Oscar L. Harp, a 31-year-old White/Caucasian male, was serving as a deputy sheriff in Sawyer County, Wisconsin, when he was killed on October 8, 1910, during one of the most dramatic confrontations in the county’s early history. Harp’s recorded birth date was March 21, 1879, making him younger than the age originally reported for him. His death occurred during the armed siege of John F. Dietz’s farm near Winter, Wisconsin, an episode that became widely known as the Battle of Cameron Dam.
The confrontation grew from a long-running dispute involving Dietz, local authorities, and lumber interests operating in the Cameron Dam area. By September 1910, Sawyer County Sheriff Michael Madden had a warrant for Dietz’s arrest on a charge of assault with intent to murder Bert Horrell, as well as several older warrants that authorities had previously been unable to serve. Because earlier attempts to arrest Dietz had met armed resistance, Madden organized a posse of more than 20 armed deputies. On October 6, the officers surrounded Dietz’s 160-acre farm along the Thornapple River, several miles from Winter. Authorities spent October 6 and 7 attempting to persuade Dietz to surrender peacefully, but he refused despite personal negotiations and assurances that he would receive a fair trial.
On the morning of October 8, authorities began a more direct assault on the property. Gunfire erupted between the deputies surrounding the farm and occupants of the Dietz property. At approximately 11:00 a.m., the deputy commanding part of the operation ordered Harp and several other officers positioned east of stacks of lumber to move across an exposed clearing and take cover behind the lumber piles. Harp and the others began crawling across the field on their hands and knees in an attempt to avoid the gunfire. Three shots were heard as they moved. Harp was struck by the first shot and killed, while the other deputies managed to reach cover.
The fatal bullet caused devastating injuries. A postmortem examination conducted in Winter determined that the bullet entered around Harp’s mouth, damaged his lower lip and teeth, shattered portions of his jaw, traveled through his neck and torso, passed through the diaphragm and spleen, continued into the pelvic region and ultimately lodged near his upper leg. His body was later taken from Sawyer County for burial at Poplar Hill Cemetery near Elmwood in Pierce County. A funeral was held in Winter, where flags were lowered to half-staff in recognition of the fallen deputy.
The identity of the person who actually fired the fatal shot became the central issue in the murder prosecution. Prosecutors maintained that John F. Dietz had fired at the advancing deputies from the upper story of his barn, shooting through an opening created by removing part of the roof covering. The defense disputed that conclusion. Dietz argued that the prosecution had not proven he fired the bullet and maintained that Harp could have been struck by a shot fired by one of the deputies positioned on the opposite side of the property. The competing explanations were significant because numerous armed men were positioned around the farm and substantial gunfire was occurring during the siege.
The fighting continued after Harp was killed. Dietz and members of his family were wounded during the exchange, as was Deputy Chet Colpitts. By that afternoon, Dietz surrendered and authorities took members of the family into custody. Contemporary reports initially described John Dietz, his wife Hattie and members of the family as facing legal action stemming from the confrontation. Ultimately, John F. Dietz, Hattie Dietz and their son Leslie were prosecuted for Harp’s murder.
Their murder trial was held in Sawyer County in May 1911 and lasted approximately ten days. The three defendants pleaded not guilty. At the conclusion of the trial, the jury acquitted Hattie Dietz and Leslie Dietz of Harp’s murder. John F. Dietz, however, was found guilty of first-degree murder. Judge Alexander H. Reid denied Dietz’s request for a new trial and sentenced him to life imprisonment at the Wisconsin State Penitentiary in Waupun.
Dietz challenged the conviction, arguing among other things that the evidence did not establish that he had fired the bullet that killed Harp. In May 1912, the Wisconsin Supreme Court reviewed the case and affirmed the first-degree murder conviction. The court regarded the evidence surrounding the siege, Dietz’s resistance to the officers and the circumstances of Harp’s shooting as sufficient to sustain the jury’s verdict, despite the defense contention that another deputy might have fired the fatal shot.
Dietz did not ultimately spend the remainder of his life in prison. His sentence was later commuted, and after roughly a decade of incarceration he was pardoned by Wisconsin Governor John J. Blaine in 1921. Following his release, Dietz continued to dispute his responsibility for Harp’s death and even claimed that Harp had not actually died. That unusual claim was later contradicted when Harp’s original death documentation was located. The certificate recorded his death from a bullet wound, confirming that the Sawyer County deputy killed during the October 8, 1910 siege was indeed Oscar Harp.
