Fort Worth Daily Gazette

WESTON'S WOE.

A Chicago Man in High Standing Goes to a Pennsylvania Prison.

Able to Stand It on His Own Account, But Broken Up by the Grief of His Family.

Convicted of Participating in a Murder Over a Land Squabble, of Which He Asserts His Innocence.

CHICAGO, ILL., Jan. 17.—Milton Weston, who stands convicted in Allegheny county, Penn., as an accessory to a murder, returned to Chicago yesterday to close up some business affairs prior to returning to Pittsburg to receive a sentence of four years in Riverside penitentiary. Weston's reputation here has been beyond reproach, both as a business man and socially. He has a mother, wife, children and brothers residing in this city, all of whom are highly esteemed.

"You are shaking hands with a convict," said Weston to a reporter. "I am able to bear all this, but when my sons and daughter place their arms around my neck and cling to me and weep, shedding tears that swell up from the heart, it unmans me. For forty-three years I have lived here and done business, and no man can place a black mark against my character anywhere. I have always endeavored to do justice by my fellow men and God knows that in all these years of my prosperity I never allowed a fellow being to suffer, if I knew it and could relieve that suffering, yet here I am, convicted of a crime which I never committed. This thing cost me over $800,000, about all the fortune I had. Even my wife mortgaged her farm and pledged her diamonds to help me out of trouble. But I am still here, though a victim of a cruel conspiracy.

"The story, which has never been told, is as follows: I desired to buy land and discover natural gas to utilize as an illuminator and for fuel. I secured 1050 acres of land in Westmoreland county. I purchased the tract from Hillery J. Brunot, brother of Felix Brunot, Quaker Indian commissioner. I paid $20,000 to Brunot for the tract and $40,000 to remove a cloud from the title. After I made the purchase I received a deed from Brunot, wherein he agreed to give me good and sufficient title, free and clear of all incumbrance for forty-four leases, which were contained in the 1050 acres. I made the first payment, which is acknowledged and receipted for in my deed, which is on record. Before the second payment came due, I was notified by four owners of the best leases that Brunot did not own them at all. I immediately took steps to possess myself of these leases, which I succeeded in doing for ninety-nine years, and placed on record at Greensburg, the leases conveyed to me by Brunot having lapsed by their own conditions, every lease or renewal of lease being placed upon record by myself. Regardless of these facts, and in violation of his sale to me, Brunot sold the same to another gas company, all my titles being then on record. He sold to Reid Emerson & Co., a limited concern, in which he was a large stock-holder, and it, through him or his agents, attempted to dispossess me. At that time myself and wife were living on the land, and for several days and nights before my wife had been there almost alone, having but one lady companion in the house. Haymaker, who was unfortunately killed, was the agent of Brunot and his corporation, and he had 150 men under him, who were armed with pick-handles and revolvers, and who came upon us while we were in peaceful possession to try to dispossess us. Who would not have resisted to defend his own? In the melee that ensued Haymaker was killed, and while that killing was charged upon my foreman, the fact is that he was killed by one of his own men, by a shot which was intended for my foreman. I was living on the property with my wife, and she was 600 feet from where the fight occurred and witnessed the entire transaction, but she was not a competent witness for her husband. But why should I detail further? I shall go back to Pittsburg and face the sentence and serve it, if necessary, feeling I am an innocent man—innocent before God and the world. My reputation cannot be blackened by such cruel, infamous persecutions." Weston's friends here and in the East will make a strong effort to secure his pardon in case he is sent to the penitentiary.