On This Date in Minnesota History: July 6

July 6, 1904 – Thirty wounds on his bald head were submitted in evidence at the trial of W. H. Adamson, the money lender, against his wife Jennie Adamson, in police court this morning. It was Mr. Adamson’s battered head, and in connection with the man’s story of 13 years of family troubles, it served to convict the wife of the charge of beating her husband. Mrs. Adamson was fined $10.

While Adamson gave his testimony against his wife, she read a newspaper. The more startling the testimony, the more interested she became in the news, never looking up until she was called as a witness.

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 The complainant testified that he came home late for supper last Sunday and was ordered out of the house by his wife. He promised her that he would go as soon as he changed his clothes, and while getting some linen from a dresser drawer she beat him over the head with a lamp, breaking it in fragments.

Cocking his head on one side, the man showed the court his bald head, cut in more than 30 places. He said that after the assault he tried to leave the house, but his wife stood guard at the door with a revolver and a butcher knife, and he was compelled to allow his wounds to bleed for two hours. He then went to a barbershop and had the glass removed.

Mrs. Adamson said that her husband came home intoxicated, as he had done nearly every night for 13 years. She said she had cared for him like a child ever since they were married, and many times had carried him upstairs in her arms when he came home intoxicated. She denied beating her husband, saying “He is a good man when his is sober, and for all the money in the world I would not strike him.”

Judge Dickinson refused to believe the woman’s story and told her plainly that she had perjured herself. On this account, more than for the trouble, he said, he imposed a fine of $10.


The Minneapolis Journal; “Thirty Cuts On His Bald Head. Mrs. Adamson Fined for Beating Her Husband. Evidence that She Broke a Lamp Over Money Lender’s Pate—Wife’s False Testimony Prompts the Court to Impose a Fine of 10.”; July 6, 1904; p. 6.

*http://static6.depositphotos.com/1008317/596/v/950/depositphotos_5961861-stock-illustration-old-woman-reading-newspaper.jpg

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