Richburg’s First Policeman
One of the most interesting characters who drifted into Richburg was “Happy Jack” Stoops, a veteran of the Civil War, a soldier of fortune and a former police chief in wild and wicked oil towns in the Pennsylvania Oil Fields. He stood 6′ 2″ in his stockings, wore a 22-inch collar, number 12 shoe, a 7 and a half hat, his waist measured 60 inches and was 360 lbs. He had been a journeyman blacksmith in his youth and was one of the most powerful men in the oil country. His name was John Stoops, but owing to his good nature and ready smile, he gained the nickname “Happy Jack”. He was born in Pittsburgh, PA. At 18 he was a champion sledge thrower. When the Civil War began, he was a blacksmith at Mt. Ayr, Iowa, where he enlisted for three months in Company G of the 29th Iowa Volunteers. He liked soldering and re-enlisted for the duration of the war. He was discharged from service August 10, 1865.
After the war, he drifted to Kansas and for two years was a policeman in Topeka. Then the oil excitement lured him to Pennsylvania where he served as policeman in Pithole, Summit City, Bullion, Cole Creek and Duke City when these oil towns were hot spots. In Summit City, there was no jail in which to lodge bad men, so he in vented a new kind of lockup. He would walk his prisoner to a telegraph pole, place his arms around the pole, and snap a pair of handcuffs on the luckless drunk. The prisoner could either sit down or stand up, but he had to remain there until Happy Jack came along and marched him to a Justice of the Peace.
Happy Jack came to Richburg late in 1881, when Richburg was a roaring boom town. After the Oil Boom, Happy Jack relocated to the Town of Bolivar where he was appointed Chief of Police. During his long stay in Bolivar he joined a tent show and made a tour of the United States. He was advertised as the “Heaviest Civil War Veteran in the Country”. Posters stated that he weighed 600 lbs, but that was circus talk, for then he weighed just 360.
When Happy Jack tired of being a policeman for Bolivar, he traveled over the near by townships as an auctioneer. He had a voice like a steam calliope- one of those voices that can be heard a quarter mile on a clear day. He would lead a horse up and down before a crowd, saying, “A nice, eight-year-old mare, sound as a dollar, or no sale. How much do I hear for her?” Eight years, it seems was the age limit of horses he auctioned off. During his frequent vacations from police duty and auctioneering, he look after a truck garden he owned, a mile east of Bolivar. As a youthful editor of Bolivar, the writer found in Happy Jack a faithful ally. He new nearly everyone by name, kept both eyes and ears open, remembered names and faces, and each week supplied many local news items. And his judgement as to what to print and what to leave out was excellent. The reciprocated by frequently printing interest paragraphs about the exploits of the husky police chief.
Happy Jack passed away on January 23, 1901 at the Soldiers’ Home in Bath, New York.
