Jacob D. Crouch

Moved to Michigan in 1830.

--

From The (Rock Island, Illinois) Daily Argus, of Saturday, Nov. 24, 1883:

For Love of Gold: the Assassin Slays His Slumbering Victims - Particulars of the Quadruple Murder near Jackson, Michigan - The Deed Done for Money

Jackson, Michigan, Nov. 24 - Jackson city and county were thrown into the wildest excitement by intelligence of the midnight murder of the Crouch family, residing seven miles southwest of the city. Sheriff Winey, Coroner Casey, Chief of Police Barkhart, and a large force of special officers repaired to the scene of the tragedy and found the bodies undisturbed in the awful stillness of death. The family mansion of Jacob D. Crouch, one of the oldest and wealthiest residents of Jackson County, stands a few rods north of the high road leading to Spring Arbor, and within it lay the murdered bodies of Jacob D. Crouch, aged 74, in an alcove opening into the sitting room; his daughter, Mrs. Eunice White, and her husband Henry D. White, a brother of Dr. White, of this city, who occupied a front bedroom, opening into the parlor, while in another room opening into the parlor lay the remains of Moses Polley, a Pennsylvania drover who came to the Crouch's to buy stock.

Dr. W. A. Gibson examined the bodies and concluded that the murders were committed about midnight. Jacob Crouch was shot in the left side of the head two inches back of the ear, the ball passing into the brain. Death was instantaneous. Henry White was shot twice; one ball entered the right side of the neck three inches below the ear, severing the artery, and the second ball entered the upper temple near the right eye, passing into the brain.

Mrs. White, who was in the last stages of pregnancy, was shot five times and made a hard struggle for life. The first ball passed through her right arm, the second ball through the right breast into the lung, the fourth ball through the chin and neck, and the fifth ball through the left wrist.

Moses Polley was shot twice; one ball entered the opening of the right ear directly into the brain, the second ball passed through his chest from the right side.

The doctor believes all shots were fired by one person and from one revolver, as empty cartridges were found on the floor, and all were chloroformed and butchered at leisure like so many pigs. All the bodies were in their night clothes and stretched calmly in the beds as though asleep. In a rear kitchen room, Mrs. Julia Reese, a domestic, slept through the carnage and heard nothing. A negro boy, George Boles, slept upstairs. He heard the shooting and was so frightened that he got into a box and staid there 'til 7 o'clock, when he ran down to Henry White's farm and gave the alarm.

The tracks of several persons were visible outside the house. The whole country is aroused and conjectures fly like the wind. There is no definite clue or trace. the country will offer a large reward and officers are searching everywhere at this writing. The negro boy and Mrs. Reese, the servant, are in jail. The drover Polley was known to have a large roll of money. The most plausible theory is that they were murdered for money.