tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56177451075474338632017-01-21T15:30:29.349-08:00Ozarks HistoryInformation and comments about historical people and events of the Ozarks region and surrounding area.Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.comBlogger462125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-52051971330902334282017-01-21T15:30:00.000-08:002017-01-21T15:30:29.395-08:00CleverI think I've mentioned on here before some of the various ways that towns in the Ozarks (and elsewhere) came into existence and why they were situated where they were. Of course, the sites for many of the very earliest ones were chosen because of their proximity to an important waterway. Rivers and creeks were the main way of transporting goods and, to a lesser extent, people in the early days. When counties were formed, sometimes new towns were formed at the same time to serve as county seats, and a location near the center of the new county was usually selected as the site for the new town. During the post-Civil War era, a lot of towns sprang up at or near sites where lead or some other mineral was discovered. Also, in the latter 1800s, especially the 1880s, a lot of towns, as I have recently discussed, came into existence as health resorts because springs that were supposed to have curative powers were discovered nearby. Perhaps more towns came into existence because of railroads, though, than any other way. Railroad construction generally started in the Ozarks after the Civil War (although a few places on the periphery of the region had railroads a few years prior to the war) and continued into the first couple of decades of the 20th century.<br/>One example of a railroad town was Clever, Missouri. Clever actually began about 1890 as a crossroads community where the Springfield to Billings road intersected the Old Wire Road. However, Clever did not amount to much at all until at least 1905 when the Missouri Pacific Railroad began building a line from Springfield to Crane that passed through Clever. The town of Clever was not officially platted until then, and it didn't really start growing until a year or so after that.<br/>A correspondent of the <i>Springfield Republican </i>visited Clever in the fall of 1911 and reported on its remarkable growth since he'd last been there five years earlier. He said that, when he was there in 1906, Clever had but one dwelling house and one store building approaching completion, and the rails for the Missouri Pacific road had been laid as far as Clever but no farther. Blasting to build the road bed on to Crane was still taking place. By contrast, when he returned in 1911, he found Clever booming with a population of about 500 people. There were three brick business buildings completed and occupied, one approaching completion, and one more planned. There were two concrete business buildings and one of pressed steel completed and two more concrete buildings planned. The recently erected public school building was also of brick.<br/>The businesses included a bank, a flour mill, a canning factory, a lumber yard, a grain elevator, a harness shop, two general stores, one hardware store, four grocery stores, three drug stores, one restaurant, two hotels, two produce dealers, one livery stable, two barber shops, one newspaper, two blacksmith shops, and one livestock firm. The town also had a lawyer, a real estate agent, a photographer, a veterinarian, a cobbler, a school for grades 1-8, three churches, four doctors, and four fraternal organizations. There were no saloons. <br/>The three churches were the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Christian. The first two had full-time ministers, while the Christian Church's pulpit was filled by supply ministers. <br/>Professor A.M. Little, aided by Prof. Rolla Hodges, ran the school. It had about 110 pupils in distributed in the eight grades, and plans were underway to offer ninth grade work in algebra, geography, history, and literature.<br/>The land around Clever was said to be very fertile and productive. In the year just ended on September 1, 1911, Clever had shipped out 62 train cars of cattle, 60 cars of hogs, 15 cars of sheep, one car of mules, 37 cars of wheat, 28 of flour, 22 of corn, 4 of oats, 4 of apples, and 5 of tomatoes. In addition, the town had shipped 800 crates of chickens, 2,000 cases of eggs, about 3,500 pounds of wool, $600 worth of hides, and about 3,500 pounds of butter. One firm alone shipped 5,000 rabbits during the previous year and $300 worth of turkeys in one month. <br/>Land close to Clever cost on average $100 an acre; beyond a two-mile radius it cost about $50 an acre, while hilly, unimproved land or wooded land could be had for about $10 an acre. <br/>Clever leaned Democrat in its politics, even though the township and county (Christian) were solidly Republican.<br/>The railroad boom passed, and Clever declined as a hub of business activity. I think it also declined, or at least became stagnant, in its population growth. I don't recall Clever having more than 400 or 500 people when I taught school there in the late 1960s. But, of course, it has grown a lot in recent years, along with a number of other so-called bedroom communities around Springfield. It's population today is well over 2,000. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-66499868473835429472017-01-15T09:07:00.000-08:002017-01-15T09:07:21.321-08:00Cross TimbersA couple of weeks ago I wrote about the heyday of Windyville, a small community that was located in northeast Dallas County about ten miles northeast of Buffalo. Actually, I guess I should say it still <i>is</i> located there, what's left of it.<br/>Another town in the same general vicinity that is well past its prime is Cross Timbers, located about 29 miles north of Buffalo on Highway 65 in northern Hickory County. While present-day Cross Timbers amounts to quite a bit more than Windyville, it is, as I say, well past its prime. Back in the day, though, it was a booming little town.<br/>A correspondent to the <i>Springfield Republican </i>in October of 1911 gave an overview of Cross Timbers at the time. The town and its surroundings, said the correspondent, was "not a paradise for the shiftless, but a land of great promise for the willing worker." <br/>Cross Timbers had a population of about 400 people at the time. It had a state bank with over $100,000 in assets. Other businesses included a flour mill, five general stores, one 25-room hotel, one confectionary, one furniture store, a barber shop, a photo gallery, an undertaking business, two blacksmiths, and one restaurant.<br/>The town also had one doctor, one lawyer, and two churches. One of the churches had a full-time minister, while the other pulpit was filled by supply ministers.<br/> The Cross Timbers school was a four-room brick building that cost $4,000 to build. The school was mainly for grades 1-8, but it also offered high school work if demand warranted. The school had two teachers who had completed normal school training, a library, and "other necessary equipment." The school had 82 students, fielded a basketball team, and offered "commodious grounds for exercise."<br>The town had two active fraternal organizations, the Odd Fellows and the Modern Woodmen.<br/>The correspondent noted that the sentiment of the townspeople was strongly anti-saloon, and Cross Timbers had no saloons.<br/>Dairy farming was the dominant occupation of the citizens in the countryside around Cross Timbers. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-33674807053732857262017-01-07T16:03:00.000-08:002017-01-07T16:03:07.506-08:00Rocky Comfort FiresFires are still a big threat, especially wildfires in the West, but in general fire is not as much of a menace nowadays as it used to be. Stoves, flues, and other heating apparatuses were not as safe in the old days as they generally are today, and communities were not as equipped as they are nowadays to fight fires when they did break out. My limited research on the subject suggests to me that there are probably few towns and villages in the Ozarks that have not suffered at least one devastating fire in their history. Rocky Comfort, located in northeastern McDonald County near the Barry and Newton county lines, is a good example. Its business district has suffered at least three significant fires in its history.<br/>On Sunday night, February 15, 1925, a fire occurred in Rocky Comfort that destroyed the building where both the Oddfellows and Masons met. All the books and records of both lodges were lost. Shelley's store and another business building were also destroyed.<br/>On Friday night, October 7, 1938, an even more devastating fire hit Rocky Comfort. Seven business buildings and practically all their contents were destroyed. The fire started in W. G. Roberts's hardware store and spread rapidly to adjacent buildings, including Harrell Lily's general store, Virgil Ford's grocery, a combination restaurant and hardware store, Lon Milligan's general store, a building owned by E.B. Montgomery that had been used to can and store tomatoes, Bill Butram's shoe store, Fred Ridenour's store, and W.G. Roberts's dwelling. The windows of the post office cracked from the heat. The fire "almost cleaned out the business section" of Rocky Comfort, according to the <i>Neosho Times</i>.<br/>A fire in the wee hours of the morning on June 9, 1954, destroyed the George Parrish grocery store in Rocky Comfort. The blaze started in the rear of the building, where Mr. Parrish, his wife, and their son were asleep in their living quarters. The family escaped without injury. Wheaton's fire department responded to the blaze and was credited with preventing it from spreading to the post office across the street and a nearby garage. Damage was estimated at $6,000 to the building and $10,000 to its contents.<br/>Nowadays not much remains of Rocky Comfort, but not because of fire. Like a lot of small communities, it has dwindled in importance over the years, especially since it lost its high school in the mid-1960s. