Everybody knows of the exploits of outlaws Frank and
Jesse James, but who remembers Ed and Lon Maxwell, two
Illinoisans who captured the nation’s attention in the early 1880s? The
brothers graduated from petty theft to stealing horses to murder, and made national
headlines as they eluded capture for months. The
law finally caught up with Ed, the elder brother; Lon escaped and never
resurfaced.
Like the James brothers, the Maxwells were transformed
in popular culture from reviled cold-blooded killers to daring desperadoes
in popular dime novels. Then, unlike the James gang, they
were mostly forgotten — until now.
John E. Hallwas, a distinguished professor emeritus at
Western Illinois University, is just out (Aug. 25) with Dime Novel Desperadoes, a gripping,
richly detailed account of the rise and fall of the Maxwell brothers that
offers more, much more, than just their story. He weaves a rich description
of frontier life in Illinois and of the political and social attitudes that
shaped these young men. He offers no apology for their violence but
suffuses their story with enough gray to forestall snap judgments.
In fact, it’s the violence of that time that
leaves the most indelible impression on the reader. Grinding poverty and
hardship were staples of the frontier experience, and those who had
property and status were always on guard against those who didn’t. In
McDonough County, where Ed and Lon spent their formative years, it was
common for a landless worker to be murdered for the slightest provocation
and for a jury to acquit if the killer simply asserted that he had acted in
self-defense. Hallwas does a compelling job of showing the bizarre
qualities of 19th-century Illinois frontier law — “assault with
intent to kill,” 30 days in jail; “larceny of a horse,”
three years in the penitentiary — that certainly fed the belief that
a poor man couldn’t get justice. (Some things never change.)
Perhaps most interesting, Ed’s criminal
escapades appear to have started in earnest when his father served in the
Union Army. The $27 bounty David Maxwell received for enlisting only went
so far, and 9-year-old Ed had to help support his mother and three younger
siblings. He hunted and, Hallwas suggests, probably started stealing from
neighboring farms to help keep food on the table. Hallwas’
description of the deep suffering that soldiers’ families endured
helps explain why there was so much antipathy toward the war and Lincoln
and why hundreds of Illinoisans would harbor deserters.
I’ve never been much of a fan of Westerns
— the closest I came was playing cowboys and Indians as a kid —
and true-crime tales don’t intrigue me. But Dime Novel Desperadoes transcends
those genres. It’s a gritty and entertaining look at a unique time
that still shapes our attitudes about crime, justice, and what it means to
be free.
Contact Roland Klose at editor@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Jul 24-30, 2008.
