Star Tribune
New questions arise in two Minnesota men’s 1887 hanging
With echoing chants of: “Have mercy,” three priests escorted brothers Tim and Pete Barrett to twin gallows erected in the downtown Minneapolis jail on March 22, 1889. Just before hoods were placed on the doomed brothers’ heads, one of the priests kissed 18-year-old Pete on the cheek.
“It was a signal of such touching pity as to occasion an audible moan that swept through the crowd of spectators like a shudder,” Minneapolis Journal reporter Smith B. Hall recalled 25 years later.
The Barrett brothers hanged for the murder of Thomas Tollefson, a 28-year-old Norwegian immigrant who drove the mule-powered Cedar Avenue streetcar on July 26, 1887. They fatally shot him just after midnight during a fare-box robbery that netted the brothers about $20 (worth $640 today.) A third brother at the violent scene, Henry “Reddy” Barrett, testified against his brothers and walked away scot-free.
“Oh, my God!, it is terrible to tell on my own brothers,” Henry said, “to tell what will hang them, and perhaps me, too.”
But roll over he did, eluding prosecution thanks to a deal struck with Hennepin County Attorney Robert Jamison.
The hangings sparked a push to reform capital punishment in Minnesota, which the Legislature banned 12 years later.
The Barretts’ double hanging ended what the St. Paul Daily Globe called the “most thrilling, dramatic, diabolical and utterly incomprehensible murder case known to the criminal annals of Minnesota.”
Now more than 135 years later, a retired Golden Valley financial executive named Gary Heyn has stumbled upon a troubling wrinkle in the case. Heyn, 67, recently published a nonfiction novel titled “Standing at the Grave,” about his family’s history from Prussia to Minnesota to North Dakota (www.tinyurl.com/HeynBook).
During his research, Heyn discovered that his third great-uncle, Julius Heyn, was the only eyewitness to Tollefson’s slaying. But he testified for the defense only at Pete’s second trial — offering a different account ignored during the first trial.
“At first, I thought he was just a minor figure in the trial,” Heyn said. “But the more I dug in, the more I realized he played a key role in the case.”
A German immigrant in his early 30s who sold insurance, Julius Heyn testified in Pete Barrett’s case that he returned to his home at 3009 Cedar about midnight, put on his slippers, went into his yard, heard a scream and saw a pistol flash after one shot. He ran toward the commotion and heard “three more shots in rapid succession.”
Julius Heyn insisted the four shots came from the same gun — a marked difference from Henry’s story of two shots, one each from his brothers’ guns.
“Mr. Heyn’s testimony … makes it more probable that Peter will be freed,” the Minneapolis Tribune predicted, saying Heyn “proved a good witness” whom jurors might believe more than Henry — who was testifying to avoid getting prosecuted himself.
A legal spat erupted over why Heyn hadn’t testified at Tim Barrett’s earlier trial when he gave the same account during a coroner’s inquest. Maybe the prosecutors didn’t want to muddy Henry’s confession?
“In the end, the jury believed the brother who’d made a deal over Julius, the only eyewitness,” Gary Heyn said.
The Barrett brothers came to Minneapolis from Omaha about 10 months before Tollefson’s murder and “all of them were choice young desperadoes … and their characters were steeped in the juices of iniquity,” according to the Minneapolis Tribune. Tim Barrett had been arrested for highway robbery and Henry was jailed for running an unlicensed saloon.
Three months after the unsolved slaying, their mother ratted them out — angry that her sons stole her pony and sold it in Iowa. Henry then rolled over on his brothers.
Henry Barrett testified that he was unarmed, except for a pool cue, while his brothers carried handguns when they headed out on July 26, 1887.
At 26th and Cedar, the brothers tossed some planks on the streetcar path. When they encountered Tollefson at the end of his shift, they demanded his cash box. After Tollefson struggled, Henry Barrett said his brother Pete shot him in the leg. They ran off to a cemetery nearby, soon joined by Tim. Henry said that Tim admitted, “I killed him. … I shot him through the head.”
That was enough to convict Tim in the first trial, which lasted 16 days in a courtroom “crowded to suffocation.” Pete, who was only 16 the night of the crime, was convicted in a 21-day trial in 1888.
Despite differing accounts and a witness omitted from the first trial, Judge William Lochren declined to order a new trial, as defense lawyers requested. Gov. William Rush Merriam refused to issue a reprieve.
