4A COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL NOVEMBER 8, 2017
O PINION
Offbeat Oregon History: Was Lewis O’Neil a murderer?
By Finn JD John
For The Sentinel
Of all the variations on the theme of “love gone
bad” known to gossips, storytellers and prosecut-
ing attorneys since the dawn of time, the “love
triangle turned deadly” pattern has got to be given
fi rst place.
And it would be hard to fi nd an example of this
kind of story that would top the one that reached
its climax with a shotgun blast on a dark Ashland
street, a few days before Thanksgiving of 1884.
It started when a 46-year-old carpenter named
Lewis O’Neil rolled into town, three months be-
fore. O’Neil had abandoned a wife and six chil-
dren down in California a couple years earlier and
drifted north with the railroad. When he’d arrived
in Ashland, he seems to have decided to stay a
while and put down some roots — after meeting
Mandy McDaniel.
Sarah Amanda “Mandy” McDaniel, 35, was the
wife of a prosperous local grocery-store owner,
48-year-old Lewis McDaniel. The McDaniels
had married three years before, when she was a
pretty youngish widow with a seven-year-old son
and he a lonely frontier bachelor. The marriage
had soured fairly quickly; when O’Neil rolled
into town, the McDaniels were living separately,
and Amanda was apparently looking for a new ro-
mance. She and O’Neil began a secret affair soon
after he arrived in town.
Two weeks after he arrived, O’Neil took a short
vacation from work to go and visit his much-old-
er brother, 72-year-old George, at his mining
claim several dozen miles from town. When he
returned, he was carrying a shotgun which George
had given him to try to sell.
Back in Ashland, Lewis moved into a room
at the Pioneer Hotel and briefl y resumed his af-
fair with Amanda McDaniel. Then Amanda ap-
proached her husband, reconciled with him, and
moved back into their home.
And a few days after that, at 7:30 p.m. on the
cold, rainy night of Nov. 20, 1884, someone
stepped up behind Lewis McDaniel and shot-
gunned him in the back of the head. He fell for-
ward, dead, his hands still in his pockets.
The town marshal’s night watchman, Charles
Miller, was soon on the scene, and, recognizing
the corpse, went directly to the McDaniels house
to let Amanda know that someone had murdered
her husband. With another citizen, he stood on
the doorstep and knocked for several minutes as
the rain poured down on them; then the two of
them retreated to a neighbor’s house to fi gure out
what to do next. A few minutes later they decided
to wait inside for Amanda to return, and crossed
over to the McDaniels house again and — after a
little more fruitless pounding on the front door —
went inside and lit a candle and settled in to wait.
Then Amanda herself opened the back bedroom
door, stepped out, and seemed surprised to see her
living room full of people.
Rumors of extracurricular romantic activities,
in a small town, spread very rapidly in a small
town and are pretty much impossible to keep bot-
tled up. By the time of the murder, everyone —
including Lewis McDaniel — knew of O’Neil’s
affair with Amanda. So when someone murdered
her husband, O’Neil was instantly the prime sus-
pect. Almost immediately, the 1880s equivalent
of an A.P.B. was out. Town marshal S.D. Taylor
found O’Neil around 10 p.m., drinking in a sa-
loon, and arrested him on suspicion.
There wasn’t any hard evidence against O’Neil;
but there was a lot of the circumstantial kind. For
one thing, the shotgun he’d brought back from
his brother’s mining camp — a distinctive weap-
on with an alligator carved into the stock — was
nowhere to be found. He fi rst claimed he had no
shotgun; and then, apparently realizing too many
people had seen him bringing it back, he claimed
he’d sold it to some guy on the road home. It was
later found, chopped up into bits, scattered over a
vacant lot. The lot had been searched the day after
the murder, so someone besides O’Neil had obvi-
ously done this. The obvious suspicion was that
Amanda had done it for him, to help him cover
his tracks.
It was enough. O’Neil was convicted on March
12, 1885, and sentenced to swing.
A few weeks later, another inmate claimed
O’Neil had confessed to him that he’d done the
deed under the precise direction of Amanda —
who wanted her husband out of the way so that
she could formalize her affair with O’Neil and so
that she could inherit his grocery store.
