A Life for Two Dollars: The 1907 Murder of Joseph Yerian

A deadly altercation over a $2 bet between two transient railroad workers in Bolivar, Ohio led to the town’s first murder.

The Yerian family arrived in Ohio from western Pennsylvania in the early nineteenth-century and, by the time Joseph A. Yerian (1883-1907) was born, a branch of that family lived in Washington County, Ohio. Joseph was one of five sons of a farm laborer named Emanual Yerian (1847-1917) and his wife Abigail Haines (1852-1897). Joseph started working as a day laborer by the time he was 16 years old and, eventually, worked as a railroad worker. This work, by the early 1900s took him into Gratiot County, Michigan and the town of St. Louis. There he met and married Flossie Parks (1887-1975) in November 1906.

Shedrick Roscoe Penn (1877-1929) was the son of Scioto County, Ohio farmer and minister Jasper Lake Penn (1854-1914) and his wife Elizabeth Jane Riley (1855-1929). Shedrick often went by the nickname “Shed” or his middle name and, like Joseph Yerian, found himself working in Michigan in the early 1900s. Shedrick was a ironworker and railroad bridge builder working for the American Bridge Company and, by the time he arrived in Bolivar, was considered a master ironworker.

Both men found themselves in Bolivar, Ohio at the end of 1906 working under contract for the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad. Shedrick was overseeing a crew of ironworkers building trestle bridges and Joseph Yerian was working as laborer for the railroad itself. Like most of the transient men who worked for these railroads, the men boarded in local homes or boarding houses and spent their evenings in Bolivar saloons. Joseph’s new wife recently travelled from Michigan to join him at his boarding house in Bolivar.

The evening of Saturday, December 29, 1906 men gathered at the Canal Street saloon of James B. Ewing (1865-1932) to drink and play cards. Shedrick, Joseph, and the town’s telegrapher Jessie Peoples (1873-1963) sat at a table near the wood stove playing cards. After Jessie left the game, a disagreement started between Shedrick and Joseph over $2 that Shedrick felt he was owed. It soon became physical and Joseph struck Shedrick, knocking him to the floor. When Shedrick stood up, he was holding a .38 caliber Colt revolver in his hand. He fired it, hitting Joseph in the head and then ran out of the saloon. It took 20 minutes for Joseph Yerian to die.

Shedrick was quickly found, as was the gun, in his boarding house room and he was charged with second degree murder and taken to the Tuscarawas County Jail in New Philadelphia to await his trial. During the weeks leading up to his trial his parents came to New Philadelphia to visit him, and preach, and the character of the victim was attacked by some of Penn’s attorneys. The trial never occurred however, as Shedrick decided to plead guilty to the lesser charge of manslaughter and was sentenced to four years at the Ohio State Penitentiary.

Shedrick Penn served less than two years for the murder of Joseph Yerian and, in November 1909, he married. The couple lived briefly in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before the marriage must have soured as, by 1917, the couple were living apart and, by 1920, were divorced. Shedrick Penn died in June of 1929 from tuberculosis and was buried at Mt. Joy Cemetery in Scioto County, Ohio. Joseph Yerian, the first murder victim in Bolivar history who Penn killed over a $2 bet, was buried at Oak Grove Cemetery in St. Louis, Michigan.

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© Noel B. Poirier, 2024.