Spade Ranch (Nebraska) - History - Fencing Controversy and Trials

Fencing Controversy and Trials

In general, cattlemen did not feel that fencing was wrong. They believed they were fencing land unsuitable for any other uses, especially farming. Further, they believed a method of leasing land was a way to give value to the government land in the Sandhills and allow fencing to be legal. The House Committee on Public Lands held hearings on leasing and grazing legislation between January and June 1902.

Richards testified in favor of the Bowersock Bill, making the following plea:

Here the United States has immense properties that are not improving, which we have grown up with and have improved, and we ask you that while you have no better use for this land, that you will lease it to us at a reasonable rental, and that the moment you have any better use for it, for irrigation, for mineral entires, for storage reservoirs, for agricultural purposes, for forest reserves, for anything else which may come up and be the sense of Congress that it wants, that land shall be lifted out of the lease, and no recompense shall be made to the former leaseholder. —Hearings before the Committee on Public Lands, 1902

Congress hesitated to pass a leasing act, and the United States Department of the Interior was determined to remove the fences. By November 1902, the Rushville Standard reported that Bartlett Richards had been ordered to remove his fences in Sheridan and Cherry Counties. The fenced enclosed about 60 civil townships, which would be enough to support 960 families at two sections per family. The Secretary of the Interior, Ethan A. Hitchcock, following the Roosevelt administration's direction, set out to enforce the 1885 Van Wyck Law, which forbade the fencing of public lands.

In 1905, Richards and Comstock were indicted and brought to trial for the illegal fencing of 212,000 acres (86,000 ha) of government land. They first entered a plea of not guilty, but quickly reconsidered and plead guilty to "asserting ownership and exclusive occupancy of government lands". Attorney Richard S. Hall told the court as the plea was entered for his clients:"It is our intention to comply with the law. We are removing the fences as rapidly as we can, but such as may remain, we have nothing to do with. Wherever the government shows us we have an unlawful fence, we will remove it." The fences they had "nothing to do with" may refer to those on a common boundary with other ranches or on widow claims.

On November 13, 1905, Richards and Comstock were sentenced to the custody of a United States Marshal for six hours and a fine of $300 and half of court costs. The modest sentence may have reflected a finding that they did not intimidate settlers and that their employees were at work removing the fences. Controversially, newspaper accounts charged that Richards and Comstock took part in a victory celebration instead of serving time. The Secretary of the Interior was upset about the news and fired District Attorney Baxter and Marshal Thomas L. Mathews, the officer in charge of Richards and Comstock's six hour sentence. In reality, during their sentence, Richards and Comstock returned to the hotel to pack, write letters, shop, eat dinner, and arrive at the train station for the 11 p.m. train to Ellsworth.

In August 1906, new changes were brought against all Spade officials for "conspiracy to defraud the government of the title and use of public lands, subornation of perjury, and conspiracy to suborn perjury". The case was called to trial on November 12, 1906, in the Federal District Court in Omaha before Judge William H. Munger. Richards and Comstock did not testify. United States Secret Service men spent 13 months investigating and getting evidence. Affidavits were taken from 600 witnesses, subpoenas were issued for 165 witnesses, and 132 people offered evidence in trail.

On December 20, 1906, the jury delivered a guilty verdict on 35 of the 38 counts. A motion for a new trial was overruled and the sentence to Bartlett Richards and William Comstock was $1,500 fines and eight months in prison. Richards and Comstock appealed the verdict and were released on a $5,000 bond. The appellate court affirmed the guilty verdict on December 3, 1909. On October 17, 1910, the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeals of Richards, Comstock, and their associates, and ordered them to pay the fines and prepare to serve their sentences beginning on December 7.

Comstock, Jameson, and Triplett surrendered in late November and Richards arrived in Omaha on December 7, 1910. All four were transferred to the Adams County jail in Hastings to serve their sentences. Again the press covered the story of their imprisonment with false accounts. It was reported that Richards and Comstock were receiving special treatment but, in reality, the two were in the same surroundings as other prisoners and were granted very few privileges.

In June 1911 Richards was allowed to go to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for gallstone surgery and returning to the Hastings jail on August 10. Richards had long-standing intestinal troubles and never fully recovered from surgery. Bartlett Richards died while incarcerated at Hastings, Nebraska in the early morning hours of September 4, 1911 before his wife could arrive by train from the family home in Coronado, California. When Will Comstock first heard the news of the partner's death, he is reported to have said, "May the angels guide you into Paradise, and may the martyrs come to meet you." The next day William Comstock was released and his sentence commuted by order of President William Taft so as to attend the funeral of his business partner in San Diego.

The trials and appeals had caused financial strain on the ranch and holdings of the Nebraska Land Company. Before his imprisonment, Richards had been ill and no longer directly managed the ranch. During his imprisonment, there was no direct supervision of the ranch affairs. Following Richards' death, Comstock took control of the Spade Ranch and the Comstock and Richards families shared quarters at the Ellsworth house in the summers. In 1912, Comstock closed the C Bar and Overton Ranches, reducing the official land holding of the Spade Ranch. William Comstock died of cancer in the fall of 1916. Despite Comstock's advice to the contrary, Mrs. Richards kept control of the ranch.

It was difficult to maintain the ranch, because the era of free range was over. By 1916, Kinkaiders had claimed the land in the middle of the Spade range. Range land, once free, now had to be leased or bought from the homesteaders. The Nebraska Land and Feeding Company borrowed $200,000 ($3,893,991.77 current) from the New York Trust Company through a first mortgage on the Spade Land. The ranch survived until the depression of 1922-1923, during which time the mortgages on the land were foreclosed. By this time, the holdings of the Spade Ranch had been reduced to about 60,000 acres (24,000 ha). The Richards family spent their last summer in Ellsworth in 1923 and the ranch was turned over to the bank.