After Dr. Perry Talbott was shot on Saturday night, September 18, 1880, through the window of his home about seven miles south of Maryville, Missouri, investigators rushed to the scene to see the critically wounded victim and learn what they could about the incident.
They found the doctor still clinging to life, and when asked who had shot him, Talbott, an outspoken supporter of the Greenback Party, offered a vague opinion that some “enemy of the great cause” sent out by the national banks had done it.
After lingering in pain, Talbott died the next day. A coroner’s jury concluded he’d been killed by unknown parties, but over the next few weeks many people began to suspect that Talbott’s sons, twenty-one-year Albert “Bud” and sixteen-year-old Charles Edward, had murdered their own father. At least one of the brothers had recently argued with the father, and it was also speculated that the boys might have killed the father to protect their mother, Belle, whom the doctor reportedly mistreated.
Detectives were put on the case, and one of them, Jonas Brighton, found work under the name of Hudson on a farm neighboring the Talbott place. Brighton and his wife, Virginia, whom he represented as his sister, moved into a tenant house on the farm and quickly became acquainted with the Talbott brothers. According to later reports, “Miss Hudson” feigned romantic interest in Bud to gain his confidence, and he soon confessed his involvement in his father’s murder.
Brighton promptly relayed the news of Bud Talbott’s confession to Nodaway County authorities. He also told officials the Talbott brothers had offered him $50 to kill the Talbotts’ hired hand, Henry Wyatt, because he was in on the murder and they were afraid he would give them away.
Acting on Brighton’s statement and other evidence, Sheriff Henry Toel arrested the Talbott brothers and Henry Wyatt on October 26 and escorted them to the Nodaway County Jail in Maryville. A preliminary examination began on the 27th.
At the hearing, Brighton described how he and his wife had inveigled their way into the Talbott boys’ confidence and the brothers had revealed their secrets to them.
Belle’s brother-in-law Wilford Mitchell, who was in on Brighton’s scheme to trap the Talbott boys, also took the stand to testify against the brothers. He added that Belle had previously confided to him that Dr. Talbott abused her.
Henry Wyatt also testified, claiming that he was not in on the shooting but that the Talbott boys told him about it afterward.
At the close of the preliminary hearing, Bud Talbott, Ed Talbott, and Henry Wyatt were held on first degree murder charges, Bud as the principal and the other two as accessories before the fact. All three were committed to jail without bail. Although Belle Talbott was suspected of knowing about the plot but not actively participating in it, the grand jury declined to indict her.
Wyatt’s case was severed from that of the Talbott brothers, and when the Talbott trial got underway in January 1881, Wyatt, striking a deal, was one of the main witnesses against the boys. Jonas Brighton was also a principal witness, as was his wife. The defense attacked Brighton’s credibility, because he was an ex-convict and all-around desperado. The defense also attacked Virginia Brighton’s character. The defense theory of the crime was that Wilford Mitchell, Bellle’s brother-in-law, had hired Wyatt to commit the crime.
On January 28, the jury declared the brothers guilty of first degree murder. They were sentenced to hang on March 25. An appeal to the state supreme court automatically stayed the execution. In late April, the high court affirmed the verdict of the lower court and rescheduled the hanging for June 24.
As the execution date neared, many people pleaded with Missouri governor Thomas Crittenden to intercede. Even Brighton and Wyatt thought the boys deserved mercy. Belle Talbott traveled to Jefferson City to meet personally with the governor, but he still declined to intervene.
Until the very last minute.
All preparations for the hanging had been made and a large crowd had already gathered to witness it on the morning of the 24th when the sheriff received a telegram from Jeff City postponing the execution until July 22. It was feared for a time that vigilantes might try to hang the brothers anyway, but no such mob formed.
On July 5, Ed Talbott signed a sworn statement confessing that he had fired the shot that killed his father when he found his father beating his mother and her crying for help.
Bud Talbott signed an affidavit saying that Ed’s statement was true as far as he knew, from the time he entered the house, and he admitted helping cover up the crime. He said he’d been willing to die alongside Ed if his brother preferred to keep the secret, but now that Ed had confessed he was hereby confirming that part of the confession he knew about.
