The following is a re-print of a past column by former Advertiser columnist Stephen Thorning, who passed away on Feb. 23, 2015.
Some text has been updated to reflect changes since the original publication and any images used may not be the same as those that accompanied the original publication.
When the evening northbound train stopped at Harriston on April 7, 1881, a tall, dark complexioned, and strikingly well-dressed woman stepped onto the platform.
The Royal Hotel operated a cab that met all trains. She took it, and registered under the name of Margaret M. Hogg.
The next morning Margaret was out on the main street, making a number of purchases. She carried a considerable amount of money. The purchases, it turns out, were for her brother Martin Hogg and his family, who lived in Harriston. Martin worked as a casual labourer for various employers around town.
Later in the morning she was back on the street, looking over the town. It was not a hot day by any means, but Margaret quickly worked up a thirst, and at regular intervals she strolled into the bar room of one hotel or another for a glass of whiskey.
Though there was no law to forbid it, most women, at least those who put a value on their reputation, seldom entered a bar. Hotels usually served women in their dining room or in a parlour. At each stop she told anyone who cared to listen that she was visiting from Leadville, Colorado. That town was then a centre of the booming Colorado mining district, and had a reputation as the most violent and lawless town in the Great Republic.
By noon Margaret was visibly intoxicated, talking loudly and challenging strangers. At the market grounds she started conversing with two men. Their discussion soon turned to a quarrel, which concluded when she slapped both and followed with well-placed kicks from her powerful knee, leaving them doubled over in pain as she strode away.
After that exhausting work she headed to Jake Dolmage’s hotel, where she sat in the parlour enjoying a glass of beer. While there she pulled a revolver from her pocket, brandished it about, and claimed that she was an expert shot, and had killed several men in Leadville with the gun.
Then she got up and walked unsteadily into the adjoining bar room. Her brother Martin was there with one of his friends, John Johnson. Dolmage was behind the bar that afternoon. He asked Margaret Hogg what she was there for. “Whiskey and cigars,” she bellowed in her deep husky voice, and slurring her syllables. Jake told her he had no cigars in the bar, but there were some in the dining room, and went to get them.
James Close, another patron, stood nearby. While waiting for Dolmage to return, Margaret called to Close to join her for a glass of whiskey. He declined. “In that case I’ll have a drink myself,” she replied, and produced the revolver again. She brandished it about, and pulled the trigger a couple of times. Terrified, Jim Close went to Martin Hogg and asked if the gun was loaded. He assured Close that there was no danger.
Margaret resumed her monologue about her exploits with the gun in Leadville, and boasted that she would shoot someone in Harriston before she left town. When Close returned to the bar she shouted at him, “I’ll shoot you, you …,” concluding her threat with a string of oaths.
Holding the revolver at waist height, she pulled the trigger again. This time it fired, to the surprise of everyone in the room. The bullet grazed the cheek of Jim Close, who was standing about five feet away, and burnt powder blackened his cheek.
At once Dolmage leapt over the bar and took the gun from Margaret and gave it to her brother Martin. In all the confusion Margaret never did get her whiskey and cigars. After a few minutes she and Martin departed, and headed to the railway station. They were taking the afternoon train, they said, to visit their mother in Southampton.
Close suffered only minor burns and a bad scratch, but it had been a close call. Before anyone could locate Harriston constable D.H. Clegg the train had departed. The railway agent wired ahead, and authorities intercepted the trigger-happy Margaret in Paisley when the train arrived at that station at about 4pm. There she was held overnight, and brought back to Harriston on the morning of April 9.
Mayor Sam Robertson, who was also a Justice of the Peace, called a hearing for later that day. The session took all afternoon and evening, with testimony offered by the victim, Jim Close, John Johnson, Martin Hogg, Jake Dolmage and others who had witnessed the affair in the bar room. The charge was a serious one: shooting with intent to kill.
Because the preliminary hearing did not conclude until late on a Saturday evening, Margaret Hogg had to be held over until Monday under the custody of Constable Clegg before she could be taken to the jail at Guelph. On Sunday morning she ate the breakfast Clegg brought for her, and then asked Clegg for five minutes privacy before she went back into the small town lockup. When the time was up Clegg was unable to find her. She had slipped out a window.
Clegg immediately organized a local posse to search the town, and sent telegrams to all the neighbouring towns. Late in the afternoon Margaret turned up in Clifford, where the telegram from Harriston had generated far more interest than any of the sermons delivered that morning. A half dozen men easily captured Margaret and by evening she was back in the lockup in Harriston. The next afternoon she was on a train to Guelph, handcuffed securely to Constable Clegg. There a cell had been prepared for her while she awaited her trial a week later.
While in jail Margaret gave interviews to reporters from both the Mercury and the Guelph Herald, something few prisoners were willing to do at that time. Her story was that she had been born in Toronto, and had moved with her family to Nevada when she was 10. She claimed she was married to a miner in Leadville named Neehan, and that she would probably return to him in the fall, and did not expect him to come east for her trial. She brought the revolver as a gift for her brother. They had intended to go to Southampton to see her mother. At her brother’s house they had examined the gun and removed all the bullets, she claimed. At the hotel she showed the gun to others there, all of whom “were tight,” she claimed. It discharged accidently, glancing off the cheek of Jim Close.
Neither reporter pressed Margaret Hogg on the inconsistencies and improbabilities in her story. They described her features as course and her manners as very masculine, hard-boiled and determined.
A few days later Guelph’s no-nonsense crown attorney Henry Peterson prosecuted the case before Judge Chadwick. Margaret hired Guelph lawyer A.H. Macdonald for her defence. Jim Close was the first witness. By then the mark on his cheek appeared as a mere scratch. He related the events in Dolmage’s bar room to questions by Peterson. Macdonald had reviewed the transcript of the hearing in Harriston. He grilled Close on several glaring inconsistencies in his testimony at the hearing, compared to what he had just stated in Judge Chadwick’s court. Close replied, “I don’t think there is anything serious in that.”
Jake Dolmage was next on the stand. He related his version of the events to Peterson’s questioning, and then Macdonald pressed for more details on several points. He admitted that after the gun discharged, Margaret readily let him have the gun, saying she was sorry and that she didn’t realize the gun was loaded.
Judge Chadwick interrupted the testimony at this point, and asked Peterson if it was advisable to continue with the prosecution. There seemed to be no evidence for a conviction on a charge of shooting with intent to kill, said the judge.
Taken aback, Peterson replied that he wished to proceed with a lesser charge, that of common assault. Macdonald interjected that it “was not competent” to alter the charge at that point in the proceedings, and cited precedents for his argument.
Peterson, by now becoming quite agitated, contended that the mere act of pointing a pistol constituted common assault, and that Margaret Hogg should also be fined and convicted for carrying firearms.
Judge Chadwick ruled that a charge of carrying firearms should have been entered at the magistrate’s hearing in Harriston, and that there was not a shred of evidence to support the charge of shooting with intent. No one mentioned her brazen escape from Constable Clegg’s custody.
Incredulous, Henry Peterson asked, “but what if she had killed this man?” The judge replied calmly, “Then it would have been a lamentable accident, but not a murder.” He dismissed the case and Margaret Hogg walked boldly out the front door of the court house while Henry Peterson fumed and muttered under his breath.
That seems to be the end of Margaret Hogg in the local historical record. Whether she returned to her husband in Leadville, if indeed she was married and had lived there, I will leave to the labours of other investigators.
*This column was originally published in the Wellington Advertiser on April 7, 2006.