So on the first full day of spring 1889, Hennepin County Sheriff James Ege “adjusted the knots just beneath the left ear of each,” according to a reporter covering the execution. “There was a creak and a bang of falling traps and a drop of two human bodies.”
Curt Brown’s tales about Minnesota’s history appear every other Sunday. Readers can send him ideas and suggestions at mnhistory@startribune.com. His latest book looks at 1918 Minnesota, when flu, war and fires converged: strib.mn/MN1918.
When the Minnesota Supreme Court this week declined to hear an appeal by the University of St. Thomas regarding the environmental impact of its new hockey/basketball arena under construction, neighbor and arena foe Dan Kennedy said the “ethical” thing for the university to do was stop construction until neighbor concerns are addressed.
Not going to happen, university officials said Thursday.
While a public review of a revised Environmental Assessment Worksheet continues through Nov. 7, construction of the 5,000-seat Lee and Penny Anderson Arena continues. In an e-mail Thursday, a university spokesman said the arena is expected to be completed in fall 2025.
“The University of St. Thomas is aware of the Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision to deny its petition to appeal and is reviewing the potential impacts of this decision,” an emailed statement from St. Thomas said. “Last week, the City of St. Paul published an updated EAW for public comment, and that process will continue. Construction of the Lee & Penny Anderson Arena will also continue, as permitted by law.”
But Kennedy said he believes that decision is not only wrong, but illegal. Because the state Court of Appeals this summer ruled the project’s first environmental review was inadequate, its site plans and building permits are invalid, said the president of Advocates for Responsible Development.
“We need somebody to specifically tell the University of St. Thomas that they must comply with the law,” Kennedy said. “This is an institution of higher learning, with a law school. They should comply with the law.”
Kennedy said he thought the Minnesota Court of Appeals had insisted on exactly that. In August, the appellate court ordered the city and university to conduct a new Environmental Assessment Worksheet. The previous assessment didn’t do enough to study the arena’s potential harm to the neighborhood’s parking, traffic and air quality, the court ruled.
“The reason why is that more sunlight in the morning time helps reinforce waking up, and having less light in the evening is less stimulation,” he said. “So when we’re winding down, preparing for sleep, having fewer hours of sunlight in the evening can help promote that process of falling asleep.”
Akingbola acknowledges that it can be sad to walk out of work or school when it’s already dark out, but in the long run, standard time is the way to go.
The U.S. already tried daylight savings year round in 1974
Despite the medical advice, there have been calls in recent years to make daylight savings time permanent.
Sen. Mary Kiffmeyer, R-Big Lake, tried to pass a bill as recently as 2021 to make daylight savings time permanent, but it did not pass the Legislature.
The U.S. tried once before. According to Minnesota Star Tribune archives, due to an energy crisis, President Richard Nixon passed a law in January 1974 that made daylight savings a year-round thing.
A month into it, the Minneapolis Tribune ran an article saying there were calls to reverse the decision because there were more accidents in the pre-dawn darkness, particularly involving school children waiting for the bus. Under daylight savings time in January, sunrise wasn’t until well after 8 a.m. in Minnesota.
Karl-Anthony Towns may be in New York City, but his heart is in Minnesota.
On Wednesday night, Towns had some sweet seats for a Billie Eilish show at Madison Square Garden with his partner, Jordyn Woods, when she caught him watching the Timberwolves play the Chicago Bulls in a preseason game on his phone. Her video, posted to her Instagram story, made rounds on social media Thursday.
In the video, flames are literally spewing out from Eilish’s stage, lights are flashing all around and others in the crowd are head bobbing. And there is Towns, holding his phone in both hands and muttering to himself as the Timberwolves are down 88-75 late in the third quarter in a meaningless game.
“I promise he was enjoying the concert,” Woods wrote in the video’s caption.
The Wolves would go on to lose that game, 125-123. A nail-biter.
Towns’ trade to the New York Knicks for Julius Randle and others stunned the NBA world and all of Minnesota, where he was a beloved player for nine seasons and a leader on a team rapidly ascending toward championship contention.
“It was a lot of emotions,” Towns said. “Some amazing moments and times in nine years of my life in Minnesota, a place that I’ve called home. Guys who are not just teammates to me but brothers. We were like brothers. It definitely was a wild day, definitely coming to work.”
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