Many observers believed the boys’ affidavits showed “beyond all question the true state of facts” surrounding Dr. Talbott’s murder. But others thought the confession was a self-serving, phony plea for mercy.
Governor Crittenden was among those not persuaded. He said that if Ed Talbott’s confession was true, then his and his brother’s previous defense, including their appeals to the supreme court and to the governor, was based on a falsehood; that the boys had ample opportunity to tell the truth before now; and that he was not inclined to grant clemency based on a last-minute appeal that might also be a falsehood. The governor cited the fact that Mrs. Talbott had not confirmed Ed’s confession as strong evidence of its untruth.
On the evening of July 20, just a day and a half before the scheduled hanging, Bud Talbott issued a detailed confession retracting what Ed had said two weeks earlier, once again fingering Henry Wyatt as the person who’d shot Dr. Talbott, and naming Mitchell as an accomplice. Bud’s latest story turned many people against the Talbotts and soured the faith of those who’d previously argued for clemency.
On July 22, Bud and Ed Talbott, declaring their innocence to the very last, were escorted to a scaffold on a hill just northeast of Maryville and launched into eternity before 12,000-15,000 gaping spectators.
This story is a greatly condensed version of a chapter in my latest book Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri.
Sunday, October 28, 2018
Saturday, October 20, 2018
For God’s Sake, Give Me a Chance: The Lynching of Walter Mitchell
On Thursday evening August 6, 1925, twenty-one-year-old Leonard Utt and his teenage girlfriend, Maud Holt, attended a social event at Excelsior Springs, Missouri. About midnight, as Leonard was driving the girl to her home near Lawson, several miles north of Excelsior Springs, a black man waved the couple down, knocked Utt senseless, and tried to sexually assault Maud but was scared off by her screams and flailing.
The assailant fled toward Excelsior Springs, and when a black man was found asleep in a vacant house in Excelsior Springs early the next morning, Utt identified him as the attacker. The suspect was taken to the city jail, where he was identified as Walter Mitchell (aka Miller Mitchell), a thirty-three-year-old black man originally from Meridian, Mississippi.
Maud Holt was summoned to Excelsior Springs, and she, too, identified Mitchell as the man who had attacked her. Mitchell’s arraignment on an assault charge was set for 2:00 p.m. that afternoon.
As word of the attack on Maud and the identification of a suspect spread, angry citizens poured into Excelsior Springs throughout the morning of August 7. As the mob increased in numbers and became more threatening, Chief of Police John F. Craven and several deputies attempted to remove the prisoner to safety through a basement door but were turned back by members of the mob.
Shortly before noon, Clay County prosecutor Raymond Cummins was notified at Liberty of the tense situation in Excelsior Springs, and he immediately set out for the scene. Upon arrival, Cummins pled with the mob not to resort to violence. He organized a committee of citizens and law officers to speak directly with Charles Holt, Maud’s father. Holt was brought into the city hall, but Holt declined an invitation to help escort Mitchell to safety.
About 2:00 p.m., Cummins, realizing that mob action was imminent, called the Kansas City police and asked for reinforcements. A riot squad of over fifty officers was dispatched to Excelsior Springs.
Before they could arrive, however, the mob, now numbering about 500 men, broke into the jail about 3:00 p.m. and knocked the lock off Mitchell’s cell with a sledgehammer. They dragged the prisoner outside, brushing aside a token resistance from the guards. Despite being handcuffed, Mitchell screamed and resisted as he was dragged into the street.
A few men lifted the prisoner above their heads and started down the street with him, carrying him a short distance in that manner before setting him back down and forcing him to walk. As the lynch mob and their victim marched past the Elms Hotel, the town’s most fashionable mineral-water resort, tourists and health seekers gawked at the terrible parade.
A rope was fastened around the doomed man’s neck as he was dragged along, and when the vigilantes reached an oak tree near the south edge of town, the leader of the mob asked Mitchell if he had anything to say. He replied, “Yes, I’m guilty, but for God’s sake give me a chance.”
But the ruthless mob had no intention of giving Mitchell a chance. One of the gang climbed up the oak tree and tossed the other end of the rope over a high limb. Mitchell continued to squirm and moan, even as “willing hands” drew him several feet into the air. He died, though, within three or four minutes, and the mob promptly dispersed.
