Missouri, and he started a long battle with the Frenchman that drew crowds from neighboring towns. "The Frenchman took his beating and fled", while Cam Reeves stayed. He became Omaha's first sheriff. Horse thieves The Claim Club's "vigilante committee" activities were not limited to claim jumping. The vigilantes often cooperated with Sheriff Reeves, but often acted as lawmen, judges, juries and executioners themselves. Public whippings and lynchings were common. Frontier punishment varied according to the degree of harm resulting from the crime. The pioneers dealt with most horse thieves mercilessly. In March, 1858, a posse of angered farmers captured two desperadoes who had stolen horses near Florence. After they were jailed in Omaha's courthouse, the Claim Club broke in and took the men, without any resistance from the sheriff. They hanged the horse thieves two miles (3 km) north of Florence that day, with no repercussions, except for Sheriff Reeves, who was fined for not fulfilling his duties. Callahan versus Cuming Another story involved acting Governor Thomas B. Cuming. Apparently, Cuming hired an Irish man named Callahan to make improvements on Cuming's land in order to conform with the homestead law. Callahan, however, filed a claim on the land for himself. When the claim club demanded that Callahan surrender the deed of ownership, a committee was appointed to "persuade" him. Callahan was then taken to the Missouri River, a hole was chopped in the ice, and he was dunked through the hole until he and the claim club came to an agreement. Callahan died within a year, apparently from the after-effects of hypothermia brought on from his dunking. John Kelly John Kelly was a carpenter with a legal claim to near Omaha. When word reached his aunt, Gertrude Wiley, that four wagons from the Claim Club were coming to "talk Kelly out" of his claim, she quickly hid him in her cellar in Saratoga. After a day of continual harassment from the vigilantes, Kelly walked south to Bellevue where he escaped to Iowa. After his deed to the land came, he went back to his land and was not bothered again. Other cases On February 2, 1856, the club was reorganized as the Omaha Township Claim Association but its arbitrary powers continued as before — in several instances even more viciously. Other victims of vigilante "justice" distributed by the Omaha Claim Club include Jacob S. Shull, Daniel Murphy, and George