Cholera, one of the world’s most deadly diseases, first appeared in the United States in 1832. An insidious disease, its sufferers were generally unaware of being ill until they would begin having stomach cramps, nausea and severe diarrhea. Death often occurred within hours of the first symptoms, usually from heart failure due to dehydration. Casualties were high, victims of the disease having less than a fifty percent chance of survival.
     The worst epidemic to affect Ohio occurred in 1849. Thousands died across the state that year, and Dayton provided its share. The cholera virus could survive for a long period of time in water sources and the Miami & Eire canal that ran through Dayton at the time more than provided enough stagnant water to allow the disease to grow.
     John W. Dobbins, in particular, suffered a terrific loss due to the epidemic. In 1847, four-year-old John lived with his family on Dayton and Lebanon Pike. When John’s father enlisted to fight in the Mexican War that year, the rest of the family moved into the city. After his father’s return in 1848, the family decided to remain in Dayton, moving to a home on Main Street, just south of the canal. This proved to be an unfortunate decision. As the cholera epidemic swept through Dayton in the summer of 1849, it claimed the lives of John’s grandfather, grandmother, mother and all seven of his brothers and sisters.
     Less than two months later, John’s father had remarried. Not only was John bitter about this quick arrangement, he also felt that his new "mother" mistreated him. But whenever he complained, John’s father would whip him for causing trouble. It finally got to the point that John began to hate his father and, feeling unwelcome at home, he ran away.
     John journeyed across the southern and eastern states, ranging from Louisiana to New York. In New York City he fell in with a gang of "roughs", who spent most of their time stealing guns, breaking into safes and dealing in "all manner of thieving that is imaginable."
     When the Civil War began, John engaged in a practice called "jumping bounty." During the war a bounty system was set in place, in which men were given a sum of money when they enlisted. This usually amounted to $500 for a short term enlistment and $1500 for a three year enlistment. Men would sometimes sign up and then desert their regiment with the hopes of reentering another unit and collecting money yet again. If caught, however, the offense was punishable by death.
     After deserting the 4th Ohio Calvary while the unit was camped near Murfreesboro, Tennessee, John made his way to West Virginia. While in Moundsville, John met and wooed seventeen-year-old Matilda Hagerman. After a very short courtship, they married on October 10, 1862. The marriage was just as brief as the courtship, with John leaving his wife less than two months later.
     Missing his old home, John headed in a leisurely way back towards Dayton, first working in Pittsburgh as a coal-oil refiner, then up through Cincinnati to the Gem City.
     On February 14, 1863 during his first night back in Dayton, John met an old acquaintance by the name of Charles P. Kline. Charles, knowing of John’s desertion from the army, suggested they go have a drink together and discuss his adventures. John, having quit drinking four months before, at first declined the offer. But when Charles insisted, John agreed to go, fearing that if he did not Kline would inform on him and he would be taken back and punished. One drink led to another, and soon it was getting dark outside.
     John, at this point feeling no pain, had the idea of stealing a lantern from the Oregon Mill to get around. He then walked from the mill into several saloons and finally into the Coffee House on the corner of Third and St. Clair. It was here that he encountered George Lindemuth. A resident of Germantown, the fifty-year-old man had arrived earlier that day in Dayton by rail. George had just sold a portion of his tobacco crop and was planning to use some of the money to travel to Greenville and visit some relatives.
     On his arrival in Dayton, George had gotten a room at the Montgomery House hotel. He had planned to go to the theater later that evening with some acquaintances he had met at the Carlisle Station. However, after supper the gentlemen went to the theater without Lindemuth, owing to the fact that he had been too intoxicated to go. When George made his way down later, the bartender of the hotel refused to sell him anything to drink. Angry, George announced that he was off to find the theater where his friends were being entertained.
     George, who became totally lost during his search, had somehow managed to find the Coffee House saloon. He was telling everyone there his tale and ended it by saying that he wanted to find his way to the theater. John agreed to show him.
     About 8:45 pm the two men had only made it as far as the saloon of Jacob Linxweiler, on Market Street. They drank a little and then left. About 9 pm John and George stumbled into Jacob Altherr’s saloon on South Jefferson Street. By this time, they were quite drunk, so much so that at first Jake refused to serve them. After a few heated words, he finally relented, serving them each a small glass of beer. After finishing their drinks, the two men left. Jake watched the lantern bobbing its way up Jefferson Street as the two men headed toward the river. This was the last time George would be seen alive.
      Around 11 pm that same evening, John called at the barbershop of Thomas A. Wise, on Market Street, and got shaved and washed. Thomas made a remark of how John’s pants were bloody and muddy. John explained that he had been butchering. After he was finished, John invited the people in the shop to go out with him for some drinks, pulling out a large roll of money.
     At 7 am the next day the body of George Lindemuth was found dead on the bank of the river on Water Street (now Monument Avenue), just west of Jefferson Street. George’s throat had been cut several times, one wound under his right ear being nearly three inches deep. His pockets had been emptied, the lantern from the mill was found near his body.
     A more secluded spot in the heart of the city couldn’t have been found. There were no buildings on that side of the street, and very few in the immediate neighborhood. A jury was summoned the same day the body was discovered. It didn’t take long for the facts to surface, and the search for John Dobbins was on.