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-34710835939291899672017-01-01T08:33:00.001-08:002017-01-01T08:33:56.837-08:00WindyvilleNow virtually extinct, Windyville, Missouri, was located in Dallas County about 15 miles northeast of Buffalo. I recall that, when I was in high school in the early to mid 1960s at Fair Grove, Windyville still had a high school. In fact, I think we even played them a time or two in basketball. Windyville lost its high school a year or two after I graduated. I might be wrong, but I think 1965-66 was the last school year before Windyville consolidated with Buffalo. Windyville had already been losing population and businesses in the mid-1960s at the time of the consolidation, but the school closing hastened the town's demise. The last time I visited Windyville was around the mid-1970s, and it was basically already a ghost town. I was writing an article for the <i>Ozarks Mountaineer </i>about small towns that had lost their high schools, and at that time Windyville's old high school building was still standing. I'm not sure whether that's still the case or not, but I'm thinking maybe not. Seems I might have heard many years ago that it was destroyed. <br/>At any rate, after Windyville's demise, legends arose saying that the town's remaining buildings and its cemeteries were haunted. I don't know about that, because, as I said, I haven't visited the place in many years. Besides, I tend not to give much credence to ghost stories, but I guess some people enjoy them.<br/>Regardless of whether the place is haunted, there's very little at Windyville nowadays to suggest that it ever mounted to much, but, in fact, it was a pretty booming little community back in the day.<br/>Like most small towns in the Ozarks, Windyville had a tomato canning factory during the early to mid-nineteenth century when tomatoes were mostly grown on small, locally owned farms rather than large commercial farms as they are today. Apparently Windyville's canning factory was a cut above the typical such operation. During the growing season of 1925, the Windyville factory canned 96,000 cans of tomatoes, which was some kind of record at the time, at least for Windyville. The champion grower of the area was Frank Dugan, who produced 18,570 pounds of tomatoes gathered off a single acre, netting Mr. Dugan $111.42.<br/>Windyville High School fielded a basketball team at least as early as the 1920s, and the school had some pretty good teams for a small school. They even competed against and held their own with larger schools like Lebanon. I recently came across a newspaper story from December 1928 reporting on a Windyville High School basketball game against Elkland (which is another virtual ghost town that lost its high school many years ago). The Windyville Bulldogs defeated the Elkland five by a score of 35-23. D. Triplett for Windyville and R. Pursel for Elkland were named the outstanding stars of the game for their respective teams.<br/>On Wednesday, November 25, 1936, the Windyville High School building burned down. The fire was believed to have been caused by a defective flue. A basket dinner and student program involving children from four different Dallas County grade schools had just been held before the fire broke out. Two days later plans were being made to resume classes at the high school the following Monday by utilizing the community building and purchasing used textbooks at a discount in Kansas City. Plans were also already being discussed to build a new building for the district's sixty-four high school students.<br/>So, I guess when I described the Windyville High School that I remember as the "old high school building," I was employing a fairly loose meaning of the word "old," because the building was apparently less than 30 years old when Windyville consolidated with Buffalo. . Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-43242116527457113922016-12-24T08:58:00.001-08:002016-12-31T15:46:54.736-08:00ShobetownShobe (aka Shobetown or Shobe Town) is an extinct town that was located in Bates County, Missouri, about two miles northwest of Rich Hill. Similar to Rich Hill, it was founded during the early 1880s as a mining town when coal was discovered in the area. In fact, the original mines were mostly located in the Shobe area, even though they were usually called the Rich Hill mines. According to a couple of sources, Shobe was named after Haley Shobe, but the best evidence I can come up with seems to indicate that it was actually named after Haley's older half brother, Hudson Shobe. A businessman living in Butler when the mines started up, Hudson Shobe moved to the area and opened a store. He was also an early postmaster of the place; so presumably the post office was located in his store, which was a common arrangement for small communities in the 1800s.<br/>Like most mining towns, Shobe had something of an unsavory reputation in its early days. One citizen of the place complained to the <i>Butler Weekly Times</i> in mid 1885 that there was a petition circulating at Shobe to get another saloon for the place. If the effort succeeded, the correspondent said, "Shobe will be one of the most noted places in the county, as it is now hardly fit for respectable people to live in." The writer concluded that he hoped the county court would keep the law-abiding folks of the area in mind and require that such an initiative have a two-thirds majority vote of the township's citizens for passage.<br/>The most notorious incident in Shobe's history occurred on the evening of November 16, 1896, when miner John "Pussy" Young shot and killed fellow miner Frank Terrell at Abe Tetlock's saloon located about a half-mile west of Shobe. The saloon was about midway between two mines, and the miners from both places would usually gather there at the end of each day's work to drink beer and swap lies. On the evening in question, Terrell was in the saloon, having already had a drink or two, when Young, who'd owned the saloon before Tetlock bought it, entered the place. Hearing Terrell say that he was raffling off a shotgun, Shobe spoke up and said he'd take a chance on the gun. Terrell told him, "No, you will not take a chance on my gun."<br/>This angered Young, and the two men got into a heated argument and had to be separated by Tetlock. After the barkeeper stepped aside, though, the quarrel was renewed, and it escalated into a violent confrontation. Terrel threw out his hand as if to emphasize one of his points, and Young immediately drew a revolver, which had been concealed, and shot Terrel in the forehead. Terrel slumped to the floor gravely wounded. Two doctors were summoned from Rich Hill, but Terrel was beyond help when they arrived. He died about two hours after he was shot. <br/>Meanwhile, Young went directly to Rich Hill and turned himself in to the city marshal about nine p.m. Later that night, a deputy took the prisoner via train to Butler, where he was lodged in the Bates County jail. He was charged with first-degree murder, but the trial, originally set for March 1897, was continued until the June term. I have found no record of Young having ever been convicted of murder or having ever served time in the Missouri state prison, which indicates to me that either he was acquitted or the charges against him must have been dropped or reduced. If he had been convicted of murder, newspapers of the day would surely have noted this fact.<br/>Shobe lasted only another couple of years after this murder. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was pretty much a ghost town. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-33817811407168953742016-12-18T08:06:00.000-08:002016-12-18T08:06:04.301-08:00Siloam SpringsLast time, I wrote about Aurora Springs, one of the many resort towns that sprang up in the Ozarks during the mineral-water craze that swept across America in the late nineteenth century. Continuing that theme, let's take look at another such town, Siloam Springs, Missouri.<br/>Dr. Jonathan Brown already owned land in northwest Howell County when he discovered some springs on his property in 1877 and began developing the site into a health resort the following year. He named the place Brown Springs and put in a small bath house and showers. Later, at the suggestion of his daughter, he renamed the resort Siloam Springs after the healing pool mentioned in the Bible.<br/> D. F. Martin resigned his job as county treasurer of neighboring Iron County in the summer of 1878 and came to Siloam Springs because of his wife’s poor health. By 1880, Martin had acquired the resort from Brown, and he began promoting it heavily. In a letter to the Iron County Register in early July 1880, he told readers that the springs were “making themselves a wonderful reputation for their varied healing virtues in chronic diseases of all forms.”<br/> Siloam Springs was growing rapidly, Martin said. It had 120 dwellings, several hotels or boarding houses, three general stores, two drug stores, and one livery stable. Homes suitable for small families were available to rent for two or three dollars a month.<br/>Touting the almost magical powers of the healing waters of Siloam Springs, Martin said that, since he had come to the place two years earlier, thousands of people had visited the resort, and he had witnessed numerous cases that could only be described as miraculous cures. “So many have come here as a last resort after having been given up as incurable by their physicians, and their looks would seem to verify their conclusions; yet in spite of the judgement of their physicians, and the appearances of the patients, the waters seemed to take hold of them, and in a short time they would be on the highway to health and happiness.”<br/> Martin said he didn’t claim to cure every disease known to man but that he could cure so many that his readers would be astonished if they were to visit. “You will see invalids brought here with the vital spark almost gone out by the wasting element of various chronic diseases, and as if by magic, some will spring into new life…while others more slowly, but none the less sure, will gather up thread by thread…until all is complete.” <br/> Martin went on to enumerate some of the specific diseases and conditions that he and his waters could cure. He said he could cure every case of dropsy brought to the springs, as long as the edema had not been tapped. He could cure falling of the womb, all kinds of chills, and malaria of every form. “On kidney disease of all kinds the water acts like a charm,” Martin claimed. The springs also could cure general and nervous debility, paralysis and rheumatism, bronchitis, asthma, and catarrh. The springs could cure consumptive patients whose lungs were not already too far gone. All heart patients benefited from the waters, and half could be cured.<br/> Concluding his spiel, Martin offered a money-back guarantee to any ill person who came to the springs and did not see benefit after two months of treatment under his direction.<br/> About the time of Martin’s letter or shortly thereafter, he laid out the town of Martinsville at the resort, but the new name never took, as the post office and the springs themselves were still called Siloam Springs. Unlike many of the mineral-water towns that sprang up overnight and died about as fast as they came into being, Siloam Springs continued to boom throughout the 1880s and 1890s, when it reached a permanent population of about 600 residents. In the early 1900s, John Woodruff of Springfield acquired the springs and made extensive improvements, including electric lights, a modern sewer system, and playgrounds. The place declined, though, over the years, and Siloam Springs finally lost its post office about 1969. