Wood, S. N. (Samuel Newitt)

The Hay Meadow Massacre of July 25, 1888, the bloodiest episode of the Stevens County, Kansas, county seat war, resulted in the murder of Sheriff John M. Cross and three of his deputies. The Stevens County war, 1885-1889, was a series of violent events between the feuding towns of Hugoton and Woodsdale. Both towns wanted to be named the county seat of Stevens County. Hugoton was named county seat in 1887, but this decision only intensified the feud. Following disputes over the election of the county sheriff and the placement of a railroad line, the Marshal of Woodsdale, Ed Short, attempted to arrest Sam Robinson, Marshal of Hugoton, on charges of assault. This resulted in the murder of four Woodsdale men by a posse from Hugoton in a hay meadow at Wild Horse Lake in No Man’s Land (the Oklahoma Panhandle). Only Deputy Herbert Tonney survived the massacre though he was wounded and left for dead. Following the massacre, the governor of Kansas sent the military to disarm both towns.

Six Hugoton men were indicted and convicted for the murders: Cyrus E. Cook, O.J. Cook, J.B. Chamberlain, Cyrus Freese, J.J. Jackson and Jack Lawrence. Sam Robinson escaped indictment due to his imprisonment in a Colorado penitentiary for robbery. Colonel Samuel N. Wood, the founder of Woodsdale, served as a prosecutor at the trial in Paris, Texas, in July 1890. However, in 1891, the Supreme Court overturned the convictions on appeal due to a lack of jurisdiction over the crime.

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