, apparently a hardy man, of…