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-45332324403722218772016-12-11T10:08:00.000-08:002016-12-11T12:27:49.037-08:00Aurora SpringsI have previously written about a number of resort towns that sprang up in the Ozarks during the late 1870s and the 1880s, as the mineral-water craze of the late nineteenth century swept across the country. A couple of the places I’ve previously written about that come readily to mind are Indian Springs and Saratoga Springs, both in McDonald County, Missouri.<br/>Another such place was Aurora Springs in northern Miller County, Missouri. Aurora Springs was started in the fall of 1880 and quickly grew into a booming mineral-water resort town. As with all such towns, the waters were advertised as having medicinal qualities, and by the spring and summer of 1881, people were flocking to Aurora Springs seeking cures for all kinds of ailments. The <i>Tuscumbia Osage Valley Banner </i>reported on May 19, for instance, that a little girl was improving rapidly from the effects of “scald head” after using the waters at Aurora Springs. The same issue of the newspaper reported that 1,500 people had attended divine services at Aurora Springs the previous Sunday.<br/>The <i>Banner </i>reported on June 30, 1881, that Colonel J. H. Stover had relocated to Aurora Springs and was now reaping the benefits of the water. The previous Thursday he had supposedly stood alone for the first time in three years.<br/> The <i>Banner</i> reported in the same issue that Aurora Springs was booming. Sick and invalid people were coming in and receiving benefits and then returning home. “Some of the most wonderful cures have been performed,” claimed the newspaper.<br/> The editor urged everybody to go to Aurora Springs for the big Fourth of July celebration and picnic that was being planned. “The largest assembly of people ever witnessed in Miller County” was expected. The newspaperman said the park grounds, hotels, and bath houses wee being put in order for the big event, and he predicted that as many as 5,000 people would probably attend the Independence Day festivities.<br/>The <i>Jefferson City State Tribune </i>of July 10, 1881, confirmed that at least 5,000 people did, indeed, attend the Aurora Springs Fourth of July celebration. “The Springs, as now arranged,” said the <i>Tribune</i>, “is one of the most pleasant points in central Missouri for public meetings and picnics.”<br/>In August of the same year, one issue of the <i>Banner</i> reported that Aurora Springs had gained 100 permanent residents just within the past week. The next month the same paper reported that a woman who had suffered from “milk leg” for twenty years was now improving rapidly as a result of taking the waters of Aurora Springs.<br/> In late 1881 or early 1882, the Missouri Pacific Railroad built a depot about a half mile southwest of Aurora Springs, and the community that grew up around the depot was at first called simply Aurora but soon came to be known as West Aurora. The main railroad line, however, ended up bypassing Aurora Springs and West Aurora altogether and went through Eldon instead, about two miles to the north.<br/> Aurora Springs, however, continued to flourish throughout the 1880s and into the nineties. At its height, it was the most populous town in Miller County, with a population of about 700. It boasted three hotels, three lawyers, four doctors, six churches, and businesses of almost every kind.<br/> A post office at Aurora Springs remained in operation until 1912. The community of Aurora Springs still exists today, but very little remains to suggest its glory days of the past. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-92033957551082144382016-12-04T10:20:00.000-08:002016-12-04T10:23:11.452-08:00Lynching of Henry CaldwellI have mentioned on this blog before that, during the so-called lynching era of the late 1800s and early 1900s, Missouri witnessed a lot of extralegal hangings but that a much larger proportion of Missouri's victims were white than was the case in states like Mississippi. Missouri, in this respect, was more like the Old West than the Deep South. Much, but probably not all, of this phenomenon can be explained by the simple fact that Missouri had proportionately fewer blacks than the Deep South. So, I am not saying that Missouri was not the stage for an untoward number of racially motivated lynchings. Indeed, it was. The case I chronicle below is just one example.<br/>On Thursday morning, July 27, 1882, some citizens in downtown Ironton, Missouri, according to the <i>Iron County Register</i>, heard cries for help from a nearby residence and, hurrying to the scene, found Mrs. Peck, a 60-year-old white woman, "struggling and screaming in the disgusting embraces of a black brute," 37-year-old Henry Caldwell, in the yard outside her home. Several men pulled Caldwell off the woman, and he was arrested and committed to the Iron County jail. The next day he was indicted for assault and attempted rape and held in lieu of $10,000 bond.<br/>Caldwell, who was married with at least four children, had previously been considered a bit daft "in his every-day walk and at times out-and-out crazy." Back in May, he'd had one of his "spells" and threatened to kill his mother, his wife, and his children and been arrested for carrying concealed weapons. Apparently, though, as long as Henry was mainly a threat to his own family, no one in Ironton grew too alarmed. But, now in the wake of his arrest for assaulting Mrs. Peck, there was talk of lynching Caldwell, not only as a punishment for his own deed but "to serve as a deterrent to others whose 'craziness' might have a bent in a similar direction."<br/>However, Thursday evening and Friday evening passed without any vigilante demonstration, and it was thought that the law would be allowed to take its course. The early part of Saturday night also passed quietly. About midnight, though, several squads of two or three men each, converged on the public square from different directions. Soon about 30 or 40 men, with blackened faces or wearing masks, had assembled in front of a millinery store, where they took an oath of secrecy. They then placed guards at each corner of the square, while the rest of the mob headed toward the jail.<br/>The horde easily gained access to a corridor leading through the sheriff's two-story residence to the jail, but a heavy iron door at the end of the corridor blocked entry to the jail. An axe was procured, and the first blow to the lock awakened Sheriff William Fletcher from his slumber in his upstairs room. Springing from his bed, he appeared on a landing above the corridor with revolver in hand, but half a dozen revolvers quickly covered him in return. Two men walked up to the landing to relieve him of his weapon, and one of them whispered in his ear, "Bill Fletcher, you're one of my best friends, but, by God, we're going to have that nigger." Vastly outnumbered, Fletcher could do little but watch helplessly as the men proceeded to break down the door leading to the jail.<br/> They forced Fletcher to give up the key to Caldwell's cell, looped a noose around the prisoner's neck, and dragged him outside. The mob took Caldwell on a run to a railroad bridge southeast of Ironton and hurried him up the steps to the center of the bridge. With one end of the rope still tied in a noose around Caldwell's neck, the vigilantes fastened the other end of the rope to a beam of the bridge and threw the condemned man over the parapet. Caldwell clung desperately to the timbers of the bridge until someone slashed through his arm with a knife, causing him to lose his grip and fall. Although he hung suspended, his feet barely touched the ground, and the mob, thinking the hanging might not be sufficient to cause death, immediately opened fire, riddling him with about 30 bullets fired at short range. The crowd then gave a yell and dispersed in all directions. <br/>Advised of the incident about one o'clock on Sunday morning, the county coroner assembled a jury and went down to the bridge. They cut the body down and brought it back to the courthouse, where an inquest quickly yielded the usual verdict that the victim came to his death at the hands of parties unknown to the jury. Caldwell's body rested at the courthouse until 10 a.m. Sunday morning, when it was buried in the local potter's field.<br/>The following week, the editor of the <i>Iron County Register</i> took a stance in sympathy with the mob. He claimed not to be an advocate of lynch-law, "but if there ever can be a case calling justly for its intervention, this was one." The editor said Caldwell's actions during the past few months had been such that he had been forbidden to enter the premises of several people for whom he worked, and "the heads of these families had been keeping him under continual surveillance."<br/>One wonders, of course, how banishment from white homes and constant surveillance differed from the treatment any other black man in 1880s Ironton might have been subject to. One might also reasonably ask what punishment the actual rape of a white woman by a black man merited if the mere attempt to force oneself on a white woman justified lynching. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-66449274625685225712016-11-27T09:23:00.000-08:002016-11-27T09:23:24.171-08:00Murder of Thomas Howard and Hanging of William FoxOn Sunday morning, May 20, 1883, a body was found at Nevada, Missouri, south of the train depot near "The Cave," a notorious hangout for dissolute men and women. The body was quickly identified as that of Thomas Howard, and it was determined that he had been shot and had been dead only a matter of hours. Howard was about 35 years old, and he had come to Vernon County from Audrain County about a year earlier and settled with his wife in the Moundville area. Described as a "spreeing man" who sometimes stayed drunk for weeks at a time and who was "fond of lewd women," Howard had left his wife and come to Nevada, where he'd been spending time in saloons and houses of ill repute for several days prior to his death.<br/>A coroner's inquest was held on Sunday, and based on the testimony of several witnesses, the jury concluded that Howard had come to his death on Saturday night, May 19th, at the hands of William Fox, a young man who, like Howard, had come to Vernon County from Audrain County a few months earlier. Fox's marriage, like Howard's, was on the rocks, and the two men had gotten together when they met up in Vernon County. They had been seen in company with each other throughout the day on Saturday and into the evening, and a man named Arnold, who had spent part of Saturday with the other two men, told the jury that Fox had confessed the killing to him on Sunday morning. Arnold said Fox told him he had committed the deed because Howard had tried to attack the prostitute, Mrs. Rose, whom Fox had been with. Based on this evidence, Fox was arrested on suspicion.