Library of Congress image This 1877 illustration depicts the trial of a man who faced charges for stealing a horse. Before Warren County had a courthouse, it’s not unfathomable to see a similar scene play out in the private residences that served as courtrooms in the county’s very early days.

Every year, there are slates of new laws that take effect in jurisdictions across the country.

They’re evidence that our society evolves, that the needs of the law (or perceived needs, in some cases) are different than they once were.

It’s a sign that life in places like Warren County was different in 1840 in Warren County than it is here at the outset of 2024.

But, while the law might change, people are still people.

According to a newspaper database that has archived many Warren County papers, there are over 1,500 references to horse stealing, 41 of which were published before 1850.

This wouldn’t have caught my eye but for just how serious this offense evidently was in the county’s early days.

The Warren Gazette published its first edition on March 4, 1826 and wrote about horse thievery right out of the gate.

“No less than three persons have been arrested within the limits of our county, within a week past, for the crime of horse stealing,” the Gazette reported. “Two were from Ohio and one from Venango co. The two from Ohio are lodged in the prison of the county, to await the order of the executive to remove them to the state of Ohio (Belmont County).”

The most interesting piece of this article was the incentive structure that had been put together to track down horse thieves.

“Much credit is due to the citizens of this place and Pine Grove, for their prompt and efficient assistance in taking the supposed offenders,” the paper reported.

They then published the gist of the “act for the encouragement of the apprehension of horse thieves.” It’s like a Crime Stoppers tip line but very much on steroids: “Whoever shall pursue and apprehend any person who shall have stolen any mare, horse or gelding, within any county of this commonwealth, shall be entitled to a reward of twenty dollars for apprehending the person who shall have been convicted of stealing any horse as foresaid, and six cents for every mile necessarily travelled in pursuit of the offender, to be paid out of the county treasury where the owner of the horse resides.”

Disbursements can be in publicly-available county financial information. The “Warren Voice of the People,” another early newspaper, published the county’s finances in an 1834 edition and reported a $28.76 disbursement from the commissioner’s office with a subject of line “reward for taking horse thief.”

Adjusted for inflation, that is about a $650 reward in today’s dollars.

And this was a problem that extended well into the 20th century.

And, boy, were some of the punishments flirting with cruel and unusual.

“Amos Carr Jr., the young man who was arrested at the Mansion House in this borough on the 7th of Nov. last charged with horse stealing, was tried at the December term of the Chaut. County Circuit Court,” the Warren Allegheny Mail reported on Dec. 26, 1848. “He was found guilty and sentenced to be confined in the State Prison two years and five months.”

An 1857 edition of the Warren Mail carried a wire item out of South Carolina that detailed the punishment of James Symes, who had been convicted for one incident of horse theft and two incidents of cow theft: “For horse stealing, to be imprisoned for six months’ and on the first Monday of January, 1858, to receive 20 stripes on the bar back, in the public market, on the first Monday in February, 20 stripes; and on the first Monday in March, 20 stripes, and on the first Monday in April 20 stripes, and pay a fine of $200. The sentence for cow sealing in the first case is to pay a fine of $50, and in default thereof receive 20 stripes and for the second to pay of fine of $150, or in default thereof receive 20 stripes.

Wow.

Prosecuting horse thievery also appeared to stretch the bounds of just how young someone could be charged with a crime.

The Mail reported in 1898 that a Union City 17-year-old had already done six months in the county jail as a result of being “arrested on several occasions,” including – you guessed it – on the charge of horse theft.

The Warren Evening Mirror picked up an account from Norristown in Oct. 1910 that would be much less clear cut.

“The youngest boys ever charged with horse stealing were (names tough to read but aged 12, 6, and 5), who were arrested and arraigned… charged with taking the team of Frank Boyer, a plumber, while standing along the street,” the report says.

The ages of the boys? 12, six and five.

“The eldest boy was held for the juvenile court and the others were sent home,” the item stated.

“Nowadays when you compare a man to a horse thief you wish to degrade him,” the Mail said in an 1889 column. “Thirty years ago a first-class horse thief excited a certain amount of admiration and respect….

“They were the dread and the scourge of the farmer and villager (before the Civil War). They were better organized than any other class of criminals, and not only stole with nerve but with system.”

That legacy was used to advocate for positions on entirely unrelated issues.

“The state never was as clean as it is today,” a prohibition supporter from Kansas wrote in a piece picked up by the Warren Mail in 1910. “The liquor law is enforced as well as the law against horse stealing, which does not mean that there are not more or less thieves in the jails for horse stealing and that there are not more or less men in the jails for selling liquor. These laws are violated and will be violated until the end of time.”

The Warren Times Mirror included an interesting nugget in the Aug. 27, 1942 edition that speaks to the level of punishment meted out for horse thieves: “The penalty for horse stealing is more severe than the penalty for stealing an automobile in 18 states and the District of Columbia.”

It appears that the law that allowed for a reward for catching a horse thief wasn’t repealed until Act 60 of 1992 when the Pennsylvania General Assembly repealed several “obsolete laws relating to animals” including an 1821 bill “to encourage the apprehension of persons who shall have committed the crime of horse stealing.”

It’s certainly still illegal to steal a horse in Pennsylvania in 2024.

But if you do, it does seem unlikely that you’ll be dragged down to the Point in downtown Warren for a very physical – and public – punishment.