By the early 1850s, two of the Reno brothers were notorious troublemakers in Jackson County, Indiana.

There were five brothers and a sister in the

family. The two oldest were Frank and John, and they were only in their early teenage years in the

early 1850s, but they had a rebellious streak a mile wide. They were still living on the family

farm near Rockford, Indiana, though that wouldn't last much longer.

They worked the farm, attended school when possible, and especially in the minds of the older boys,

suffered through Sundays. Wilkinson and Julia Ann Reno were hardworking parents,

very strict and deeply religious. They were Methodists who dedicated Sunday

to worship. Their sons said later that the kids were required to stay inside all day and study

Bible verses. For energetic kids who were used to being outside, Sundays were a misery of prayers

and admonitions about sin.

As the kids grew up, the two oldest boys, Frank and John, started to rebel.

In 1851, when Frank was 14 and John was 13, a suspicious pattern of fires began in the town of

Rockford.

For the next seven years, homes and businesses burned

to the ground with some regularity. The fires did serious damage to Rockford, and most fingers

pointed at the local troublemakers, Frank and John Reno. Some fires were thought to be

attacks on enemies, while others were thought to be part of a larger plan to buy the land after the buildings burned and the owners moved away.

Whatever the reason and whoever the culprit, folks in Rockford couldn't bring a court case against the Reno Boys, and the fires went unsolved.

Then, a similar pattern developed with horses and robberies.

Horses started to vanish from their stables.

Some turned up miles away. Others were never seen again.

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