<br/>The 22-year-old Fox admitted that he was with Howard on Saturday, but he claimed he left him alive at 10 o'clock that night. Fox tried to implicate Arnold as the real culprit in the crime, but inconsistencies in his story only heightened the suspicion against him.<br/>On Tuesday, May 22, Mrs. Rose gave a statement. She admitted being with Fox late Saturday night while her husband was at work, and she said Fox had confessed the crime to her, just as he had to Arnold. The next day Fox himself broke down and gave a full confession, although he now said the reason he killed Howard was to avenge an old grudge. The story Fox told was that, back in Audrain County, he had been accused of stealing a pig and had briefly left the county. Upon his return, he ran into Howard at a saloon, and Howard told him that it "looked suspicious" for him to leave the area while under accusations of stealing. An angry argument ensued, but Howard had quickly put the dispute in the past. He readily took up with Fox again when the two men met in Vernon County, but the younger man had not forgotten what he saw as a severe slight. Despite Fox's elaborate explanation for the murder, many observers around Nevada felt that Fox had mainly killed Howard just for his money--about $40, which he had taken off the man's body.<br/>Fox was indicted for first degree murder on Thursday, May 24, and his trial began the following Wednesday. Fox's court-appointed lawyer did not deny his client's guilt but argued that there were mitigating factors. He said Fox loved Mrs. Rose, even though she was a dissolute woman, and that his client's original story to Arnold that he had killed Howard because Howard had struck or tried to strike Mrs. Rose was the true story. Fox had only changed his story to try to protect her from involvement in the crime, and he had acted out of passion, not out of greed or revenge as the other theories of the crime held. The presentation of evidence ended late that same night, and the jury retired to deliberate. The next morning, May 25, they announced a verdict of guilty. Fox's lawyer immediately asked for a new trial, partly on the basis that, during jury deliberations, someone had tossed a hangman's noose into the jury room. The judge overruled the motion and sentenced Fox to be hanged from the neck until dead on July 18, 1883. The case was then appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, which issued a stay of execution until October, so as to give time for the appeal to be considered. The verdict was affirmed later the same year, and the execution reset for December 28.<br/>On December 27, the day before the scheduled execution, Fox was interviewed in his cell at the Nevada jail. He blamed his downfall on "whiskey and bad women." In addition, he said that he had gotten married too young and had married a woman to whom he was "too closely related." He and his wife were too much alike and, therefore, couldn't get along. The main reason he offered for his wayward life and for the murder of Howard, however, was simply that "Something has always been wrong with my head." Fox said he still loved Mrs. Rose but that she had not treated him right since he had been locked up. She had not visited him or even answered any of the letters he had written to her.<br/> As many as 20,000 people poured into Nevada on December 28, and about 10,000 actually witnessed the hanging, which was staged from a gallows erected near the scene of the crime. The execution, according to one newspaper report, went off very smoothly and without "the usual painful preliminaries." Fox walked firmly up the steps to his doom and went immediately to the trap. At Fox's request, there was no clergy present, and the condemned man gave no lengthy speech, looking out over the crowd and saying only "Goodbye, boys" before the cap was placed over his head and he was swung into eternity. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-69240267313035319102016-11-20T08:14:00.000-08:002016-11-20T08:14:02.019-08:00The Lynching of James LaytonOn January 30, 1841, James Layton of Perry County, Missouri, "beat his wife's brains out, in the presence of one of his children," according to a St. Louis newspaper, "and afterwards broke her legs and arms and otherwise abused her lifeless person, in a worse than savage manner." Layton then took his five children, left them at a relative's home, and fled the area. However, a "strong scout" started in pursuit of the villain, and he was apprehended and taken to Farmington, where he was lodged in the St. Francois County jail. (It's not clear whether the prisoner was taken to Farmington immediately after his arrest or was taken at first back to Perry County and was then granted a change of venue to the neighboring county.)<br/>Over the next couple of years, Layton's lawyers kept managing to get the trial put off, but it finally came up in early 1843. He was convicted of the murder, based largely on the testimony of the son who had witnessed the crime, and sentenced to hang on June 17th. Layton's father, John Layton, was a prominent citizen of Perry County, and he interceded on his condemned son's behalf, writing to Governor Thomas Reynolds seeking a commutation of James's sentence. Reynolds refused to commute the sentence but did grant a stay of execution until September 1.<br/>News of the respite, however, was not generally known to the public, and a large crowd, estimated as high as 3,000, assembled in Farmington on June 17th in anticipation of seeing a man die. When they learned of the postponement, many in the crowd reacted with anger and expressed the feeling that Layton would likely escape justice altogether if something was not done. Soon almost the whole crowd was roused up, and a mob began to form intent on taking the law into its own hands.<br/>About 300 men broke into the jail and took Layton from his cell, although it's not clear whether this happened while the entire crowd that had gathered in Farmington to watch what they thought was going to be a legal hanging was still there or after the crowd had dispersed. At any rate, the mob took the man and hanged him just south of the jail in Farmington. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-17599729853838161982016-11-13T11:59:00.002-08:002016-11-13T15:50:53.735-08:00Lynching of Tom LittleTom Little of Johnson County, Missouri, came from a Southern-sympathizing family. During the Civil War, he himself rode at least briefly with notorious Confederate guerrilla leader William Quantrill, and in 1864, two of his sisters were arrested and imprisoned at St. Louis for aiding guerrillas. (See my <i>Bushwhacker Belles </i>book.)<br/>After the war, Little fell in with the James-Younger outlaw gang. On May 23, 1867, the gang robbed the Hughes and Wasson bank in Richmond, Missouri, of about $3,500 and killed three local citizens, including the mayor, when some of the townspeople tried to mount a defense.<br/>Little was thought to have been among the robbers, and he and another suspect, Fred Meyers, were arrested in St. Louis in late May, brought to Warrensburg, and lodged in the county jail there on June 1. Friends of Little appeared and claimed they could obtain affidavits from the best citizens of Dover in neighboring Lafayette County that Little was in that community at the time of the Richmond robbery and was, therefore, innocent. They went to Dover, obtained the necessary affidavits, and upon returning to Warrensburg on the night of June 4th, were promised a hearing in Little's case the next day. However, the feeling around Warrensburg, a stronghold of Radical Republican sentiment, was strongly against Little because of his war activities. A "vigilance committee" headed by Warren Shedd, a former Union general, had been maintaining its own brand of law and order in the area for some time. Not waiting to hear the testimony that might exonerate Little, a mob broke into the jail at about five o'clock on the morning of the 5th, dragged Little from his cell, and hanged him in downtown Warrensburg.<br/>Ten days later, the <i>Weekly Caucasian</i>, published at Lexington in Lafayette County, admonished James Eads, publisher of the <i>Warrensburg Journal</i> and a former Union officer, for misleading his readers about the fate of Tom Little. The <i>Journal</i> of June 5 had stated that Little was in jail when, in fact, he had already been lynched earlier that morning, and the June 12th issue failed to correct the error, making no mention of Little or the extralegal hanging. According to the Lexington editor, the vigilance committee had fractured over the lynching. Many of its members did not agree with the lynching, and General Shedd had supposedly not even been consulted prior to the mob action, which was carried out by the most Radical members of the group. Sentiment against the vigilante hanging was especially strong in the rural areas of Johnson County.<br/>There are a few other details in county histories and on websites about Tom Little's hanging, but my telling of the story above represents most of what can be gleaned from newspapers published at the time the incident happened.<br/> Saying he could not get a fair trial, Jesse James later cited the lynching of Tom Little as an example of why he would not give himself up to Missouri authorities, as some had urged him to do. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-81733580781552483152016-11-06T08:48:00.000-08:002016-11-06T08:52:31.367-08:00A Lynching in Saline CountyI have observed before that, while lynchings during the 1800s and early 1900s were not everyday occurrences, they were frequent enough that, unless some sensational aspect in addition to the lynching itself attended them, they were often not widely reported. This, of course, was especially true if they occurred in rural areas, where they were witnessed by few, if any, outside parties. In such cases, details about the lynching were often scarce. I have written about at least one or two such cases previously, and another example was the case of Tom Stanton.<br/>On the morning of December 17, 1873, a farmer named Fristoe (probably Thomas Fristoe) residing near the village of Cambridge in Saline County, Missouri, sold a large lot of hogs to a stock buyer in Cambridge for $1,000 in cash. A desperado named Tom Stanton, another tough named Highley, and three of their sidekicks got wind of the transaction and trailed Fristoe out of town until they reached an isolated spot a couple of miles outside the village, where they overtook him and shot him down. Pouncing on him, they cut his throat and then rifled through his pockets, securing the thousand dollars in cash.