     It was found that John had left for Cincinnati on the 4 am train, asking at the depot if there was a train to Indianapolis. When told there wasn’t one running at that time, John asked if the Cincinnati train stopped in Carlisle. Upon being told it did not, John was heard to remark "The evil is to pay."
     Upon finding out where John had gone, police officers John McCain and Ezra Jefferys started out in a buggy for Cincinnati immediately, there not being another train until 8 am the next day and the telegraph office being closed.
     Officers McCain and Jefferys traveled all night, arriving in Cincinnati at about 4 am the next morning. They lost no time getting to the Hammond Street Police Station and relating what had happened up north. Fortunately, since Dobbins had just recently been seen by several witnesses the night before, the two officers were able to give a fairly accurate description of the murderer. The Cincinnati police were asked to be on the lookout for a twenty-year-old male, about 5’ 7" tall, with a light complexion, smooth face and a large nose. They also added that, according to a statement from the Dayton train depot attendant, Dobbins appeared to have recently been scratched on his cheek, nose and forehead.
     About 4 pm Cincinnati Police Officers Christopher F. Hanselmen and John Riggs recognized Dobbins from the description they had been given and arrested him in front of the Rail Road House saloon. When questioned, Dobbins confessed that he had killed George Lindemuth. By midnight Dobbins and the two Dayton officers were on a train back to the Gem City. It was later claimed that one of the policemen from Cincinnati also came back with the prisoner, then went to Germantown and induced a relative of the murdered man to pay him a reward for apprehending the killer.
     On March 23, 1863 John entered a plea of not guilty in front of Judge Ebenezer Parsons. David A. Houk and Samuel Craighead were appointed as council for the defendant. Henderson Elliot was the Prosecuting Attorney for the state, with Fletcher P. Cuppy assisting.
     John was brought to trial for murder in the first degree. Jury selection took one day and the trial began on July 21, 1863.
     John’s defense was unique. He claimed that after leaving Altherr’s bar, the two of them had stumbled over to the river, where George promptly lay down. Afraid that the old man would freeze to death, John tried to pull him up, admitting that he had handled George pretty roughly while doing so. George, yelling that he was being robbed, struck John hard three times, holding him firmly in his grip. Angry, and a little fearful, John pulled out his pocketknife. While attempting to cut George’s arm so that he could release himself, John claimed he had accidentally struck the man in the neck instead.
    Thinking the old man dead, and horrified at his bloody work, John ran away to the Main Street Bridge and sat on the abutment for twenty minutes. He finally went back, hoping that George wasn’t dead. Unfortunately for both men, he was. Not one to let things go to waste, John then reached down and, "with a shudder", took George’s money, watch and pocketknife.
     John’s defense strategy almost worked. The trial was quick, with the jury sent to deliberate at the end of the second day. On the following day, July 23, after having deliberated for sixteen hours, the jury returned to the Court and asked the question "If the Jury are satisfied from the testimony that the defendant did not intend to kill Lindemuth until after he, Lindemuth, accused the defendant of trying to rob him, what is the law?" The Judge instructed the jury on this question. The jury was out for another seven hours, but the case resulted in a hung jury, standing ten for conviction of murder in the first degree and two for murder in the third degree.
     The Dayton Daily Journal newspaper complimented the defense team of Craighead and Houk for their efforts during the trial.
     The ability, research, skill, shrewdness and knowledge of human nature they evinced in the management of the case make theirs rank with the best efforts of its kind we ever listened to or read. It is estimated that had they each made one more speech, the jury would have returned a prompt verdict of acquittal!
     Dobbins’ second trial began on November 23, 1863. Arguments were over the next day, and by the end of it the jury was set to deliberate. They returned with a verdict of guilty on November 25th.
     A motion of why the verdict should be set aside was made on December 16, 1863. The motion was overruled the following day and John was sentenced to be executed on January 28, 1864. In a last ditch effort to save their client’s life, John’s attorneys carried the case to the Montgomery County Supreme Court on a writ of error. But the higher court sustained the verdict of the court below and fixed the date of execution for Friday April 15, 1864.
     At no time did John ever express sorrow for what he had done and was adamant in rejecting the counsel of ministers and priests who visited him. He told them he had no need of their advice, that he didn’t expect to be hung and that they were wasting their time on him.
     So insistent was he in declaring that he would not be hung that Sheriff George Wogaman began sitting in John’s cell a few nights before the date of execution, fearful that the condemned man might attempt to take his own life.
     About midnight on April 13, the sheriff retired, but toward morning he grew uneasy and went back to John’s cell with a light. When he glanced through the bars he saw John lying on his cot, pale and apparently lifeless. The wall and the prisoners’ clothing were saturated with blood.
     A drink was forced down John’s throat and he soon revived. He confessed to the sheriff that a few months before a fellow prisoner had given him a small bottle of chloroform. John had attempted to drink it, but dropped the bottle while removing the cork. Desperate to end his life, Dobbins had resorted to cutting himself with the jagged sliver of the bottle in an attempt to sever the arteries in his wrist and neck. It was soon determined that, while weak from loss of blood, John was in no danger of dying and the execution could be held on schedule.
     A suicide letter, dated April 12, 1864 was also found in John’s cell.

     Before dark that same day, John’s body was being dissected in the basement of Huston Hall, a place usually reserved for operas and other forms of entertainment. John was later described by physicians as one of the finest built men they had ever seen. The remains were interred without ceremony in the City Lot on April 18, 1864.

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