On Sept. 7, 1876, a bank raid in Northfield, Minnesota, involving Jesse James, his brother, and members of the Cole Younger gang came to a halt when local citizens fought back. Among the local defenders was Henry Mason Wheeler, a hometown resident and medical student at the University of Michigan, whose summer vacation was drawing to a close. In the wake of the shootout, the remains of two dead bandits wound up traveling to an Ann Arbor laboratory, a historical footnote recently brought back to light in the spring 2026 issue of the Bentley Historical Library’s Collections magazine.
The Shootout in Northfield and a Medical Student’s Request
Wheeler was sitting outside his father’s drugstore when the outlaws rode into town and opened fire on local residents. Grabbing a gun, Wheeler returned fire and killed gang member Clell Miller, while another resident killed fellow bandit Bill Caldwell, who was also known as Stiles. Following the gunfight, Wheeler mounted a horse to join the local posse hunting down the remaining six outlaws.
Before riding out, Wheeler checked in with his friend and classmate Clarence Edward Persons, another University of Michigan medical student. According to an archived letter dictated by Persons to his son in 1937 and preserved at the Bentley, Wheeler told his friend, “This is our last year in school, Clarence, and we will need those two fellows for laboratory work.”
During the 1800s, medical students faced a shortage of cadavers necessary for anatomical dissection. Prevailing Christian beliefs at the time reinforced needing a physical body for the coming resurrection.
Transporting the Bandits to Ann Arbor Laboratories
To secure the study subjects, Persons agreed to make the arrangements. He dug up the bodies of Miller and Caldwell and shipped them back to the university inside barrels labeled “paint.”
The remains reached the university before the fall term was too far along. Shortly after their arrival, Caldwell’s relatives traveled to Ann Arbor and demanded the return of his remains.
Miller’s cadaver, however, went unclaimed. By the time Persons and Wheeler received their diplomas in 1877, the question of what to do with the remaining skeleton arose.
An Unclaimed Skeleton and Its Final Fate
According to the archived letter, Wheeler turned to Persons after graduation and asked, “What shall we do with this nice skeleton here, which you brought down from Northfield?” Persons replied, “Well, Henry, you shot him—I guess he’s yours.”
The record indicates that Wheeler took the skeleton with him when he relocated to Grand Forks, North Dakota, where he practiced medicine until his death in April 1930. The skeleton remained in Wheeler’s office until it was destroyed in a fire.
The single document detailing this transfer remains preserved in the Bentley archives, offering a window into the history of anatomical study at the University of Michigan.