<br/>The gang fled to some nearby timber to divvy up the stolen money but got into an argument about the split. Meanwhile, a passerby on the road discovered Fristoe's still-warm body and also overheard the argument in the nearby woods. Realizing what had happened, he left quietly and quickly rounded up a posse of men from the neighborhood. The posse set out after the culprits and captured three of them, with the other two making their escape. The three captives, according to a correspondent to the <i>St. Louis Dispatch</i>, were "summarily disposed of in accordance with the terribly stern and retributive judgment of Judge Lynch." A posse was sent after the remaining two killers, but they were apparently never found. It is also not certain whether Stanton and/or Highley were among the three villains who were hanged. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-11397734015489684682016-10-30T08:54:00.000-07:002016-10-30T08:55:14.866-07:00The 1918 Flu in Van BurenThe influenza pandemic of 1918 claimed more lives, an estimated 50 million-plus worldwide and about 675,000 in the United States alone, than any other natural disaster or outbreak of disease in the history of humankind. Yet, it seems we don't hear a whole lot about it. I don't remember studying much about it when I was in school. By comparison, World War I, which was raging at the time the epidemic broke out, claimed about 10 million lives worldwide and a little over 50,000 U.S. lives. Yet, I remember studying the Great War quite a bit in school. Part of the reason, I think, that we tend not to focus on the 1918 flu pandemic is because it did not receive a lot of publicity even at the time it was happening. This was partly by design. The U.S., Britain, and other Alllied powers discouraged or even censored such publicity, because they did want to publicize anything that might hurt morale and undermine efforts to win the war.<br/>The 1918 flu pandemic spread to almost every country in the world, and here at home almost every community was affected. About 200,000 American people died in October of 1918 alone, when the pandemic was at its peak, and about 28% of the population suffered directly from the disease at some point during the fall and winter of 1918-1919. Even most of the people who did not actually have the flu had one or more family members who did, or at least they had friends who suffered from the disease.<br/>The <i>Van Buren Current Local </i>described the epidemic in Van Buren, Missouri, in the fall of 1918, and the situation the editor described was fairly typical of communities across the country. In a short article in the November 7 issue, entitled "Influenza Claims Many," the editor began, "The Spanish influenza has been raging for the past two weeks in Ellsinore and vicinity. There have been over 100 cases and several deaths reported." (The 1918 flu was called the Spanish flu because it was thought at the time, incorrectly, that Spain suffered disproportionately from the disease.)<br/> After naming some of the victims of the disease and expressing his sympathy with the families, the editor continued, "Let us hope this dreadful epidemic will soon disappear from our community. As to the sick ones here (i.e. Van Buren) it is impossible to try to name all of them. There are several instances where whole families are sick in bed at one time as 'ye correspondent' and wife and two boys were all down at once with the malady, we are in position to know how it goes. Both local doctors here have been on the go both day and night. Just at present we know of no real serious cases, and from what we can learn about it, the situation seems to be improving some."<br/>The editor was right. The situation, not just in Van Buren, but across the country did improve fairly rapidly after early to mid-November, but the outbreak of flu did not completely run its course until early the following summer. In the November 14 edition of the <i>Current Local</i>, the editor noted that a young woman schoolteacher who had been staying in Van Buren with her parents while all the county schools were closed on account of the influenza epidemic was now returning to nearby Fremont to re-open her school. He added, "The influenza situation here is improving somewhat," although two deaths from the disease had been reported during the prior week. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-18647013153883423682016-10-23T08:11:00.001-07:002016-10-23T08:11:38.404-07:00Killing of Rube Sorrel and Arrest of His SidekicksReuben Sorrel lived in the Canaan community of Gasconade County, Missouri, prior to the Civil War. When the war broke out, he evidently served as an officer in the Missouri State Guard for at least six months (although extant records do not confirm this). However, by the summer of 1863, he was back in his home territory of central Missouri, where he gained a reputation as a notorious bushwhacker. In late September he was killed, presumably by a detachment of Union soldiers, although this, too, is unclear. Word spread like a prairie fire, according to a Union report filed a few days later, and "rebels, secesh, and semi-rebels flocked in to the number of about 100 to see the corpse, which was not buried until the third day." <br/>Shortly after her husband's death, Sorrel's widow, Martha, sent for a man named Matthews, whom she thought to be a Southern sympathizer. Among the things she told Matthews was that two men of the neighborhood, James M. Nelson and John D. Pope, had sworn that "four feds would have to pay for the killing of Rube." <br/>Matthews, however, proved not to be a trustworthy friend. He reported what he had learned to the assistant provost marshal at Cuba, Ellis Evans, who in turn sent a letter on September 30 to his superior, a Captain Manning, describing Matthews's intelligence. Evans said both Nelson and Pope had been "noisy rebels" in Gasconade County. Nelson was described as "deformed," with a short arm and a head that drew to one side. He was fit enough, however, to have served in the rebel army under Sorrell for six months near the beginning of the war. (At the time of the 1860 census, Nelson was working on Sorrel's farm as a hired hand.) Evans thought that both Nelson and Pope should be banished outside Union lines or "else inside an inner line" (i.e. placed in jail) as other bushwhackers had been dealt with. He added that the Union men from the neighborhood between Canaan and Jake's Prairie, where Nelson, Pope, and the Sorrels lived, did not want Nelson and Pope arrested if they would only be turned loose shortly afterwards, because arresting them and not holding them would only make them worse when they came back. Evans concluded his letter by reminding Manning that the territory between Canaan and Jake's Prairie was "badly rebel." <br/>An warrant for the arrest of Nelson, Pope, and the Sorrel family was issued, but precisely what action was taken has not been determined.<br/> Sources: Union Provost Marshals' Papers, 1860 U.S. Census.Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-60721214974323424962016-10-16T08:24:00.000-07:002016-10-16T08:24:13.894-07:00Lynching of Canada BillDuring the summer and fall of 1886, a half-blood Indian named Jack Barrett worked as a hired hand for various farmers in the Roark neighborhood on Buffalo Creek in northwest McDonald County near the Newton County line. Usually called Canada Bill because he was supposedly born in Canada, Barrett "had a bad reputation," according to a contemporaneous newspaper report, and was described in Sturges's <i>History of McDonald County</i> published 13 years later as "a man of vicious habits and of rather inferior mental faculties."<br/>On Wednesday afternoon, December 15, Canada Bill went to the home of William Robert Roark and found his wife, 28-year-old Samantha, home alone except for one or two small children. When his indecent proposals toward the woman were rebuffed, he attacked her, tearing her clothes partially off, choking her, and badly bruising her. During the struggle, Samantha managed to flee the house but the assault continued until she reached the road about twenty or thirty yards away. Here Mrs. Roark's screams and those of her small children finally "alarmed the scoundrel," according to the <i>Neosho Miner and Mechanic</i>, "and he abandoned his fiendish purpose and fled."<br/>Mrs. Roark immediately ran to the nearest neighbor and gave an alarm, and a posse quickly formed and gave chase. The villain was pursued into nearby Indian Territory and was captured later the same day. Either a U.S. marshal or an Indian policeman (reports differ) made the arrest, and the fugitive was brought back to Missouri and lodged that night under guard at the home of P.P. Rinehart in the Roark neighborhood. Not long after dark, a mob formed and surrounded the house, demanding that the prisoner be turned over to them. Rinehart went outside and pled with the men to leave. Apparently convinced by Rinehart's argument, the men left. Shortly afterward, Canada Bill was started on foot in the company of several guards toward Pineville, the seat of McDonald County. The party halted at the base of a big hill, near where the Seneca to Pineville road crossed Buffalo Creek, and they built a fire to keep warm while two young men named Lager who were among the posse went home to get a team and wagon for the completion of the journey. After waiting in vain for some time for the Lager boys to return, the rest of the posse members resumed the trip on foot. They had gone but a short distance when the mob reappeared and forced the posse to hand over the prisoner.<br/>According to the McDonald County History, Canada Bill freely admitted his crime and said he ought to be sent to the penitentiary, but, sensing the fate that awaited him, he protested that he didn't deserve to be lynched. Nevertheless, he was taken down the road a ways to the edge of a field owned by Sam Owens and hanged to the limb of a black oak tree. The county history said that Canada Bill, in his last moments, "proved himself worthy of the stoical race to which he belonged. Seeing that his captors were devoid of mercy and protests were in vain, he resigned himself to his doom and met death in a spirit worthy of any hero." The guards, who witnessed the hanging, reported that Canada Bill "never uttered a groan or moved a muscle" when the rope was placed around his neck but instead was "drawn up like a log of wood and died as quietly as though he had lain down to a peaceful sleep." He had been guilty of a grievous offense, said the county history, "but grievously did he answer for it."