Local editor gunned down

Perhaps most people walk around fighting the urge to harm the local newspaper editor, but one man actually went through with it, shooting the Mount Horeb journalist as he stood, half-dressed in the doorway of his home, in the middle of a cold winter night.  

It was February of 1889 when 24-year-old Gunder “G.G.” Mandt, who published four small, weekly newspapers, heard a knock break the nocturnal stillness. As he opened the door, he asked, “Who is it?”

In response, Mandt heard the crack of a pistol and felt the burn of a .32-caliber lead bullet tearing into his chest.

The “assassin,” as area publications at the time called the shooter, had likely warned his victim shortly before the attack. In an anonymous letter to the newspaper, the unnamed foe warned the journalist to “Lok outt”: “Yu hav bin preching temperance long nuff through your damn dirty paper. If you dont stop soon it may cost your sol. I mean bizznes.”

He signed his missive, “Jack the Riper.”

When he received the letter, Mandt did what any God-fearing writer would do: He mocked his critic’s atrocious grammar, publicly and at great length. In his response to Jack the Riper’s claim that he ran a “dirty” publication, Mandt joked that he tried to send out a “clean” newspaper but admitted it did sometimes get “dirty” in the hands of the post office. “This man must have been a non-subscriber and found the paper on a saloon table, in which case it would of course be dirty; it could not be helped,” Mandt said in his column.

The editor went on to say a teetotalling writer had a better chance of gaining admittance into heaven than did “a drinking sneak and coward.”

He continued campaigning against alcohol and advocating for the closure of local saloons. He said the community should “clean cut the stink-holes among us which foster sneaks, cowards, and criminals.”

Mandt was wicked with a pen, but almost certainly not a lot of fun at parties, churning out anti-drinking manifestos in each week’s newspapers.

When Mandt was attacked, publications across the region painted him as a courageous victim, but even his supporters hinted that he was a thorn in the side of many in the community.

According to the Warren Republican, Mandt was a “young and fearless” editor. On February 7, 1889, the Republican reported that he was “shot down in his own doorway at Midnight” on the prior Tuesday. Mount Horeb was home to about 500 people at the time, and the Republican claimed they were “in a mood to mete out summary vengeance” if they caught the perpetrator.

The newspaper said Mandt lay on the floor, gasping for air and “covered in blood.” Oddly, despite the aforementioned threat and the fact that an alleged arsonist had recently burned down his office, he said he couldn’t think of anyone who wished to harm him.

There were, at the time, two saloons in Mount Horeb, and it was said that the farmers who lived around the village “patronized them freely,” according to newspaper reports. The attempted murder of their most zealous critic meant the people who ran the bars, and those who enjoyed them, were all suddenly suspects in an attempted homicide that made headlines around the state.

All the coverage of the incident at the time was written by people who shared Mandt’s profession, and they were all quick to laud the victim. But while the Republican initially praised Mandt in its report on the attack, it did note that he “in many ways made himself obnoxious to” the community’s saloon owners.

Shortly after the attempted murder, the community came together for what the newspaper called an “indignation meeting,” which was presumably brimming with even more indignation than the average village gathering. At it, community members vowed to hunt down the shooter.

On February 9, 1889, the Weekly Wisconsin provided its own account of the attack: “G.G. Mandt, editor of the Mt. Horeb Sun, was called to his door last night and shot by some unknown person. Mandt had been bearing down hard on saloonkeepers in his paper, and last week received written notice that he must stop or it would cost him his life, the threat being accompanied with many oaths. The assassin waited near the door until the lights were blown out and Mandt ready to retire to bed, and then rapped on the door. Mandt asked who was there, but without waiting for a reply boldly threw open the door, only to face a flash, hear a sharp report and stagger to the floor. He was only momentarily dazed, however, and explained: ‘Oh, I am shot,’ reeled toward the bedroom door.”

Mandt’s wife and sister-in-law, who both lived with him, rushed to his side, fetching a doctor who lived only four doors down the road. Dr. N.C. Evans discovered a bullet that “had entered the right breast between the sixth and seventh ribs, about two inches above the nipple, but did not pierce the lung.”

Mandt was the editor of four newspapers including the Mount Horeb Sun, the Blue Mounds Press, the Hollandale Herald and the Daleyville Star. Mandt’s office was in Blue Mounds until it was burned down, probably in an act of arson, a few months before he was shot.

The Wisconsin State Journal provided the most grandiose report on the crime, delivering both the most verbose and least objective of the contemporary accounts. The newspaper began its article with a quote from none other than St. John the Evangelist, who lived and died roughly 1,900 years prior to the shooting: “Every one that doeth evil hateth the light.”

The State Journal said that Mandt, who hailed from Scandinavia, had a “pleasant home” and had “most exemplary” habits.

The paper pointed out that his recovery might have been, in part, due to his having a strong constitution and “no bad habits to vitiate his blood.”

The State Journal also pointed out that the shooting took place just six miles from the murder of a cheesemaker the prior year: “The county is obtaining a reputation for lawlessness that is certainly unenviable.”

Mandt continued publishing local newspapers for at least six more years. There are no surviving reports that indicate his would-be assassin was ever identified or caught.

Documents in the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society collection show there were six saloons in operation in the community throughout much of the 1800s, although that number rose and fell throughout the century. In September of 1884, the Mount Horeb Law and Order League was founded. It “did not long survive,” but in 1888 the local newspaper reported that “170 to 180 souls” – along with their temporal bodies, presumably – founded a new group, the Mount Horeb Temperance Society. This group managed to shut down all the bars within village limits, making nearby Pine Bluff a popular destination.

Even after the United States did finally outlaw the sale of booze, greater Mount Horeb remained a spirited community where the thirst of denizens rarely went unsatiated.

This story was brought to life using archival resources compiled and shared by the Mount Horeb Area Historical Society. The MHAHS collection is accessible to the public for free on an appointment basis. For more information, call 608-437-6486 or visit www.mthorebhistory.org.