The first police reinforcements from Kansas City arrived about ten minutes too late to prevent the lynching. They cut down Mitchell’s body, and it was taken to a local undertaker’s office, where a long line of people stood in the street outside waiting to view it.
Clay County officials declined to investigate the lynching, despite the fact that Chief Craven and others said they knew who the leaders of the mob were. The Missouri governer then stepped in and ordered an investigation. A grand jury was subsequently held, but it was discharged after 100 witnesses were examined and “no one remembered who actually pulled the rope that took Mitchell’s life.”
This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri History.
The assailant fled toward Excelsior Springs, and when a black man was found asleep in a vacant house in Excelsior Springs early the next morning, Utt identified him as the attacker. The suspect was taken to the city jail, where he was identified as Walter Mitchell (aka Miller Mitchell), a thirty-three-year-old black man originally from Meridian, Mississippi.
Maud Holt was summoned to Excelsior Springs, and she, too, identified Mitchell as the man who had attacked her. Mitchell’s arraignment on an assault charge was set for 2:00 p.m. that afternoon.
As word of the attack on Maud and the identification of a suspect spread, angry citizens poured into Excelsior Springs throughout the morning of August 7. As the mob increased in numbers and became more threatening, Chief of Police John F. Craven and several deputies attempted to remove the prisoner to safety through a basement door but were turned back by members of the mob.
Shortly before noon, Clay County prosecutor Raymond Cummins was notified at Liberty of the tense situation in Excelsior Springs, and he immediately set out for the scene. Upon arrival, Cummins pled with the mob not to resort to violence. He organized a committee of citizens and law officers to speak directly with Charles Holt, Maud’s father. Holt was brought into the city hall, but Holt declined an invitation to help escort Mitchell to safety.
About 2:00 p.m., Cummins, realizing that mob action was imminent, called the Kansas City police and asked for reinforcements. A riot squad of over fifty officers was dispatched to Excelsior Springs.
Before they could arrive, however, the mob, now numbering about 500 men, broke into the jail about 3:00 p.m. and knocked the lock off Mitchell’s cell with a sledgehammer. They dragged the prisoner outside, brushing aside a token resistance from the guards. Despite being handcuffed, Mitchell screamed and resisted as he was dragged into the street.
A few men lifted the prisoner above their heads and started down the street with him, carrying him a short distance in that manner before setting him back down and forcing him to walk. As the lynch mob and their victim marched past the Elms Hotel, the town’s most fashionable mineral-water resort, tourists and health seekers gawked at the terrible parade.
A rope was fastened around the doomed man’s neck as he was dragged along, and when the vigilantes reached an oak tree near the south edge of town, the leader of the mob asked Mitchell if he had anything to say. He replied, “Yes, I’m guilty, but for God’s sake give me a chance.”
But the ruthless mob had no intention of giving Mitchell a chance. One of the gang climbed up the oak tree and tossed the other end of the rope over a high limb. Mitchell continued to squirm and moan, even as “willing hands” drew him several feet into the air. He died, though, within three or four minutes, and the mob promptly dispersed.
The first police reinforcements from Kansas City arrived about ten minutes too late to prevent the lynching. They cut down Mitchell’s body, and it was taken to a local undertaker’s office, where a long line of people stood in the street outside waiting to view it.
Clay County officials declined to investigate the lynching, despite the fact that Chief Craven and others said they knew who the leaders of the mob were. The Missouri governer then stepped in and ordered an investigation. A grand jury was subsequently held, but it was discharged after 100 witnesses were examined and “no one remembered who actually pulled the rope that took Mitchell’s life.”
This story is condensed from a chapter in my latest book, Show-Me Atrocities: Infamous Incidents in Missouri History.
Saturday, October 13, 2018
Joplin's Ku Klux Klan Cave
The Ku Klux Klan, as most people know, arose in the aftermath of the Civil War, ostensibly as a law-and-order organization, but it ended up dishing out its brand of justice in a discriminatory manner, mainly targeting freed slaves. The group fell out of favor after a few years as its racist tendencies became increasingly clear.