<br/>The body was left hanging throughout the night and was finally cut down late the next day. An inquest was held over the body, but the jury concluded, according to the Neosho newspaper, that "Nothing is known of the parties who executed this act of summary vengeance."<br/>Canada Bill's body was placed in a crude coffin and buried at the top of the nearby hill. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-28888193257942958522016-10-09T07:37:00.000-07:002016-10-09T07:37:40.093-07:00James Wisdom's Murder of William JudyOn the night of December 3, 1883, William Judy, a young man not yet 20 years old, went to a dance on Elk River in McDonald County, Missouri, not far from Saratoga. Sometime during the evening, thirty-eight-year-old James M. Wisdom, who was postmaster of Saratoga and also a deputy sheriff for the county, showed up, according to his own later testimony, for the purpose of arresting a couple of young men for whom he had warrants. Wisdom might or might not have been acting under the auspices of the law, as he later said, but what seems clear is that he himself was drunk and behaving in an unruly fashion.<br/>He flourished a pistol and starting swearing and verbally abusing Judy, who was presumably one of the men the deputy had come to arrest. Wisdom threatened to kill Judy if he didn't get on his horse and let the deputy ride behind. The young man volunteered to walk and let Wisdom ride the horse, but the older man insisted on riding behind Judy and continued to threaten and curse him. Finally Judy mounted up and rode over to a stump so that Wisdom could get on behind him. The two men rode off with Wisdom reaching around the other man to control the reins.<br/>Some people on foot who trailed behind Wisdom and his captive heard shots and soon came upon Judy's dead body along the roadside not far from where the dance had been held. The next morning, Judy's horse was found at Wisdom's home, the deputy apparently having ridden it home after the murder. Wisdom claimed to have no memory of the events of the night before except for arriving at the dance with the warrants.<br/>Wisdom was tried for first degree murder at the April 1884 term of McDonald County Circuit Court and found guilty and sentenced to hang. Wisdom appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court, but the high court upheld the verdict around the first of March 1885 and set the execution for March 27. Governor John S. Marmaduke, however, intervened on March 17 and commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.<br/>Wisdom was received at the Missouri State Prison in Jefferson City on March 24, 1885, to begin serving his life term. In 1887, however, he fell ill, and his family, friends, and a sympathetic physician petitioned for his release, based on their belief that he was in the late stages of consumption (tuberculosis) and had only a few weeks to live. Governor Albert Morehouse pardoned the convicted murderer on October 8, 1887, only two and a half years after he had been committed to prison, and Wisdom went home, supposedly to die. However, he soon regained his health and went on the live many years as a free man, even though he'd been convicted of first degree murder. At the time of the 1900 census, he was living in Oklahoma Territory with his wife and three adult children. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-51707955740636526492016-10-02T08:46:00.000-07:002016-10-02T08:46:03.104-07:00Sheriff Shelt Alsup AgainI have written previously about the Alsup family of Douglas County and especially about Shelt Alsup, who served as sheriff of the county in the mid to late 1870s. Specifically, my book <i>Desperadoes of the Ozarks </i>contains a chapter about the Alsups focusing in particular on the shootout between Sheriff Hardin H. Vickery and ex-sheriff Alsup, which left both men dead, a few months after Vickery had defeated Alsup in his reelection bid in the fall of 1878.<br/>Recently I ran across a newspaper story about an incident involving Shelt Alsup that I was previously unaware of and, therefore, did not include in my <i>Desperadoes</i> book. It involves another shooting affray that occurred in 1876 when Shelt was still sheriff. Late on the night of September 4, 47-year-old John P. Stockton and Sheriff Alsup got into a dispute at the Berry Silvy place in the Arno neighborhood west of Ava. Exactly what the argument was about is unclear, but one report said they quarreled over a card game. Also, a constable said that a couple of weeks earlier he had encountered Stockton on a rural road as he was putting up a "notice to taxpayers" at the sheriff's direction and that Stockton had cursed him and drawn a revolver on him. In addition, Stockton was a fugitive from Dade County, where he was wanted on a charge of assaulting his brother, but Sheriff Alsup said he had no intent to make an arrest and had made no move to do so when Stockton attacked him. Finally, Stockton had reportedly been drinking on the night in question, and it's possible that both men had been imbibing.<br/>Whatever the reason for the confrontation, Stockton yelled at the sheriff, "Damn you, you can't play off on me," pulled his gun, and started shooting. Shelt received several wounds, but he returned fire and, when he ran out of bullets, picked up a rock and knocked his assailant down with it. Stockton sprang up almost immediately, though, and retreated toward the house of Jesse McClain, his 66-year-old brother-in-law.<br/>At the McClain residence, he roused the family and angrily demanded to see Margaret McClain, his 28-year-old niece, because she had supposedly spread some rumor about him. Jesse said his daughter was in bed and told Stockton he couldn't see her, but Stockton checked Margaret's bed for himself and found that she was not there. This angered him even more, and he began using threatening and violent language toward McClain. Stockton's sister, 48-year-old Lydia McClain, tried to calm her brother down and got between him and her husband. Stockton, however, pulled out his revolver, reached the weapon around Lydia, shot McClain, and ran from the house.<br/>A couple of Jesse McClain's sons, including 16-year-old Newton McClain, gave chase, and Newt shot Stockton as he rose up on the far side of a fence. Following her sons outside, Lydia McClain told them, "Boys, don't shoot Uncle Jimmy any more." Seriously wounded but still on his feet, Jesse McClain appeared at the door and added, "Let him alone for he has killed me" and then collapsed in the doorway. Stockton, wounded but still very much alive, then made his getaway.<br/>Meanwhile, Alsup, on his way to Ava to seek medical help, happened by the McClain place shortly after Stockton had arrived. The sheriff heard loud shouting, but he declined to intervene because of his wounded condition. When he reached town, a doctor treated him for two gunshot wounds to the upper left arm and one gunshot wound to the lower right arm. As soon as he was bandaged up, Shelt went back out "on the war-path," according to a report in the <i>Douglas County Leader.</i> Accompanied by a posse of three men, the sheriff set out after Stockton. At the McClain place, the posse found Jesse McClain dead, although he had lived about an hour after collapsing in the doorway. Continuing their pursuit, the posse split into two groups, with Shelt and his father (Lock Alsup) going to the left and Deputy Woods and Jesse Cox going right.<br/>As Woods and Cox neared the Silvy place, where Stockton had assaulted Alsup, Stockton sprang up from behind a pile of brush, spooking Cox's horse, which became uncontrollable and went tearing off through some timber, leaving Woods to confront the fugitive alone. The deputy demanded Stockton's surrender, but Stockton declined the invitation to give himself up. Each man started shooting, and Stockton soon fell mortally wounded with three shots from Woods's rifle.<br/>The next day, McClain and his murderous brother-in-law were buried near each other in the Ritter Cemetery.<br/> Sources: <i>Springfield Leader</i>, <i>Springfield Weekly Patriot</i>, Find-A-Grave entry for Jesse Jasper Newton, census records. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-73070301170729386372016-09-25T13:08:00.000-07:002016-09-25T13:08:29.978-07:00Murder of John Henry BollerOn July 15, 1864, 63-year-old John Henry Boller was driving his horse and buggy into Boonville, Missouri, from his residence west of town when he passed three young men resting under a shade tree at the side of the road. One of the three young men was notorious Johnson County guerrilla Bill Stewart, another one was Stewart's sidekick Al Carter, and the third was a local young hellion named Robert Sloan. Stewart and Carter asked Sloan who the passerby was, and after being informed of the man's identity, Stewart decided to rob him. (The fact that Boller was German-born might have had something to do with Stewart's decision, since Germans were usually very strong Union supporters and were almost universally despised by the Missouri guerrillas.)<br/>Stewart and his two companions caught up with and waylaid Boller about a mile from Boonville. They demanded his money, and Stewart reached for a watch Boller was carrying. Instead, of turning over his money and valuables, though, Boller resisted and started to drive on. Stewart promptly opened fire, hitting Boller four or five times. The bushwhackers then robbed him and also robbed another old man who happened along.<br/>After he was robbed, Boller managed to drive on into Boonville, where a resident noticed his weak, bloody condition and took him into his house. Boller, however, died almost as soon as he got inside. The local militia was notified of the incident and immediately started in pursuit of the three bushwhackers. They overtook Sloan, and one of the Union soldiers shot him in the side of the head. Taken into custody, Sloan did not die of the wound but was left blind by it.<br/>Meanwhile, Stewart and Carter escaped, at least temporarily. Carter and four other guerrillas were killed by Federal soldiers in Howard County on September 12, and Stewart was finally killed by a cattle drover on November 11 at Old Franklin in Howard County just across the Missouri River from Boonville when Stewart attempted to rob the cattleman.<br/>On December 5, 1864, Louisa A. Boller filed an affidavit with officials at Boonville swearing that she was the widow of John Henry Boller, stating that his death had left her destitute and without means of support, and asking that she be given an allowance as compensation for his death. She swore that she had never given aid to anybody in rebellion against the U.S. and had, to the contrary, always been a strong Union woman. Whether any aid was given to Mrs. Boller is unknown. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-77720605453962472002016-09-18T18:21:00.000-07:002016-09-18T18:21:17.150-07:00A Civil War Murder in SpringfieldAs even casual students of the Civil War in Missouri know, the conflict in our state was characterized by bitter guerrilla fighting that spawned rampant lawlessness. Robberies, destruction of property, and even murders were not uncommon. Most of these criminal acts were related at least peripherally to military operations—either committed during the fight for control of the state early in the war or else during Confederate efforts to dislodge the occupying Federal Army after the Union secured Missouri in the spring of 1862. However, some crimes were personally motivated and had little or nothing to do with military operations. In the rural parts of the state, most such outrages were committed by partisans and freebooters who identified at least nominally with the Southern cause. However, crimes in the larger cities, which served as Union posts and headquarters, were also not uncommon, and these were often authored by the Federal soldiers themselves. An example is a shooting affray that occurred in Springfield in the spring of 1862, perhaps the city’s most notorious incident of the Civil War that did not directly involve military operations.<br/>Union sympathizer Mrs. Mary Willis, having lost two sons at the hands of bushwhackers in her home territory of northern Arkansas, sought refuge at Springfield during the latter part of the winter of 1861-1862, and she and her family were placed in a vacant house in the east part of town. Because the house had previously been occupied by “a squad of accommodating girls,” two soldiers were placed as guards at the house to turn away unwelcome visitors. About sundown on the evening of May 21, 1862, duty officer John R. Clark and his orderly, A. J. Rice, both in a state of intoxication, called at the Willis home and demanded dinner. When Mrs. Willis declined to prepare the meal, Captain Clark and his companion grew irate, began cussing, pulled their pistols, and tried to force their way into the house. One of the guards shot Clark through the body, and he staggered back a few steps and fell dead. Rice promptly fired at the guard but missed and hit Mrs. Willis’s daughter, Miss Mary Willis, in the head, killing her instantly. The second guard then shot Rice and wounded him severely. The ball struck him in the breast and ranged up through the shoulder, which was badly shattered.<br/> A Mexican War veteran, Clark was a member of Company B, Fifth Kansas Cavalry, but he and most of the men of his company had been recruited into Federal service from Mercer County, Missouri, where he had served four years as sheriff of the county and had been a delegate to the 1856 Democratic State Convention. Despite the circumstances of his death and despite the fact that he was considered by at least one member of his own regiment “a Pro-Slavery brute” who “ought to have joined the rebels instead of our side,” Clark was buried in Springfield the day after his death with both military and Masonic honors.<br/> Upon initial examination, A.J. Rice’s wound was considered mortal, but he lived long enough to be indicted the following summer in Greene County Circuit Court for the murder of Miss Mary Willis. At the August 1862 term of court, he took a change of venue to Phelps County. He was tried at Rolla in late October and convicted on October 30 of first degree murder. The next day, he appealed and was granted a new trial on November 1. The following April the case was continued, but no record of it has been found after that. Rice might have died before the new trial began, because, according to Holcombe’s 1883 History of Greene County, Rice’s wound “eventually proved fatal.” Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-39286865053793866742016-09-11T13:27:00.000-07:002016-09-11T13:27:42.453-07:00Murder of Peter P. KeenOn or about March 26, 1862, thirty-seven-year-old Peter P. Keen was killed by a gang of bushwhackers in Johnson County, Missouri, in the vicinity of Holden. Members of the gang included Andrew J. Wallace, Joseph Ross, Jack Briscoe, George Smith, and William F. Smith, but nothing was done about the crime at the time because the alleged perpetrators could apparently not be located.<br/>In late December of 1862, however, two and a half years after the crime, an investigation was undertaken after several letters passed through the Holden post office addressed to Andrew J. Wallace, giving his address as Frankford, Illinois. (This might have been a misspelling of Frankfort.) Three citizens of Johnson County, including Keen's widow, promptly offered their testimony about Wallace's involvement in the killing of Peter Keen.<br/>Harriett Keen said she knew Wallace was one of those who had participated in the murder of her husband and that Wallace was known in the area at the time as a notorious bushwhacker.<br/>Elijah Buchanan echoed Mrs. Keen's testimony, saying that, at the time of the murder, he was close enough to the scene of the crime to hear the gunfire, that he saw the gang of bushwhackers immediately afterward, and that Wallace was one of them.<br/>Holden postmaster William Rose (who no doubt was the one who called attention to the letters addressed to Wallace) said that Wallace and his comrades had taken him prisoner on the same day Keen was killed and had threatened to kill him, too. Rose said the bushwhackers spared him only because his father-in-law pled with them to do so. Rose added that the bushwhackers said in his presence that they "would kill every damned Union man in the county" or any man who went among the Federal soldiers. Rose said that Wallace had been a schoolteacher before the war and that he thought he was also teaching school in Illinois.<br/>Apparently Wallace was never brought back to central Missouri to answer the charge of killing Peter Keen, or if he was, he was not detained long. He spent most of his adult life in the Decatur, Illinois, area and died there in 1908. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-35260611611379556862016-09-04T08:44:00.000-07:002016-09-04T08:50:27.813-07:00Maria McKeehan, Another Bushwhacker BelleSometime in the fall of 1863, Union authorities in Johnson County, Missouri, arrested several young men, supposed to be members of what was called the Knob Noster Independent Company, as bushwhackers and as suspects in the murder of a man named William Dillingham. Twenty-four-year-old Maria McKeehan (spelled Mariah in Union records) was arrested near the same time for aiding and abetting them.<br/>In December of 1863, Dr. James M. Mitchell of Knob Noster gave a statement to Union authorities against Maria. Presumably he was compelled to do so, since he himself was a Southern sympathizer.<br/>Dr. Mitchell said that on the 9th of August, he was called to the home of Catherine Hart, Maria's married sister, located in the Bristle Ridge neighborhood about six miles southwest of Knob Noster, because a family named Jones who was staying there had a sick child. While Dr. Mitchell was at the Hart residence, Maria, whose parents lived about two miles east of Knob Noster but who was then staying with her sister, asked Dr. Mitchell for a bottle of medicine for her sick brother, who was in the bush with the bushwhackers. Maria informed the doctor that she had been to the bushwhackers' camp that very morning and that the guerrillas told her that they had killed Dillingham earlier the same morning about two miles from her sister's home. (Dillingham was indeed killed on the morning of August 9 at his home near Bristle Ridge and his body was found "shot into holes" about 30 yards from his house.)<br/>Maria further stated that she regularly fed the bushwhackers and aided them with medicine and information. She told Dr. Mitchell that she had heard one of the bushwhackers, Sam Whitley, threaten to kill him (i.e. Dr. Mitchell) because he would not come into the bush to administer to the bushwhackers' medical needs, and she told the doctor which road to take back to Knob Noster to avoid the guerrillas. Dr. Mitchell said the reason he thought Maria had helped him was that he had been kind to her aged father and had been the family doctor for a number of years. <br/>A Union official noted on Mitchell's deposition that the doctor was a truthful man, even though he was "secesh." <br/>Apparently little more ever happened in Maria McKeehan's case, as I have been unable to find any record of her having been shipped to St. Louis for banishment or trial as many women arrested during the Civil War for helping Missouri's guerrillas were. And that's why I did not include her in my <i>Bushwhacker Belles</i> book published earlier this year. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-59264049079927539732016-08-28T11:12:00.000-07:002016-08-28T11:12:58.949-07:00A Civil War Murder at New TennesseeAround the middle of July, 1864, a young man named Eli Vansickles was arrested by Union authorities at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, on suspicion of having been an accessory to the murder of a school teacher in the New Tennessee settlement of Ste. Genevieve County in the fall of 1861. On July 20th, an anonymous letter writer told officials that he knew several people who were knowledgeable about the murder, and he forwarded the names of Thomas Arendall, Arendall's wife, and Joseph Townsend as possible witnesses.<br/>Authorities apparently did not locate Joseph Townsend, but they did take a statement from his older brother, John Townsend, on July 29. John Townsend told them that he lived in the New Tennessee settlement (located in the southern part of Ste. Genevieve County) and that it was "generally known in the neighborhood that Andrew Burnett, a rebel, murdered the man and that Eli Vansickles, now under arrest as accessory to said murder, was at the time and place in company with said Burnett and that said Eli Vansickles is also a rebel and was in the Rebel Army."<br/>John Townsend went on to say that, after the murder, he and Joseph Townsend (whom he did not identify as his brother) went to the place where the body was lying dead, that Joseph Townsend helped bury the corpse, that he saw Joseph Townsend take a watch and some other articles off the body before the burial, and that, as far as he knew, Joseph Townsend had never accounted to anyone for those items.