A well known Tuscarawas County resident avoided prison for a fatal street fight.
Fred Hostetler (1873-1932) was a 52-year-old resident of the west side of Uhrichsville, Ohio, who worked at the Royal plant of The Robinson Clay Products Company in the summer of 1925. A former resident of Midvale, he was a well-connected member of his community, supported by a family that included a number of siblings. During that same summer, Alex Paleas (1890-1925), a 35-year-old native of Greece, roomed in a nearby home and worked as a painter. While Hostetler was physically imposing and held high standing among the community, Paleas was a single man who spent the last four years establishing himself in the area, with his closest family residing as far away as New York City and Greece.
On the evening of July 21, 1925, a violent encounter took place between the two men near a store and pool room in Midvale, close to the Royal plant. Hostetler later claimed he had only “playfully tapped” Paleas, but the painter’s resentment sparked what witnesses described as a “real battle”. An eye-witness who owned the nearby store, testified that he saw Hostetler strike Paleas twice, knocking him to the ground, and then kicking him. Paleas eventually returned to his rooming house on Ray Street in Uhrichsville with a bloody face and bruised chest, telling his landlady he had been in a fight before he retired for the night.
The next morning, July 22, when an acquaintence of Paleas came to get him, he found him dead on the floor of his room. A subsequent autopsy conducted determined the cause of death was a fractured skull above the right temple, an injury consistent with the blows he had received the previous evening. Hostetler was arrested at the Royal plant later that day, and he stated he was unaware that the altercation had turned fatal. Following the investigation, Paleas’s sister from New York arrived to claim his body for burial there.
A grand jury, in October 1925, indicted Hostetler for second-degree murder, though he was released on a $3,000 bond while awaiting trial. When the trial began in November, the defense argued that Hostetler had acted in self-defense against an intoxicated and aggressive Paleas who reportedly possessed a knife. The prosecution, however, emphasized Hostetler’s significant size and fighting ability, and argued that Hostetler had “looked for trouble” and that Paleas was too drunk to have been a credible threat. After a short deliberation, the jury rejected the murder charge and found Hostetler guilty of manslaughter.
Ray Street in Uhrichsville, where Alex Paleas lived, as depicted on the 1923 Sanborn Fire Insurance Map. (Source: loc.gov) 
New Philadelphia, Ohio newspaper article on the killing of Alex Paleas, July 1925. (Source: newspapers.com) 
Detail from Alex Paleas’s death certificate, July 1925. (Source: familysearch.org)
The sentencing on November 11 saw an unprecedented display of community support for Hostetler. His attorneys presented three petitions signed by 180 citizens, including business owners and postmasters, requesting mercy for the defendant. While the prosecution pushed for a full prison term, the court sentenced Hostetler to two years in the Ohio Penitentiary but immediately granted him parole. This decision allowed Hostetler to walk free, and he left the courtroom while being congratulated by many of his local friends.
Hostetler spent his remaining years as a prominent figure in the community, serving as a Wayne Township trustee and county road superintendent while farming near Barrs Mills. However, his life ended in a remarkable instance of historical irony on July 7, 1932. After being hurled from his truck during an automobile accident on the Wooster highway, Hostetler died at the age of 59. His death certificate revealed the cause of death was a fractured skull; the exact injury that had resulted in the death, at Hostetler’s hands, of Alex Paleas seven years prior.
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© Noel B. Poirier, 2025.
Tuscarawas County Stories 