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?
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