<br/> The same day, July 29, William Thomas Arendall also gave a deposition in which he stated that he knew Andrew Burnett, now deceased, was the person who killed the school teacher (name not given), and he recalled the date of the murder as approximately November 1, 1861. He said the school teacher was just passing through and was shot down about 300 yards from his (Arendall's) house. Later that same evening, Arendall saw Burnett at a mill about three-fourths of a mile from where the murder had occurred and that Burnett told him that he was the one who had killed the man and that Vansickles was with him when he did it. Burnett, according to Arendall's testimony, said that both he and Vansickles belonged to Jeff Thompson's Rebel army.<br/>Whether Vansickles (sometimes spelled Van Sickles or Van Sickle) was ever punished for his part in the crime and, if so, how severely, is not known. What is known is that Vansickles continued to live in Ste. Genevieve County after the war and died there on the last day of 1882 after "a long, painful illness." Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-11328624437505575452016-08-21T08:34:00.000-07:002016-08-21T08:34:15.106-07:00Lynching of Abraham W. SmithAbraham W. Smith was convicted of murder in Madison County, Missouri, sometime around the early part of 1844. (I have yet to learn the details of his alleged crime.) He was sentenced to hang at the end of June, but the sentence was stayed until September 1. Apparently upset by the slow-turning wheels of justice, a mob tried to execute Smith around the first of June (probably near the time the stay was announced), but they were deterred by another group of citizens. <br/>However, on August 5, a drunken mob broke into the county jail at Fredericktown with axes, crowbars, and other tools. One of the gang went down into the dungeon-like cell, where the prisoner was held in irons, and placed a rope around Smith's neck. The rest of the mob hauled him up by the rope and then dragged him down some stairs and outside to a walnut tree located about fifty yards from the jail. Notwithstanding the fact that he was apparently already dead by the time they reached the tree, the mob strung him up to the tree and let him hang for several minutes. They then let him down, but one of the gang, suspecting Smith might still be alive, insisted that they hang him again. The body was accordingly strung back up until the bloodthirsty mob was sufficiently convinced that life was extinct. <br/>That very night, an inquest was held over Smith's body, and the jury returned a verdict that he had come to his death at the hands of a mob that included men named Jones, Sinclair, Mayse, Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, and Shetley, as well as five other men. Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, Shetley and one other man suspected in the vigilante execution were promptly arrested. Several days later Mayse was spotted at St. Mary's Landing, a small community on the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve County. It was presumed he was trying to catch a boat to make his escape. Around the first of October, John Sinclair was recognized on the streets of St. Louis and arrested. Accused of being the man who had placed the rope around Smith's neck, he was taken back to Madison County, where he and several of the other men involved in the lynching of Smith were indicted on charges of murder. However, I have so far been unable to determine the outcome of their cases.<br/> Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-52419282985446455752016-08-14T09:01:00.000-07:002016-08-14T09:01:56.795-07:00Martha Misner and the Plain View HotelSometime during the first half of 1895, seventy-year-old Martha Misner and her husband, Henry, moved into Springfield, Missouri, from an outlying farm and took up quarters in some rooms over a store near the corner of Campbell and College streets. The couple didn't sell their rural property but instead used it to secure one or more loans that they took out. They also owned a house at 895 Franklin Avenue in the north part of Springfield, which they rented out to Belle Wilson. Belle, who had a notorious reputation as a prostitute and madam in Springfield dating back to the 1870s, ran the place as a bawdy house.<br/>Martha decided to start her own "sporting business," renting out one or more of her upstairs rooms as trysting places. Police raided the Misner rooms not long after Martha and Henry moved in and arrested two men and two young women whom they found in bed together. (It's not clear that Henry was living with Martha at this time. He might have still been living on the rural property.) <br/>Henry Misner died in 1896, and Belle Wilson vacated the house on Franklin about the same time. Martha moved out of the rooms at Campbell and College and took over the Franklin Avenue property, continuing to run it as a bawdy house. Not long after Martha took possession of the place, a policeman stopped by to levy a fine against her (which was the normal cost of doing business), and Martha told him she couldn't afford to let the house sit idle and that "this is the only way I can get any income from it."<br/>Martha was indeed facing financial difficulty. Within a year or two after her husband died, she defaulted on the loans they had taken out against their farm, and the rural property was put up for sale at auction to pay off the debts.<br/>Apparently Martha simply doubled down on her prostitution business in order to stay afloat financially. In 1899, her "boardinghouse" on Franklin was still going strong as the main bawdy house in Springfield. Often called the Plain View Hotel, its name hinted at its method of operation. Gentlemen callers were received by Rosa Cameron, who managed the place for Martha and also entertained guests herself on occasion. Rosa would summon the girls from the upstairs rooms to come downstairs and line up in "plain view" so that the men could pick out the girl they wanted. The customers paid Rosa before escorting the girl of their choice back upstairs. They were charged from $1.00 to $5.00, depending on how long they stayed and other factors, and at the end of each day, Rosa gave half of the money back to the girls in accordance with how much each one had brought in. One girl testified to a grand jury that she usually brought in about $60 to $100 a month, which she had to split with Martha to pay for her room and board. Occasionally Martha or one of her girls might be summoned to police court, but usually they simply paid periodic fines ranging from $6 to $10 directly to police officers. In other words, prostitution was a money-making operation not just for the girls and the madams but for the cops as well. If any of Martha's girls wanted to leave the Plain View at night, they normally had to pay the madam $2.50 as compensation for the lost income.<br/>Martha Misner continued to operate the Plain View Hotel, or the White House as it was also called, until at least 1908. It was one of the few authentic bordellos in Springfield, if not the only one, during the turn-of-century era, although a large number of sporting girls worked out of boardinghouses and hotels on a freelance basis during the aughts and teens. Martha Misner died in July 1912 and is buried at Hazelwood Cemetery beside her husband, Henry. For more information on Martha Misner and Springfield prostitution in general, see my book <i>Wicked Springfield, Missouri.</i> Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5617745107547433863.post-51111995144452772562016-08-07T10:31:00.000-07:002016-08-07T10:34:09.410-07:00Murder of Jacob WoolfordI have written quite a bit about murders and other incidents of violence in Missouri and surrounding states during the late 1800s that were motivated largely by personal and political hatred left over from the Civil War, but of course there were even more such incidents that occurred during the war. One was the killing of Jacob Woolford in Reynolds County, Missouri, in August of 1861.<br/>On Monday, August 26, a party of about ten Southern men called at a mill run by Jacob Woolford on one of the forks of the Black River north of Lesterville. Woolford was a Union sympathizer who had apparently incurred the ire of one or more of the Southern men. When he appeared at the door of his mill, several of the men opened fire killing him almost instantly. After the murder, the gang found two Union soldiers at the mill and took them prisoner.<br/>The identity of the killers remained unknown or unclear for a number of months. Finally, during the latter part of 1862, Edmond Falkenberry was arrested as a suspect in the murder, and he gave a full statement about the crime to the provost marshal at Pilot Knob on December 5, 1862. He named himself, James Stout, James A. McClurg, E.G. Clay, John Quigley, Joseph Quigley, Albert Wilson, William Wilson, Tolbert Hunt, Thomas Falkenberry (Edmond's brother), and William H. Copeland as participants in the incident. Edmond Falkenberry said that John Quigley was the "captain" of their squad, and he identified James McClurg and William Wilson as two of the principals in the actual murder. He said McClurg fired the first shot, and that Albert Wilson later told him that he (Wilson) had fired the shot that actually killed Woolford. Falkenberry himself claimed not to have been on the immediate premises of the mill when Woolford was shot but instead was some distance away. He also said that, as far as he knew, his group only planned to capture Woolford and take him south, either as a prisoner or a conscript, to the camp of Brigadier General William J. Hardee, who was organizing troops for the Confederacy in Arkansas. Falkenberry said he did not know that any of his comrades wanted to kill Woolford.<br/>Sometime around the first part of 1863, James Stout and James McClurg were arrested for their part in the crime, tried and convicted by military commission, and sentenced to death. The two were shipped to St. Louis to await the execution of the sentence, but McClurg escaped, either in route or shortly after arrival. Stout also escaped a short time later. <br/>William Copeland surrendered voluntarily about the time of Falkenberry's statement and was held for his part in the killing of Woolford. He was sent to St. Louis with a recommendation for lenient treatment since he had surrendered voluntarily and had complied with the terms of his parole. He later was either tried and found not guilty or was pardoned and released. Falkenberry and his brother also appear to have been given lenient treatment in the Woolford killing.<br/>Most of the rest of the men involved, however, remained at large, and they had still not been captured in February 1869, four years after the war, when Missouri governor Joseph W. McClurg offered a reward of two hundred dollars each for their apprehension. Apparently, however, they were never brought to justice. Larry Woodhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12024182801689417267noreply@blogger.com0