This photo was posted by Dale Tingey in Muskoka History and Genealogy:
Of Inlaws & Outlaws…
“Here is the ballad, of Black Bill Ruttan, a tragic love story & the malice of one man.
Twas the spring of 1914, when Black Bill took it to mind, to kill young Alfred Coutremanche, in love with his daughter, ill-timed.
After furious words & bitter dispute, to his father’s farm they did flee,
Alfred & Mina Coutremanche, the two Newlywed refugees.
Bill was a woodsman tough as a stump, his life, a hard road for sure,
He would be damned, if any young man, would take his daughter and without him, confer.
So from his abode, upon Ruttan’s Road, he left to settle the score,
Shooting George Coutremanche, right through the heart, just, outside, his own door.
His wife Eva cried “my husband has died” as she tried, to run far away,
The scurrilous dreg, shot her in the leg & left her on the lawn to lay.
Bill entered the house, to kill the louse, who’d taken his daughter away & while behind bolstered door, with children on the floor, did Alfred & Mina both pray.
Bill not deterred & true to his word, fired his rifle right through the door,
Twas then poor Mina slumped & Alfred nigh jumped, as her body, hit the wood floor.
Now on the run, Bill & his gun, through Ryde township on his fearful affray,
burning Henry Cook’s barn, killed a good team of horses & burnt Brace’s store, to the ground, in one day.
After weeks on the run, he and his gun, were brought to the Bracebridge courthouse for trial,
A now desperate man, sat on the stand, no heart, no dearth, nor smile.
Judge Mahaffey said “Your daughter is dead, as is her father-in-law,
You’ve killed Cook’s steeds, burnt his barn with your greed & a store from a deal you thought raw.
For these crimes of strife, I sentence you to life, to be served in the old Kingston pen,
& perhaps some day, if the good lord may, for your crimes, you will finally amend.”
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