When Beeton was buzzing: in the summer of 1927, a sensational attack in Beeton, Ontario, pushes Charles Lindbergh off page one. Even more shocking is the identity of the attacker.

Publication: The Beaver: Exploring Canada's History

Publication Date: 01-AUG-07

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COPYRIGHT 2007 Canada's National History Society

Newspapers recounted the tale in sensational detail: On the evening of Friday, July 22, 1927, a small, lonely bachelor named Alex Hodge was preparing for bed by the light of a single lamp in his farmhouse near Beeton, Ontario, when he heard the sound of a motor car in the distance. He went out to find two men parked on the road at his front gate, fearing that the muddy and rutted lane to Hodge's humble farmhouse would damage their wheels. Joe McDermott and Charlie Hammell, a pair of drovers (cattle dealers), had come to pay Hodge for his livestock. Dramatic newspaper illustrations would later show the three men huddled around the front of the car, counting out $610 in the glare of the headlights.

Returning to his farmhouse after Hammell and McDermott drove away, Hodge took the money from his pocket and slipped it behind a dish in the pantry. Just as he turned off the lamp, a man shone a flashlight on his face and said, "I'll kill you."

Sensational sketches in the Toronto Daily Star, The Globe and the Toronto Telegram provided a blow-by-blow re-enactment of the "titanic life-and-death battle" between the "stalwart yeoman and the stealthy yeggman." The fight, described by The Globe as "a primitive and terrific struggle--a battering, bruising, hacking, biting, scratching, tearing, kicking battle," lasted over forty-five minutes. "Blood seeped...

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