However, the KKK enjoyed a revival starting about 1915, and in 1921 a local conclave of the secret organization was formed in Joplin. The organizational meeting at Schifferdecker Park drew an estimated crowd of 1,500 people. Not long after the local conclave was formed, the group purchased a cave near Belleville a few miles west of Joplin (a couple of miles north of Seventh Street on Malang Road). The first specific references to the cave in local newspapers that I've found come from 1924, but it's clear from the context of these references that the cave had already been in use as a KKK meeting place for some time.
In 1922, members of the Joplin conclave traveled to Fantastic Caverns, where they conducted the initiation rituals for 125 new inductees into the Springfield conclave. So apparently caves were a favorite meeting place for KKK conclaves. I suppose that was because they were conducive to secrecy.
During the early 1920s, the KKK was often seen as a patriotic, law-and-order organization, and it won widespread acceptance. Many of its members held positions of leadership in churches and local government, and its membership even included well-known national politicians. In 1923, the KKK Imperial Wizard, the group's national leader, visited Joplin, and the local conclave held a parade on Main Street.
The Joplin KKK was definitely not without its opposition, however. In late 1923 or early 1924, a local anti-Klan group arose, and in the spring 1924 school and city elections, the anti-KKK organization mounted a strong campaign against the Klan and for its own members to be elected to the school board and to city commissions. The group charged that the Klan was dividing the city, threatening the local institutions of government, intimidating citizens, and endangering their liberties. "Will you vote for a continuance of this condition," one anti-Klan newspaper ad challenged, "or do you desire release from this stranglehold of a group...who have so dominated our city affairs that you have no voice in its administration, and must perforce accept the dictates of a secret society that issues its edicts from the Ku Klux Klan cave at Belville." In another ad, the anti-group appealed to the people to oppose "the domination of churches by secret cricles taking orders from the Cave at Belville" and for them to vote for government conducted in the open light of day. Apparently, however, the KKK still held sway in Joplin, because all the candidates endorsed by the anti-Klan group lost.
On the national level, though, the Klan was already starting to lose influence, just as it had after its brief period of popularity in the wake of the Civil War. The group was again exposed as a discriminatory organization that was anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-foreigner. It soon faded into the background, in Joplin as well as the rest of the country, and the old cave fell into disuse.
In the summer of 1939, a fiery cross was burned near the intersection of 4th and Maiden Lane, and rumors of an attempt to revive the local KKK circulated. A couple of days after the cross burning, Joplin detectives trekked out to the former KKK cave but found no signs of recent activity. The pathway leading to the cave was so obscured by weeds that it was scarcely visible, and the iron door across the entrance was padlocked. The lawmen got inside somehow, though, and discovered a room large enough to hold about 2,000 people.
In 1940, with World War II on the horizon, some Joplin city officials proposed to the federal government that the old KKK cave be used as a war industry site, perhaps a munitions plant. The local officials said the cave was two miles long with openings at both ends and that it was 20 to 30 feet high and could be widened to 20 to 50 feet, so that vehicles could be driven through it. The government rejected the proposal, however.
In the spring of 1956, a beer party at the old cave by a large number of young people got busted by police when a resident living near the cave reported the young people for disturbing the peace. About 35 young people were arrested, while another 60-70 left before they could be rounded up. Of the ones arrested, over 20 of them were charged with disturbing the peace. Two nights later, a carload of young men returned to the old cave and were harassing the man who'd called the police, driving past his house and calling him vile names, when he responded by firing a shotgun at the car, wounding a 17-year-old boy in the vehicle. The boy was not seriously hurt, though, and no charges were filed in the case, at least not in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
In the spring of 1971, a group of Memorial High School students went out to the old KKK cave and cleaned up the premises as a project for Earth Week.
In 1980, someone wrote to the Joplin Globe proposing that the KKK cave should be preserved as a historical site. A day or two later, someone else fired off a response, asking why anyone would want to preserve a monstrosity that amounted to little more than a pile of rocks.
In 1989, the Klan cave, along with ten surrounding acres, was sold at auction.
Maybe the person who bought it was a member of the Fir Road Christian Church, because a few years later, in 1996, the church used the old cave as a site for its Easter morning sunrise services. The following year, the same church presented a crucifixion drama at the cave.