On the strength of this conversation, Amanda
McDaniel was arrested. But jailhouse confessions
aren’t very solid evidence, and the jury just wasn’t
convinced. She was acquitted.
As the hanging day loomed ever closer, a se-
ries of remarkable letters started going out from
the Jackson County Jail, where O’Neil was being
held.
The fi rst and most egregious one went to Aman-
da McDaniel. It was a proposal, essentially, that
she take the rap for him. He prefaced it by assur-
ing her that if her court case had gone badly, he
would have “come to your relief and clear(ed)
you by taking the whole responsibility on myself,
though I am innocent, but ... if you were found
guilty you should never hang or go to the peni-
tentiary for I would save you. Now you have been
tried and come clear, and it is in your power to
save my life.”
Since she had been cleared of all charges in her
trial, he continued, she could now confess to the
murder with total impunity — clearing him. He
would then sue the state for heavy damages and
split the proceeds with her.
“I hope you will not delay,” he wrote, “as I
know you can save my life and the disgrace will
be no worse on you than it is now.”
Amanda did not reply.
Other letters went out as well, to other friends
and relatives, with various other schemes for
someone else to take the rap for him. The last one
went to his brother George, the one who gave him
the shotgun; and it was an open request for his
brother to “confess” to the killing and take his
place on the gallows.
“The most trying feature,” the condemned man
wrote, “is leaving my six children to the mercy
of a world without protection and the disgrace
of their father being hanged. ... As for you, you
have lived to be a very old man, and in the natural
course of events you can expect to live but a very
few years more and are liable to drop off at any
time. If you had one hour to live it would be a
hard request to ask you to come and state that you
had done the killing and that I had not had any
hand, act or part in it or any knowledge of it. That
would clear me, and spare me to my children, and
only on their account could I ever think of making
such a request of you.”
Of course, O’Neil hadn’t thought so much of
the children when he’d abandoned them and their
mother four years earlier; but a looming death
sentence does tend to remind one of family and
friends. Ironically, the letter never reached the
“very old man”; George had, shortly before, died
of typhoid fever.
And so, on March 12, 1886, still maintaining
his innocence, Lewis O’Neil was hanged.
As for Amanda, after liquidating her late hus-
band’s estate and paying off his taxes and debts,
she cleared $2,000 (worth $55,000 in 2017 dol-
lars). She took this and left Ashland the night
before the hanging, settling in Talent, where she
opened a café.
And so the story ends. Except, there is just one
question still hanging out there in the air, a ques-
tion that never was fully answered:
Where exactly was Amanda McDaniel, a few
minutes after her husband had been murdered,
when the town watchmen were pounding on her
door?
Dr. Fuhrman: Plant based diet benefi ts
Protein from meat, eggs and dairy products (animal protein) is
different than protein from vegetables, seeds, nuts, beans and whole
grains (plant protein). The protein itself is different: animal protein
is higher in essential amino acids than plant protein; animal protein
and plant protein both provide us with adequate amounts of all of
the amino acids, but because animal protein is more concentrat-
ed and higher in essential amino acids, it increases the body’s pro-
duction of a hormone called IGF-1, which is associated with aging
and an increased risk of several cancers. Also, the packaging that
protein comes in is different; the nutritional composition of ani-
mal foods compared to plant foods. Animal foods are calorie-dense
and contain pro-infl ammatory and pro-oxidant substances, whereas
plant foods are rich in fi ber, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals.
A recently published article in JAMA Internal Medicine inves-
tigated the relationship between (animal vs. plant) protein sources
and mortality risk based on almost 30 years of follow-up from the
Nurses’ Health Study and Health Professionals Follow-up Study,
which together included over 170,000 participants.
Interesting fi ndings came out of one particular question the re-
searchers asked: What would happen if the participants replaced
some of their animal protein with plant protein?
