Back in those early days, a sheriff’s salary could not sustain a family so most held other jobs. In Benjamin Pratt’s case he was the owner and manager of Allegan House, the town’s stagecoach stop.
Next to the portrait of Pratt was Jacob Grover, sheriff from 1859 to 1861. He sported a beard to rival that of Sheriff Pratt’s. I must admit the dark, intense eyes and stern expression was more than a little intimating. For a moment, Grover’s eyes held me in an unsettled trance. I had seen eyes like that before and tried to remember where. Then it came to me. Charles Manson.
My eyes finally settled on the portrait of Joseph Stratton. He stared out with fathomless eyes. Whatever he was thinking at that moment lay hidden behind them. That was the kind of man Stratton was, an enigma. His deepest thoughts were a mystery with the answers known only to himself.