In recent years, the cave, dubbed the Old Haunted Belleville Cave, has been used as a commercial spook house during the Halloween season. In fact, I think it's open right now. Not this very instant, but probably tonight.
However, the KKK enjoyed a revival starting about 1915, and in 1921 a local conclave of the secret organization was formed in Joplin. The organizational meeting at Schifferdecker Park drew an estimated crowd of 1,500 people. Not long after the local conclave was formed, the group purchased a cave near Belleville a few miles west of Joplin (a couple of miles north of Seventh Street on Malang Road). The first specific references to the cave in local newspapers that I've found come from 1924, but it's clear from the context of these references that the cave had already been in use as a KKK meeting place for some time.
In 1922, members of the Joplin conclave traveled to Fantastic Caverns, where they conducted the initiation rituals for 125 new inductees into the Springfield conclave. So apparently caves were a favorite meeting place for KKK conclaves. I suppose that was because they were conducive to secrecy.
During the early 1920s, the KKK was often seen as a patriotic, law-and-order organization, and it won widespread acceptance. Many of its members held positions of leadership in churches and local government, and its membership even included well-known national politicians. In 1923, the KKK Imperial Wizard, the group's national leader, visited Joplin, and the local conclave held a parade on Main Street.
The Joplin KKK was definitely not without its opposition, however. In late 1923 or early 1924, a local anti-Klan group arose, and in the spring 1924 school and city elections, the anti-KKK organization mounted a strong campaign against the Klan and for its own members to be elected to the school board and to city commissions. The group charged that the Klan was dividing the city, threatening the local institutions of government, intimidating citizens, and endangering their liberties. "Will you vote for a continuance of this condition," one anti-Klan newspaper ad challenged, "or do you desire release from this stranglehold of a group...who have so dominated our city affairs that you have no voice in its administration, and must perforce accept the dictates of a secret society that issues its edicts from the Ku Klux Klan cave at Belville." In another ad, the anti-group appealed to the people to oppose "the domination of churches by secret cricles taking orders from the Cave at Belville" and for them to vote for government conducted in the open light of day. Apparently, however, the KKK still held sway in Joplin, because all the candidates endorsed by the anti-Klan group lost.
On the national level, though, the Klan was already starting to lose influence, just as it had after its brief period of popularity in the wake of the Civil War. The group was again exposed as a discriminatory organization that was anti-black, anti-Catholic, and anti-foreigner. It soon faded into the background, in Joplin as well as the rest of the country, and the old cave fell into disuse.
In the summer of 1939, a fiery cross was burned near the intersection of 4th and Maiden Lane, and rumors of an attempt to revive the local KKK circulated. A couple of days after the cross burning, Joplin detectives trekked out to the former KKK cave but found no signs of recent activity. The pathway leading to the cave was so obscured by weeds that it was scarcely visible, and the iron door across the entrance was padlocked. The lawmen got inside somehow, though, and discovered a room large enough to hold about 2,000 people.
In 1940, with World War II on the horizon, some Joplin city officials proposed to the federal government that the old KKK cave be used as a war industry site, perhaps a munitions plant. The local officials said the cave was two miles long with openings at both ends and that it was 20 to 30 feet high and could be widened to 20 to 50 feet, so that vehicles could be driven through it. The government rejected the proposal, however.
In the spring of 1956, a beer party at the old cave by a large number of young people got busted by police when a resident living near the cave reported the young people for disturbing the peace. About 35 young people were arrested, while another 60-70 left before they could be rounded up. Of the ones arrested, over 20 of them were charged with disturbing the peace. Two nights later, a carload of young men returned to the old cave and were harassing the man who'd called the police, driving past his house and calling him vile names, when he responded by firing a shotgun at the car, wounding a 17-year-old boy in the vehicle. The boy was not seriously hurt, though, and no charges were filed in the case, at least not in the immediate aftermath of the incident.
In the spring of 1971, a group of Memorial High School students went out to the old KKK cave and cleaned up the premises as a project for Earth Week.
In 1980, someone wrote to the Joplin Globe proposing that the KKK cave should be preserved as a historical site. A day or two later, someone else fired off a response, asking why anyone would want to preserve a monstrosity that amounted to little more than a pile of rocks.
In 1989, the Klan cave, along with ten surrounding acres, was sold at auction.
