Inns and Stage Services - 2

Stage Drive with Murder, Fines and

Imprisonment

Introduction

Sometimes there would be disputes, even fights at the inns, if horses were not available or if a stage-keeping farmer thought that the horse had been driven too fast to the inn. He might refuse to lend his horse to the traveler. A tragic event at Mehede Inn in Tierp parish in northern Uppland received a lot of attention in its time. At the inn, there was a quarrel between two travelers and their stage driving boy on one side and the stage-keeping farmer and the innkeeper on the other side, a quarrel that resulted in beatings, bloodshed, and the death of the innkeeper. The two travelers were fined and the stage boy was jailed.

The Quarrel at Mehede Inn, February 1767

This is how the innkeeper's register and court records tell the story: On the morning of 18 February 1767, a horseman arrived at the inn and ordered horses for two noblemen to travel south later in the day. As all the horses at the inn had run out, a message was sent to Lars Persson, a farmer in Grimsarbo, to come with reserve horses as soon as possible. Around noon, some farmers from Hälsingland drove up to the inn. They had visited the Disting market in Uppsala but were now on their way back north. As in the past, they intended to spend the night at the Mehede inn. They had just pulled their sleds out of the courtyard at the request of the 38-year-old innkeeper Anders Andersson, when the first of the expected noblemen, the pockmarked Cavalry Captain Wilhelm Pauli, drove up to the inn. There was no need even to ask the accompanying stage boy if the captain had driven fast from Älvkarleby. It was all too evident from the lathered horses. In a commanding tone, Pauli shouted at the innkeeper to immediately harness new horses. The farmer with the spare horses suddenly found himself in a precarious situation. He had watched with dismay the harsh treatment of the horses. "This must not happen to my horses," he thought to himself. Before any change of horses had taken place, Lieutenant Mauritz Klingspor and his sled entered the courtyard of the inn. He too demanded an immediate change of horses. Everything would have gone well if the farmer closest to the problem, Lars Persson, had fulfilled his obligations, but he made excuses to avoid taking the drive. The young, hot-tempered noblemen became increasingly impatient. They had to reach Uppsala before nightfall and did not want to be delayed in this small village. When, moreover, the innkeeper, in accordance with the innkeeper's ordinance, told them, "You have been driving irresponsibly. It is against law and order to push the horses so hard", they completely lost their temper. During their commission as officers in the French army, they had not encountered such insubordination on the part of the peasantry. This was not to be tolerated. Captain Pauli drew his sword and shouted menacingly at the innkeeper: "Harness the horses at once or I will cut off your arms and legs". To further emphasize that he meant business, he gave the innkeeper four blows across the back with the back of his sword. Klingspor also intervened in the fight. A fierce battle ensued, in which the Innkeeper seemed to get the short end of the stick. The hard blows fell more and more heavily on him. But suddenly he turned and seized the completely surprised Klingspor by the collar, lifted him into the air, and threw him with violent force to the ground. The pause in the fight resulting from this maneuver was used by the wounded innkeeper to escape to the neighboring farm to obtain witnesses. After the two noblemen had recovered from the first clash, they forced Lars Persson and stage boy Eric Tinglöf, who accompanied Pauli on the journey, to harness the innkeeper's own horses to the sleds in order to be able to leave before the innkeeper's return. This plan did not succeed. Before everything was ready for departure, the innkeeper appeared in the company of some farmers from the village. Pauli and Klingspor tried to prevent him from entering the courtyard, but he broke free and ran to his horses, which he began to unharness, shouting: 'You'll be damned if you're going to harness my own horses when I've got the reserve horses at the inn! In hell, I will allow this!". The two noblemen then rushed forward and forced him to withdraw from the sleds with blows and stabs. In front of the stable, he suddenly stopped, turned around, and managed to get a firm grip on his opponents, whom he bent down to the ground with great force. In this critical situation, the stage boy Tinglöf ran forward and for a moment managed to separate the combatants. The fight had now assumed an increasingly violent character. In front of the stable, there was an iron basket with lit firewood, from which the innkeeper grabbed a piece of log. Now he became the attacking party. Shouting, "Don't fuck with me" he attacked. There was no longer any thought of reconciliation. Behind the closed windows of the inn, guests and servants watched the terrible spectacle. One of the terrified maids begged the farmers from Hälsingland to separate the combatants "lest they kill the innkeeper.” They also went out onto the doorsteps but stopped there because the fight had suddenly taken a turn for the better for the innkeeper. For the latter had again bowed his antagonists to the ground. While the innkeeper was holding them in this iron grip, he discovered a shaft in the courtyard, i.e. part of a sled’s hitching to a horse. With it as a weapon, he made another attack. He struck Lieutenant Klingspor on the chest with such force that Klingspor fell backward into a sled. The situation seemed extremely precarious for the young count. But once again the stage boy Tinglöf came to the rescue. He, too, had provided himself with a strong pole, 4 Swedish cubits long and 3 inches thick. The next second he lifted the pole and struck it with tremendous force on the head of the innkeeper so that he fell half-unconscious into a pool of water. There he was lying exposed to the kicks and blows of the boy. Only at the boy's cry, "Get up, you bastard!" did he manage to crawl up. Bleeding from countless wounds, he scrambled into the inn, where he collapsed on a bench, exhausted. In the meantime, the elderly innkeeper had entered the courtyard and learned what had happened. He too was subjected to the fury of the two noblemen. The fight between them did not end until the villagers, who had attended the church meeting down in the village, poured into the courtyard. In the face of this superior power, the nobles found it convenient to seek shelter in a room in the inn, together with the stage boy Tinglöf. They managed to close the door, but the enraged villagers broke into the room, where a violent fight broke out, with Captain Pauli, in particular, was badly injured. There was no continuation of the noblemen's journey that day or the next, but only two days later, according to the innkeeper's register, they arrived at Yvre inn on their way to Stockholm. The condition of the seriously injured innkeeper Anders Andersson deteriorated alarmingly. One day after the fight he died. The murder drama had its epilogue in the Svea Court of Appeal, where the stage boy Tinglöf was sentenced to a month's imprisonment on water and bread and one Sunday duty. Captain Pauli was sentenced to a fine of 100 Daler silver currency and Lieutenant Klingspor 10 Daler silver currency. Tinglöf served his sentence in Jönköping Castle prison; in the castle chapel in the same town, he was subjected to church duty (Swe: kyrkoplikt). The above story is an excerpt from an article written by Sven Sjöberg in 1959.

The Noblemen

Captain Vilhelm Mauritz Pauli Vilhelm Mauritz Pauli, born on 1730-12-05, died on 1800-08-11 in Stockholm. In French military service 1760 - 1763. Cavalry Captain, Jämtland Dragoon Regiment, as off 1766-06-30. Lieutenant Mauritz Klingspor Wilhelm Mauritz Klingspor, born on 1744-12-07 at Fluxerum in Karlstorp parish, Småland, died on 1814- 05-15 in Stockholm. Count (1767 baron). Discharged from French military service in 1763. Cavalry Lieutenant, Jämtland Dragoon Regiment, 1767. Both officers had served in the French army at the same time, and in 1767 both were officers in the Jämtland Dragoon Regiment.

Others

Farmer Lars Persson in Grimsarbo, Tierp parish, born in 1728. Both inns mentioned in the text, Meheby and Yvre are located in Tierps parish, Uppland province. The Disting market visited by the farmers from Hälsingland is an annual market originally held at the end of February but today on the first Monday and Tuesday of February at Vaksala Square in the city of Uppsala, Uppland. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the market had its heyday thanks to the money economy. Kyrkoplikt (Church duty) was a historical form of punishment, practiced in Sweden. It was a form of public humiliation in which the condemned was made to confess and repent of their crime before being rehabilitated and spared further punishments. It could be sentenced by the church or by a secular court, and performed by the church. Water and bread (Swe: Vatten och bröd) is a juridical term for a prison sentence that was combined for a certain period with the starvation of the prisoner (the prisoner was fed with water and unsalted bread only), which in the case of longer sentences was associated with a tangible and fully conscious danger to the prisoner's life and health. In Sweden, this penal system was abolished in 1884. The longest period of this sentence was 28 days, the shortest four.

Related Links

• Inns and Stage Services • Road History, page-1 • Road History, page-2 • Summer Pasture • The Conception of Socken (parish) • Domestic Travel Certificates • History of the Swedish Police • History of Railways in Sweden • History of Göta Canal • Old Swedish Units of Measurement • Agricultural Land Reforms, Sweden • Postal Services Formerly

Source References

• Vägen i kulturlandskapet, vägar och trafik före bilismen, Vägverket, 2004 • Det gamla Ytterlännäs, Sten Berglund, 1974. Utgiven av Ytterlännäs hembygdsförening. Kapitel 39, sid 368 och framåt. • Hur klövjestigen blev landsväg, Gösta Berg, 1935. (Svenska kulturbilder / Första utgåvan. Andra bandet (del III & IV), sid 269 och framåt.) • Gästgiveri och skjutshåll, Ur det forna reselivets krönika, av Sven Sjöberg. Ur årsboken Uppland, 1959. • Stigen av Lars Levander, 1953 • Skjutssystemet i Sverige: Hjultrafik. Artikel av Carolina Söderholm, publicerad i Populär Historia 4/2001. • Svenska Akademins Ordbok, SAOB (The Swedish Academy Dictionary) • Wikipedia • Lantmäteriet (The National Land Survey of Sweden) Top of page