American Outlaw. He lived in a cabin along Shafer's Ridge near Roselawn, Newton County, Indiana. Mike was a notorious horse thief who belonged to a horse thief ring that operated from Ohio to Iowa. He ran his criminal operation on Bogus Island on Beaver Lake near Morocco, Newton County, Indiana in the Kankakee River Valley. Shafer was later killed from a shotgun blast near his cabin home by a man named Fred Tanner who was later acquitted. According to a burial account, "When he finished filling a shallow grave at the Lake Village, Ind., cemetery in March 1869, an anonymous gravedigger smacked his shovel blade down on the sandy soil and delivered what had to suffice as a eulogy for the dead man: “There you are, Mike Shafer, and may the devil make you dance a hornpipe on the hottest griddle there is in hell.” Sources. Tales of an Old Border Town and Along the Kankakee by Burt E. Burroughs, 1925. "Famous Bogus Island" and "The Days of the "Bogus Island" Horse Thief Ring" articles in Lowell Public Library, Lowell, Indiana http://www.lowellpl.lib.in.us/bogusis.htm. Looking Back: Horse thieves’ Hideout" by Jack Klasey, Daily Journal, Kankakee, Illinois, Feb 16, 2019 https://www.dailyjournal.com/news/local/looking-back-horse-thieves-hideout/article_c3788a8c-3127-11e9-8869-130cd8eebcd9.html. "Undercovering Bogus Island" by Beth Bassett, The Newcomer, Volume 20, Issue 2, Spring/Summer 2014, Newton County (Indiana) Historical Society, Inc., p. 1-3, http://ingenweb.org/innewton/newcomer/Spring%202014.pdf. Morocco, Indiana, 1851-1951, Home of Hoosier Hospitality by Ruth Corbin, 1951.
American Outlaw. He lived in a cabin along Shafer's Ridge near Roselawn, Newton County, Indiana. Mike was a notorious horse thief who belonged to a horse thief ring that operated from Ohio to Iowa. He ran his criminal operation on Bogus Island on Beaver Lake near Morocco, Newton County, Indiana in the Kankakee River Valley. Shafer was later killed from a shotgun blast near his cabin home by a man named Fred Tanner who was later acquitted. According to a burial account, "When he finished filling a shallow grave at the Lake Village, Ind., cemetery in March 1869, an anonymous gravedigger smacked his shovel blade down on the sandy soil and delivered what had to suffice as a eulogy for the dead man: “There you are, Mike Shafer, and may the devil make you dance a hornpipe on the hottest griddle there is in hell.” Sources. Tales of an Old Border Town and Along the Kankakee by Burt E. Burroughs, 1925. "Famous Bogus Island" and "The Days of the "Bogus Island" Horse Thief Ring" articles in Lowell Public Library, Lowell, Indiana http://www.lowellpl.lib.in.us/bogusis.htm. Looking Back: Horse thieves’ Hideout" by Jack Klasey, Daily Journal, Kankakee, Illinois, Feb 16, 2019 https://www.dailyjournal.com/news/local/looking-back-horse-thieves-hideout/article_c3788a8c-3127-11e9-8869-130cd8eebcd9.html. "Undercovering Bogus Island" by Beth Bassett, The Newcomer, Volume 20, Issue 2, Spring/Summer 2014, Newton County (Indiana) Historical Society, Inc., p. 1-3, http://ingenweb.org/innewton/newcomer/Spring%202014.pdf. Morocco, Indiana, 1851-1951, Home of Hoosier Hospitality by Ruth Corbin, 1951.
Advertisement
Explore more
Sponsored by Ancestry
Advertisement
