Newgnet - the fair Millie (fight) - Putnam

Clinton Township has been the scene of a good many adventures. One of our best ghost stories was located there and it was only two years since that a desperate effort was made to murder and rob a worthy family living there. Other robberies were afterward attempted, one of which was partially successful.  But we have had nothing particularly romantic until now and this affair comes with such a glamour of love and tragedy about it that it amply repays the reader for waiting so long for its occurrence.  Two miles west of Clinton Falls lives John Gladden Newgent whose youngest daughter, Millie, is so fair to look upon and so gladsome and sweet in her disposition that she has won the hearts of all the susceptible swains in the neighborhood, extending even beyond the county line into Parke. Among them was Walter Sigler and William Harney, both promising youths of 20 years or thereabouts. The former was the fortunate or unfortunate as the case may be, possessor of a buggy and for sometime past this has frequently been seen hitched in front of the Newgent residence, while its owner conversed with the object of his affection in the parlor. On emerging therefrom of a recent Sunday evening he was astonished and chagrined to find that, while he had been happy within some one had played the mischief without. To speak plainly, the harness on his horse had been so cut as to render it useless.  Knowing that William Harney was also infatuated with the charming Millie, he at once ascribed the outrage to him and did not hesitate to so express himself whenever occasion offered. The result was that on last Sunday afternoon about the hour of sundown he was seen fleeing in his buggy from the direction of Mr. Newgent’s toward the east, closely followed by Harney on horseback, who seemed to be in a state of fury. When within a half mile of Clinton Falls the fugitive gained sufficient courage to hal5 and sternly await the coming of the foe who had been so persistently keeping up a stern chase which is proverbially a long one and shouting, “Stop you infernal coward!”  As he came near, Sigler drew a revolver and with trembling hands fired upon him twice each ball going wide of the mark. Nothing daunted, Harney rode up to the buggy, exclaiming “I am not afraid of your revolver!”   At this critical juncture, Simpson Harlan, a friend of both young men, arrived upon the scene and by his eloquent pleading stopped the affray. Had it not been for this fortunate circumstance there would soon have been a river of gore!