Iowa Recorder Greene, Butler, Iowa March 21, 1917 STATE NEWS IN BRIEF Perry - Mrs. Jennie Bishop, 84, a well known pioneer, died at the home of a niece at Clarinda, and a burial took place at Woodland cemetery near here. Marshalltown - Samuel B. Chapman, aged 80, old soldier and pioneer Iowa railroad man, is dead at the Soldiers' home. He began railroading in Dubuque in 1858, entered the army in 1862 and after his discharged returned to railroading. Marshalltown - Charles P. Lowry, aged 77, of Yale, Guthrie county, a member of the Soldiers' home, is dead. He served in Company C, One Hundred and Fifty-third Illinois Infantry. Irwin - M. Zimmer, aged 81, civil war veteran, a resident here for seventeen years, is dead. Ames - J.M. Singleton, representing the Chinese consul at New York was here last week investigating the murder of Sing Lee at Story City. Quan See, a Chinese, arrested at Butte, Montana, charged with the murder, is making a hard fight against extradition. Iowa City - Lightning struck the big barn of John Baack and fire destroyed it. Twenty-two head of stock, including six valuable horses, sixteen cows and calves were either killed by the bolt or burned alive. The loss was estimated at $5,000 and the building alone was insured. Bellevue - Col. Thomas Martin, who showed his heard of Shorthorn cattle at the stock show in Oklahoma City has received word that he took seven prizes including first on aged bull, captured by Woodlawn Villager. Oskaloosa - Word was received here by President David Edwards of a gift of 527 acres of rich farm land located in Marshall county by Mr. and Mrs. E.B. Howard of Ames, an aged couple, members of the Iowa yearly meeting of Friends and supporters of Penn college. Waterloo - David Moats in his ninety-ninth year died at the home of his daughter after a months' illness. It was his desire that he be permitted to live until his one hundredth birthday. He was born November 29, 1818 in Franklin county, Pa. Grinnell - Dr. Edwin R. Talley of Grinnell has had his forty-seventh invention accepted by a Minneapolis manufacturing concern. It is an electrical centrifuge water softener. Stanwood - The Robert Eichelberger house was struck by lightning twice during the recent storm. The town was without lights for a time. Limbs, ten inches in diameter were broken from trees because of the heavy sleet. Atlantic - Charles Clark, who has been confined to the Atlantic hospital since December 12 suffering intense pain from the effects of a fractured hip and frozen legs, received when he fell from a Rock Island train between here and Walnut and lay at the side of the track for several hours before being discovered, died at the hospital here. Death came as a relief to the man who had one foot already amputated and was about to lose the other and both of his hands, after weeks of intense suffering in a brave struggle for life. Bellevue - Mrs .C.E. Chambers of Grinnell, the wife of a former pastor of the Bellevue Congregational church, is the owner of a book 103 years old. The volume comprises a collection of religious exercises which were observed in Germany in the Lutheran church, during the early eighteenth century, and consists of songs and exercises printed in German. The book has board covers overlaid with leather and hand sewed with very coarse thread. The book is well preserved and not a page is missing. It is prized very highly by the owner, and was brought to this country by Mrs. Chambers' mother. CONFESSION IN AX MURDERS ALLEGED Red Oak, March 19 - The Rev. J.J. Burris, of Terrillton, Okla, has arrived in Red Oak with a subpoena from the Montgomery county grand jury, which, for the past ten days has been investigating the Villisca murder mystery. The minister, who is pastor of the Church of Christ in the Oklahoma city, declared that a man, whose name he was unable to recall, on his death bed confessed to him of having committed the murders which shocked the entire state, and which for four and a half years have baffled detectives and county and state officers. Mr. Burris is expected to tell his story to the grand jury. He said the confession was made to him in a hotel at Radersburg, Mont., July, 1913, about a year after the crime. "When I arrived at the bedside I saw at a glance he was at deaths' door. He was in torment and lived only a short time after I arrived. Death was said to have been due to delirium tremens." Mr. Burris said the man began to talk immediately upon his entering the room. "He said he had been guilty of many wrongs," continued the minister, "and wanted to make a clean breast before he died. "He seemed to know that he had but a short while to live. His life was passing rapidly and it was with great difficulty that he spoke. He was physically unable to dwell much on the details. "The man sank back among the pillows. A great load seemed to have been lifted from his mind. In a few minutes he breathed his last." Mr. Burris said the body was buried in Radersburg. The clergyman said that the man told him that he was living in Villisca at the time of the murder and that formerly he had been engaged in the blacksmith business there. He is said to have been part owner of a blacksmith shop in Radersburg at the time of his death. "I should judge that he was a man about 25 years old at the time of his death," said Mr. Burris. "He has relatives in Villisca, I was told that his sister in Radersburg years ago married a physician and left her home in Villisca to live in the west. Mr. Burris said he did not remember ever having seen the man before he was called to the bedside. He said the man claimed to have known him when he lived in Iowa years ago. Asked if he had ever heard the story told by Mr. Burris, Albert Jones, who with his father, F.F. Jones, of Villisca, are being investigated in connection with the ax murder Saturday, declared that he had and that he did not attach much importance to it. Detective J.N. Wilkerson, who is seeking indictments against a half dozen residents of Montgomery county, declared that he had investigated the story and found that it would not stand up. Mr. Burris said he had been in communication with Attorney General Havner in regard to the story he said was told him by the dying man, and that the attorney general had the money with which to pay the expense of his trip to Red Oak. Mr. Havner is expected to arrive in Red Oak from Des Moines. F.F. Faville, who is conducting the grand jury investigation refused to comment on Burris' story. Cathy Joynt Labath Iowa Old Press http://www.IowaOldPress.com/