They analyzed the data to estimate how participants’ risk of death
from all causes over the follow-up period would change if some of
the animal protein sources (equivalent to 3 percent of total daily
calories) were replaced with plant protein sources:
Replace processed red meat: 34 percent decrease in risk
Replace unprocessed red meat: 12 percent decrease in risk
Replace poultry: 6 percent decrease in risk
Replace fi sh: 6 percent decrease in risk
Replace eggs: 19 percent decrease in risk
Replace dairy: 8 percent decrease in risk
What’s wrong with animal protein sources? In addition to ele-
vating IGF-1, which is linked to increased cancer risk, carnitine
and choline from meat and eggs are converted by gut bacteria to
a pro-infl ammatory compound called TMAO that promotes car-
diovascular disease. Meat, especially red meat, is a rich source of
heme iron, which in excess is an oxidant that contributes to cardio-
vascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease. Animal products are also
high in arachidonic acid, a fat that promotes infl ammation, and may
increase cancer risk. Certain carcinogenic compounds are also com-
monly found in animal foods, such as heterocyclic amines, polycy-
clic aromatic hydrocarbons, and N-nitroso compounds.
Higher animal protein intake also promotes weight gain. In fact,
a recent study compared meat availability, sugar availability and
obesity rates in different countries and found that sugar and meat
had similar correlations to obesity rates. This result suggests that
availability of meat contributes to obesity just as much as availabil-
ity of sugar.
This is the latest of many studies to link greater meat consump-
tion to a greater risk of death. In contrast, plant protein sources are
associated with better health: for example, seeds and nuts reduce
the risk of cardiovascular disease and are linked to longevity, and
micronutrient and fi ber-rich beans are linked to improved blood
pressure, LDL cholesterol, body weight, insulin sensitivity and en-
hanced lifespan.
C ottage G rove
S entinel
(541) 942-3325
Administration
James Rand, Regional Publisher
Gary Manly, General Manager ................................................. Ext. 207
gmanly@cgsentinel.com
Aaron Ames, Marketing Specialist ........................................... Ext. 216
aames@cgsentinel.com
Tammy Sayre, Marketing Specialist ......................................... Ext. 213
tsayre@cgsentinel.com
Editorial
Caitlyn May, Editor. ................................................................. Ext. 212
cmay@cgsentinel.com
Zach Silva, Sport Editor ............................................................ Ext. 204
zsilva@cgsentinel.com
Customer Service
Carla Williams, Offi ce Manager .............................................. Ext. 200
Legals, Classifi eds .......................................... Ext. 200
cwilliams@cgsentinel.com
Production
Ron Annis, Production Supervisor ............................................. Ext.215
graphics@cgsentinel.com
(USP 133880)
Subscription Mail Rates in Lane and Portions of Douglas Counties:
Ten Weeks..............................................................................................$9.10
One year ............................................................................................. $36.15
e-Edition year ...................................................................................... $36.00
Rates in all other areas of United States: Ten Weeks $11.70; one year, $46.35, e-Edition $43.00.
Letters to the Editor policy
In foreign countries, postage extra.
No subscription for less than Ten Weeks. Subscription rates are subject to change upon 30 days’ notice. All subscritptions must be paid
prior to beginning the subscription and are non-refundable.
Periodicals postage paid at Cottage Grove, Oregon.
Postmaster: Send address changes to P.O. Box 35, Cottage Grove, OR 97424.
Local Mail Service:
If you don’t receive your Cottage Grove Sentinel on the Wednesday of publication, please let us know.
Call 942-3325 between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Advertising Ownership:
All advertising copy and illustrations prepared by the Cottage Grove Sentinel become the property of the Cottage Grove Sentinel and
may not be reproduced for any other use without explicit written prior approval.
Copyright Notice: Entire contents ©2017 Cottage Grove Sentinel.
The Cottage Grove Sentinel receives many letters to the editor. In order to ensure that your letter will be
printed, letters must be under 300 words and submitted by Friday at 5 p.m. Letters must be signed and must
include an address, city and phone number or e-mail address for verifi cation purposes. No anonymous letters
will be printed. Letters must be of interest to local readers. Personal attacks and name calling in response to
letters are uncalled for and unnecessary. If you would like to submit an opinion piece, Another View must
be no longer than 600 words. To avoid transcription errors, the Sentinel would prefer editorial and news
content be sent electronically via email or electronic media. Hand written submissions will be accepted, but
we may need to call to verify spelling, which could delay the publishing of the submission.
a
H
p
a
c
o
f
d
w
a
t
m