Maybe the person who bought it was a member of the Fir Road Christian Church, because a few years later, in 1996, the church used the old cave as a site for its Easter morning sunrise services. The following year, the same church presented a crucifixion drama at the cave.
In recent years, the cave, dubbed the Old Haunted Belleville Cave, has been used as a commercial spook house during the Halloween season. In fact, I think it's open right now. Not this very instant, but probably tonight.
Sunday, October 7, 2018
The Tramp Became a Demon
About 6:00 p.m. on September 2, 1896, Alice Gammon, an eleven or twelve-year-old deaf girl, left the canning factory in Rhineland, Missouri, where she worked, and started on foot to her home a half mile away. Meanwhile, a “tramp mechanic” named Tom Larkin had arrived in Rhineland by rail early that morning with two companions, and they spent the day repairing gasoline stoves for whoever would hire them. Late in the afternoon, Larkin left his two companions in Rhineland and walked out into the surrounding countryside alone.
Shortly after leaving the factory, Alice noticed someone following her. As she neared her home, the path she was on took her into a thicket of woods, and halfway through it, the man who’d been following her made a rush toward her. Seizing Alice, he threw her to the ground and smothered her cries with her skirts. The girl struggled and fought, as the assailant, in the words of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “clutched her throat and pressed his sharp finger nails into the soft white flesh until the blood came.
“Failing in his design,” the St. Louis newspaper continued, “the tramp became a demon.” He pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed Alice, then withdrew the bloody blade and plunged it into her flesh again.
The attacker then released the girl and dashed into the woods.
Weak and bleeding from the attack, Alice staggered and crawled to her nearby home, where she told her eight-year-old sister what had happened, and the little girl summoned help.
After a doctor treated Alice, she revived enough to describe her assailant. Constable William Dixon found a man answering the description at the railroad depot about 300 yards from the scene of the assault. The suspect stoutly denied the attack, but his missing finger, which Alice had mentioned, was convincing evidence. In addition, the constable took the suspect to Alice’s house, and she positively identified him.
Since Rhineland was a small village with no jail, Dixon escorted the suspect to the town’s only hotel and placed him under guard in one of the rooms. The prisoner identified himself as Thomas Larkin from Chicago.
Larkin had scarcely been confined when word spread that the doctor attending Alice had said her wounds were likely fatal. The people of Rhineland began collecting near the hotel and plotting to take Larkin from his guards so they might visit a swift vengeance upon him. The deliberate German folks of Rhineland took several hours talking over the matter, while Larkin moaned and quaked in fear.
After midnight, the crowd, now swollen in numbers, began to grow impatient. About 3:00 a.m. on the morning of September 3 they started toward the hotel with a rope. Constable Dixon came out in front of the hotel to plead with them, and they finally disbanded. For the time being.
After daylight, though, more citizens from the surrounding countryside poured into town, and by mid-morning, Dixon realized he and his deputies could not hold off the horde for long. He sent for the Montgomery County sheriff, but before the sheriff could arrive, reports of indecent proposals Larkin had made toward other women began to circulate.
By the time the sheriff arrived in the late afternoon, the crowd at Rhineland had grown so large and so indignant that the lawman was unable to remove the prisoner as he had planned, but his presence helped deter the would-be lynchers from trying to act during the daytime.
About ten o’clock that night, though, word reached the mob that Alice Gammon was dying. Whether the report was valid and the girl did, in fact, later die is not clear, but the mere rumor of Alice’s impending death was sufficient to incite the horde to action.
Eight or ten masked men, one of them toting a long rope, advanced out of the crowd and started battering the front door. The sheriff, the constable, and a deputy were on the other side of the door, and when it yielded, the officers put up a stiff resistance, knocking one of the besiegers down. The other vigilantes, though, overpowered the lawmen and quickly located Larkin. They tossed the rope around his neck with a running noose and half-dragged, half-carried him outside as he struggled for his life. The mob took him to a spot about 200 yards east of the railway station and just north of the track near the woods where Alice Gammon had been attacked.
