Deadly Day in Ladore

The incident described below is actually one I've written about before on this blog, but I've decided to revisit the subject, because an expanded version of the blog entry constitutes the first chapter of my new book, Murder and Mayhem in Southeast Kansas. The condensed version below gives most of the pertinent facts, but check out the book if you want to read the whole story.
On Tuseday, May 10, 1870, seven men rode into the town of Ladore, Kansas, looking to raise hell. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad (aka the Katy) planned to make Ladore, located about six miles north of present-day Parsons, a junction point of the railroad, and the place pulsed with rowdy activity in anticipation of the expected boom. A railroad man named Bowes recalled many years later that Ladore was the toughest place he ever struck. Whiskey was sold in almost every house, and "vice and immorality flourished like a green bay tree." But even the citizens of a raucous town like Ladore drew a line, and when the seven rowdy strangers got liquored up and crossed it, only one of them rode out alive.
The seven "hard-looking characters" hit town about noon and commenced filling up on whiskey. About dusk they "began operations" by knocking people down and robbing them, and because they were heavily armed, they soon had entire possession of the town. About seven in the evening, they went to a boarding house kept by James N. Roach on the south outskirts of the town and asked to stay overnight. They were refused because of their intoxicated condition. but they didn't take the rejection well. Two of the desperadoes guarded a stairs leading to the second floor, where a number of railroad workers boarded, while the other five took over the lower part of the building. One of them hit Roach over the head with his revolver, knocking him to the floor unconscious. The men then proceeded to a bedroom where Roach's daughter and two other girls who worked for him, 13 and 14 years of age, slept. Roach's daughter managed to escape by slipping out of the room unnoticed, but the hellions took the two young girls, who were sisters, and dragged them to the edge of some nearby woods. There they took turn raping the girls throughout the night. At one point a quarrel erupted between the leader of the gang and one of his men over one of the girls, and the leader shot and killed his own man. Roach roused enough that he could hear the terrible cries of the girls, but he dared not stir for fear the men, who continued to keep an eye on the boarding house, would kill him.
Near daybreak, the outlaws went their separate ways, and an alarm was sounded. A posse of citizens and railroad workers found one of the hombres in the nearby woods still holding one of the girls captive. He was quickly strung up to hackberry tree not far from the Roach place. Two others were located in town, having fallen into a drunken stupor at a saloon, and they promptly joined their comrade on the same limb of the hackberry tree. The remaining three desperadoes were overtaken on the road to Osage Mission (now St. Paul) and brought back to Ladore. Two of them soon adorned the hackberry tree alongside their pals, while the third man was granted a reprieve, since one of the girls testified that he did not participate in the hellish deeds of the other gang members. By 11 a.m. on Wednesday morning, five men hung lifeless side by side on the same hackberry limb. All five were later cut down and buried in a common grave near the hackberry tree.
Ladore's anticipated boom never materialized, because the main line of the Katy Railroad ended up bypassing the town and choosing Parsons instead as its junction point. Ladore settled into a period of peace and quiet, or, in the words of Bowes, it became "a good, moral town." The place gradually declined, and by the turn of the 20th century, it had virtually disappeared. Today about the only thing that remains to suggest that a town called Ladore ever existed is the cemetery, located on an out-of-the-way road a few miles north of Parsons.

Poplar Bluff Tornado

I mentioned last time that three of the top ten and five of the top twenty deadliest tornadoes in US history occurred in Missouri. Last week I wrote about the 1896 St. Louis tornado, which ranks third on the list, and I mentioned that I had previously written about the 1925 Tri-State tornado, which ranks as the deadliest ever, and the 2011 Joplin tornado, which ranks seventh. I have also previously written about the 1880 Marshfield tornado, which ranks sixteenth on the list with a death toll of 99, The remaining Missouri tornado on the top twenty deadliest list is the 1927 Poplar Bluff tornado, which killed 98 people and is tied for seventeenth on the list.

The storm descended on Poplar Bluff about mid-afternoon on May 9, 1927, with a "warning roar" and a "torrent of hail." The twister cut a swath about seven blocks wide and over forty blocks long through the city. Included in the storm's path was the downtown area, where almost all the buildings were either completely destroyed or heavily damaged. The town was also drenched with over two and a half inches of rain immediately after the tornado struck.

School was still in session at the time the tornado struck, and among the storm's victims were two or three children of the East Side School, which was in the direct path of the twister and was heavily damaged. A total of about 300 people sustained injuries of various degrees, in addition to the almost 100 fatalities.

One estimate placed the property damage of the tornado at 2.5 million dollars in the downtown area alone, but the twister also destroyed about twenty-five homes before reaching the downtown area and an unknown number beyond the downtown area. Total property damage was estimated as high as four million.

The tornado left Poplar Bluff with blocked roads, downed electric and telephone wires, and a shortage of food. In the immediate aftermath of the storm, the local American Legion maintained a semblance of order in the town until the National Guard and relief agencies could reach the place. 

St. Louis Tornado

I suppose it's not surprising that Missouri, as part of what's commonly called "tornado alley," has suffered more than its share of deadly tornadoes over the years. In fact, three of the top ten deadliest tornadoes in US history happened in Missouri, and five of the top twenty. I've written previously about the Tri-State Tornado of 1925 that started around Shannon County, Missouri, swept across Illinois, and tore into Indiana before finally losing steam. It claimed the lives of 695 people and is, by far, the deadliest tornado in US history. Another tornado that makes the top 10 list is one with which I'm intimately familiar, the Joplin Tornado of 2011. It killed about 160 people, and sits 7th on the list of the ten deadliest tornadoes in US history. (I think it still ranks first in terms of property destruction, but I'm not completely sure about that.)
The third deadliest tornado in US history also happened in Missouri--the 1896 St. Louis Tornado, which claimed 255 lives. Over 1,000 people suffered injuries, and the storm did over 10 million dollars in actual damages (an estimated 4.5 billion in today's dollars). Over, 5,000 people were left homeless.
Although bad weather had been predicted for late May 1896, citizens in St. Louis weren't especially concerned until skies started darkening and temperatures rapidly dropping in the late afternoon of May 27. As the storm approached the western outskirts of the city, winds quickly increased from about 37 miles an hour to almost 80 miles an hour. About 5 p.m., a tornado cell, approaching from the southwest, touched down in the Compton Heights area southwest of the downtown area. From Compton Heights, the storm followed Mill Creek Valley toward the Mississippi River, destroying countless homes along its path. At the river, the tornado destroyed steamboats and other vessels and even badly damaged the Eads Bridge, which was considered "tornado proof," because it had been built of true steel, the first major bridge so constructed. The central portion of the city was also badly damaged, as numerous factories, mills, railroad yards, hospitals, churches, saloons, and stores were destroyed, along with the many residences. The tornado also uprooted trees and tore down electric, telegraph, and telephone wires.
The St. Louis tornado was one of a whole outbreak of violent storms across Missouri on May 27, 1896, but the St. Louis storm was by far the worst in terms of lives lost and damage done.

Bloody Affray in Aurora

I don't know the exact statistics, but I've often heard that murders and other violent crimes result more often from personal emotions like jealousy than from motives like greed. In other words, the victims of violent crimes tend to know the criminal, and my knowledge and research of violent crimes in the Ozarks region bears this idea out. The incident I'm about to describe is but one more example.
About 1894, the wife of Andrew Alexander of Aurora, Missouri, died, and the 34-year-old widower soon took up with Mrs. Sarah Owens. Described by one newspaper as a "grass widow," Sarah was separated but not yet divorced from her husband, William Owens. She had returned to the home of her father, Lewis Jones of Aurora. Jones objected to his daughter keeping company with Alexander while she was still legally married to Owens; so, about the first of October 1895, she left her parents' home and went to stay with a friend, "where she could see her lover without the molestation of her relations." The tension between Andrew Alexander and Lewis Jones became so great that each man started carrying a pistol.
On Sunday, October 13, there was an apparent reconciliation of sorts, as Jones and his wife expressed a willingness to sanction their daughter's match with Alexander as soon as her divorce, for which she had already sued, became final. They invited Sarah and her lover to come to their house to get some of Sarah's clothes and other belongings, and she and Alexander accepted the invitation of "the old folks."
While they were at the house, however, the tension flared anew, and some words were exchanged between Jones and Alexander as the younger couple was getting ready to leave. Alexander had just stepped outside, and Sarah was getting ready to follow when her mother seized her by the arm and attempted to restrain her from going with Alexander. Sarah, however, reached out her hand to her lover, and he pulled her out the door.
Sarah's 25-year-old brother, Tom Jones, ran out the back door, came around to the front, and grabbed hold of Alexander. The two men scuffled and fell to the ground. As they continued to wrestle, Alexander pulled out his pistol and shot the younger Jones in the body. By this time, Lewis Jones had come out of the house to enter the fight, and he and Alexander exchanged gunfire. Still on the ground, where he'd fallen during his tussle with Tom Jones, Alexander shot the old man in the mouth, knocking out two or three of his teeth, and the elder Jones fired three shots at Alexander, all of which took effect. One hit him in the leg, one in the neck, and one in the head.
Alexander immediately lapsed into unconsciousness and died an hour later. Tom Jones's wound was thought to be fatal, while the father's injury was deemed serious but not life-threatening.
All five shots were fired in quick succession, and testimony at the coroner's jury the next day was not consistent on who fired the first shot, although everyone agreed it happened while the two younger men were scuffling on the ground. Opinion was, therefore, divided on who was at fault, although Sarah blamed her father. She accused him of inviting her and Alexander to his house only as a ruse.
Alexander's funeral was held on Monday, October 14, the same day as the coroner's jury, and he was buried beside his dead wife in the Zion churchyard a few miles northwest of Aurora.
Lewis Jones was initially placed under guard at his home, although not officially arrested. The guard was soon dispensed with, and apparently Jones never faced charges. If he did, they must have been dropped, because he was a free man at the time of the 1900 census. What happened to his son Tom is not altogether clear.

The Romantic Tale of Mary Silmore

About the first of September 1849, a story about a young woman from Jasper County, Missouri, named Mary Silmore was published in the St. Louis Times and subsequently reprinted in newspapers across the country. The title of the story was "Heroic Conduct of a Missouri Girl," and it purported to be an authentic account of events that had happened in Jasper County several years earlier.
Mary's father, Lewis Silmore, was a known counterfeiter, although the rest of the family, including Mary and her sister, were well thought of and apparently had no knowledge of the father's illicit activities. Silmore had been tried for counterfeiting but, by concocting a phony alibi, had managed to get acquitted. Subsequently, a vigilante mob had formed to dispense its own brand of justice to Silmore, and the leader of the mob was one John Mays, who, as the fates would have it, had previously been in love with the beautiful Mary.
On July 4, 1840, the mob left the courthouse in Carthage and rode to the Silmore place on the south bank of Spring River. Despite Mary's pleas to her father that he resist, Lewis Silmore, accompanied by his wife and his daughter Eliza, emerged from the house and surrendered when ordered to do so. Mary, though, refused to obey and remained in the house. As the lynchers prepared to string Silmore up to a nearby magnolia tree, his wife and daughter Eliza fell to their knees pleading desperately that he be spared, but to no avail. John Mays ordered them taken away, and they were dragged away some distance. Mays looped a noose around Silmore's neck, while two other men climbed the tree to toss the other end of the rope over a large limb. Just as Mays was about to give the order for his men to pull Silmore up, shots rang out from the house, and Mays fell dead. One or two other men were wounded, and the rest scattered in wild confusion as Mary, a crack shot, continued firing with both a double-barrel shotgun and a rifle.
Mary was subsequently arrested and charged with murder, but "much interest was manifested in her favor" and she was acquitted "amidst the acclamations of five hundred spectators."
"As we are not dealing in fiction, but naked, unadorned truth," said the author of the story, "we cannot gratify the reader's curiosity by any additional particulars as to the subsequent history of Mary Silmore." The author, who had been Mary's defense counsel during her trial, said he didn't know any more about the case because he had, shortly after Mary's acquittal, moved to Texas, from where he now wrote his story and sent it to the St. Louis newspaper.
Despite the author's claim that his story was strictly factual, it has a definite romantic tone that makes it hard to believe. In addition, the so-called facts surrounding the case cannot be confirmed by any other source. Also, we know for sure that either the date of July 4, 1840, is wrong or the incident didn't happen in Jasper County, because the county was not formed until early 1841. Perhaps the actual date was July 4, 1841. Jasper County Circuit Court records do contain just the merest suggestion that at least part of the story might be based on fact. We know that a man named Elijah Skidmore (not Lewis Silmore) sued a man named John Scott (not John Mays) and others for trespass during the fall 1843 term of Jasper County Circuit Court. Could this have been related to their attempt to lynch him?