On This Date in Minnesota History: January 16

January 16, 1903 – After drugging his wife and placing her in a hospital while she was unconscious, Ernest B. Rollins, a druggist at Vesta, Minn., Redwood County, locked his drug store and came to St. Paul Sunday night. He was arrested on Third Street this morning, the warrant for his arrest being sworn out by his wife, who came to St. Paul in search of him as she recovered consciousness.

Rollins was too drunk to be given his freedom today, and upon the suggestion of City Prosecutor Keller, he was placed in the county jail to remain overnight, and will be allowed to return to Vesta with his wife tomorrow morning. Mrs. Rollins refused to prosecute her husband for having drugged her, preferring to have him punished for drunkenness.

Rollins was at one time a well-known and prosperous druggist in St. Paul. Some time ago he entered into the drug business in Vesta, where he and his wife were living happily until the present affair. Mrs. Rollins said her husband until the present affair. Mrs. Rollins said her husband came home Sunday night and offered her a drug to relieve a headache she had complained of. After taking it, she lapsed into unconsciousness and knew nothing more until she found herself in the hospital the following day. When she went to the drug store, she found the place locked and her husband gone. An investigation revealed the fact that he had taken with him all the money at his command, leaving his business to care for itself.

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Mrs. Rollins came to St. Paul in search of her husband, and today had a warrant sworn out for his arrest, Rollins having been located in a disreputable resort on Third Street.

Upon refusal of the wife to prosecute the charge of drugging, which is an assault in the second degree and punishable by confinement in the penitentiary, City Prosecutor Keller granted the request of the woman that she be allowed to take her husband home that he might attend to his drug business, the store having been closed since Rollins’ departure. Keller agreed to allow Rollins to return home with his wife, upon a promise that he would stop drinking and would remain away from St. Paul one year.

Rollins was given to understand that if he returned to St. Paul within a year he would be sent to the workhouse.


The Saint Paul Globe; “Drugs His Wife and Starts Out on Jamboree. E. B. Rollins, of Vesta, Is Charged by His Spouse With Drugging and Sending Her to Hospital While He Came to St. Paul—She Forgives Him.”; Jan. 17, 1903; p. 2.

¹http://mw2.google.com/mw-panoramio/photos/medium/58367938.jpg

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