Notes for Jacob J. Bierig: Jacob J. was drafted and served in the Russian Army for 5 years. He moved to the United States in 1892. In the army he was a gunsmith, and in the U.S. he was a blacksmith.
Jacob J. Bierig, who came from the colony of Bauer, Russia, twenty five miles west of the Volga River, immigrated to the United States in 1882. He settled temporarily in Durham, Kansas, and made the run into the Cherokee Outlet the following year. Jacob, his wife, and three children homesteaded a place about two miles east of Isabella, Oklahoma in what would later become Major County. Here Jacob built a two story log house for his family and set up a sod blacksmith shop. One bitterly cold afternoon in January, 1896, a local man came to Jacob's shop to have his horse shod. He owed but fifty cents for the job, but he gave Bierig a ten dollar bill. The blacksmith sent his son, Little Jake, into the house to fetch change. The boy, age 9, took the tobacco sack in which their money was kept, from its hiding place in the baby's cradle and brought it to his father. As Jacob handed him his change, the man saw that the sack was full of bills. Jacob had been saving for a year to buy a team of horses. Later that day he paid for the horses, leaving only $2.04 in the family treasury. Shortly after dark that evening, the customer of the afternoon returned with two other men. While one waited outside, the other two entered the house with pointed guns and demanded all of Jacob's money. Unresisting, Jacob sent Little Jake to the get the tobacco sack and handed over the $2.04 which it contained. The two men grabbed the money and ran out the door. Little Jake recognized the man waiting outside and called his name. Infuriated, one of the other men aimed his gun through the half-open door and shot the boy in the head. The robbers then rode off to spend their loot at a pie supper in Isabella. The bullet entered Little Jake's left cheek below the temple, ranged downward, and shattered the right jaw as it exited. The boy lay untreated until 3 o'clock the next morning while his father and uncle drove through driving sleet twelve miles to Ringwood and back with a doctor. The doctor syringed out the wound with a carbolic solution and drew a silk scarf through the boy's face to remove the shattered bones. The three robbers were later arrested and brought to Alva, Oklahoma for trial, but they hired a clever lawyer who got the trial delayed until October, 1897, almost two years later. The prosecution was handicapped because Jacob and his wife spoke no English. The only witness to the crime who could testify directly to the court was Little Jake himself, and he was only eleven years old. The jury acquitted the three robbers. Though he lost the sight of his left eye, Little Jake survived his ordeal and lived to the age of 85.
Children of Jacob J. Bierig and Molly Koehler are:
William Bierig, b. April 05, 1912, d. June 22, 1927, California.
Jacob J. Bierig (b. February 06, 1866, d. December 18, 1939)
Notes for Jacob J. Bierig: