A tense confrontation unfolded near Rochester Cemetery, Kansas, on a Saturday night in September 1907. Local farmers armed themselves with pitchforks and shotguns and surrounded a traveling camp after two intoxicated men allegedly frightened women living nearby.
When Sheriff Wilkerson and Deputy Bayless arrived, one suspect had already fled into a cornfield. The other, a man who gave his name as F. Sherlock, resisted arrest so fiercely that the officers struggled to force him into their buggy, and the sheriff ended up face-first in the mud.
By the following day, however, the farmers were willing to let the matter drop on one condition: the entire camp had to leave immediately.
Gypsies On Rampage
ROCHESTER, Kansas. — Sheriff Wilkerson was called out in the country near Rochester Cemetery Saturday night to arrest some Gypsies. Accompanied by Deputy Bayless, he drove to the spot and found an “awkward squad” of farmers, armed with pitchforks and shotguns, herding a camp of transients.
It appeared that the farmers had taken exception to the actions of two of the Gypsy men, who, after loading tot he eyebrows with rare old Topeka booze, terrorized some of the women living in that neighborhood.
One of the drunks was surrounded in camp, but the other had escaped into the cornfield.
Sheriff Wilkerson joined the “minute men” in a search for the other drunk, but failing in the quest, loaded the remaining drunk, who gave his name as F. Sherlock, into the buggy and brought him to the county jail.
Sherlock was loaded with difficulty. He fought the officers, and while they were dragging him to the buggy, a big woman, evidently Sherlock’s wife, tripped Sheriff Wilkerson and he took a header into the mud.
Sherlock was thrown into the county jail overnight, but Sunday the farmers who had raided the Gypsy camp telephoned that they were willing to release Sherlock if he would move camp and be quick about it.
This was done, and the incident was closed.
Source: The Topeka State Journal. Topeka, Kansas. September 9, 1907.