The other end of the rope was thrown over a limb of an oak tree at the edge of the woods, and the howling mob grasped the rope and drew Larkin up. They left him dangling beneath the limbs of the tree for passengers and crew to see as they passed on the nearby railroad tracks. When a freight train went through Rhineland after daylight on the morning of September 4, about seven hours after the lynching, Larkin’s body was still swinging from the limb, and a number of curious onlookers were standing nearby gawking at the grisly sight.
This story is condensed from a chapter in my book Show-Me Atrocities: Lynchings and Hangings in Missouri.
This month marks ten years that I've been doing this blog. Hope I'm still around in another ten years.
Shortly after leaving the factory, Alice noticed someone following her. As she neared her home, the path she was on took her into a thicket of woods, and halfway through it, the man who’d been following her made a rush toward her. Seizing Alice, he threw her to the ground and smothered her cries with her skirts. The girl struggled and fought, as the assailant, in the words of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, “clutched her throat and pressed his sharp finger nails into the soft white flesh until the blood came.
“Failing in his design,” the St. Louis newspaper continued, “the tramp became a demon.” He pulled a knife from his pocket and stabbed Alice, then withdrew the bloody blade and plunged it into her flesh again.
The attacker then released the girl and dashed into the woods.
Weak and bleeding from the attack, Alice staggered and crawled to her nearby home, where she told her eight-year-old sister what had happened, and the little girl summoned help.
After a doctor treated Alice, she revived enough to describe her assailant. Constable William Dixon found a man answering the description at the railroad depot about 300 yards from the scene of the assault. The suspect stoutly denied the attack, but his missing finger, which Alice had mentioned, was convincing evidence. In addition, the constable took the suspect to Alice’s house, and she positively identified him.
Since Rhineland was a small village with no jail, Dixon escorted the suspect to the town’s only hotel and placed him under guard in one of the rooms. The prisoner identified himself as Thomas Larkin from Chicago.
Larkin had scarcely been confined when word spread that the doctor attending Alice had said her wounds were likely fatal. The people of Rhineland began collecting near the hotel and plotting to take Larkin from his guards so they might visit a swift vengeance upon him. The deliberate German folks of Rhineland took several hours talking over the matter, while Larkin moaned and quaked in fear.
After midnight, the crowd, now swollen in numbers, began to grow impatient. About 3:00 a.m. on the morning of September 3 they started toward the hotel with a rope. Constable Dixon came out in front of the hotel to plead with them, and they finally disbanded. For the time being.
After daylight, though, more citizens from the surrounding countryside poured into town, and by mid-morning, Dixon realized he and his deputies could not hold off the horde for long. He sent for the Montgomery County sheriff, but before the sheriff could arrive, reports of indecent proposals Larkin had made toward other women began to circulate.
By the time the sheriff arrived in the late afternoon, the crowd at Rhineland had grown so large and so indignant that the lawman was unable to remove the prisoner as he had planned, but his presence helped deter the would-be lynchers from trying to act during the daytime.
About ten o’clock that night, though, word reached the mob that Alice Gammon was dying. Whether the report was valid and the girl did, in fact, later die is not clear, but the mere rumor of Alice’s impending death was sufficient to incite the horde to action.
Eight or ten masked men, one of them toting a long rope, advanced out of the crowd and started battering the front door. The sheriff, the constable, and a deputy were on the other side of the door, and when it yielded, the officers put up a stiff resistance, knocking one of the besiegers down. The other vigilantes, though, overpowered the lawmen and quickly located Larkin. They tossed the rope around his neck with a running noose and half-dragged, half-carried him outside as he struggled for his life. The mob took him to a spot about 200 yards east of the railway station and just north of the track near the woods where Alice Gammon had been attacked.
The other end of the rope was thrown over a limb of an oak tree at the edge of the woods, and the howling mob grasped the rope and drew Larkin up. They left him dangling beneath the limbs of the tree for passengers and crew to see as they passed on the nearby railroad tracks. When a freight train went through Rhineland after daylight on the morning of September 4, about seven hours after the lynching, Larkin’s body was still swinging from the limb, and a number of curious onlookers were standing nearby gawking at the grisly sight.
This story is condensed from a chapter in my book Show-Me Atrocities: Lynchings and Hangings in Missouri.
This month marks ten years that I've been doing this blog. Hope I'm still around in another ten years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)