By SCOTT WILBANKS
Cheney Historic Preservation Commission
$500 Reward!
Many towns have show piece homes of the rich and famous.
Our house in Cheney, the Sterling House, is different. It has a primitive beauty that is lost in the concrete and plastic of modern homes. Our house feels almost welcoming when you walk in. Although from appearances, the interior is not currently a welcome sight. Bare board walls appear to be made of what were called bridge planks, what we would describe today as recycled lumber. The walls are thin, one board thick with many layers of wallpaper covering the single boards.
I was in a group of volunteers who helped remove the wallpaper for the renovation. The wallpaper was filled with coal dust to the point we looked like coal miners by the time we were done. But as we removed the many layers of wallpaper, small treasures began to come to light. We found old newspapers covering the walls including the first newspaper in Cheney when Washington was a territory and Cheney—yes, Cheney—was the county seat. The papers had ads for Benjamin P. Cheney Academy, the forerunner of Eastern Washington University, information on land sales by the railroad, Temperance Union tabloids, and a reward posted for $500 for the murderers of Alday Neal.
Who was Alday Neal, also spelled Oldie Neil in some sources?
Only the biggest story of 1882. The story was carried in the national press. Travel back in time, back over a hundred years to May of 1882. Alday Neal was a young man of only 19, but a young man of promise. He had a cabin over by the Idaho line and claimed several acres of land under settler's rights.
As you can image things were very different then. The main form of transportation was a horse. A man's horse was his life, and stealing another man's horse was a death sentence. On the other hand, stealing horses paid very well, if you didn't get caught. One day seven men rode up to Alday's cabin and accused him of stealing horses. These men insisted Alday go with them to Cheney to the county sheriff. What choice did he have against seven armed men? Alday went with them. They never came close to Cheney. Somewhere by Rockford, those seven men hung Alday from a dead tree and left him. He was found by a family he had worked for and who had been very fond of him. They buried Alday on a hill top where he could look over the valley and Mica Creek. It must have been a pretty place then; that area is still quiet and appealing even after a hundred years. But the story does not end here.
(To be continued.)
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