If the folks around Ash Grove, Missouri, had been thoroughly acquainted with attorney Jefferson Brock's background when he set up residence and hung out his shingle there in 1890, they probably would not have been surprised when he ended up the victim of deadly gunplay on the streets of their small town four years later. To say Brock had a shady past is almost an understatement.
Born in Illinois about 1851, he moved with his family to Linn County, Kansas, prior to 1870. In October 1874, a man named Jefferson Brock stole a wagon and a team of horses from a farmer in Scott County, Iowa, and drove them into Illinois, not far from the area where Brock grew up. Although it's not certain this was the same Jefferson Brock, the circumstances suggest that he might well have been. Brock was apprehended in Illinois a couple of months later and taken back to Iowa to face charges, but the charges were soon dropped for lack of sufficient evidence.
Back in Kansas, Jefferson Brock got into a fight at a dance in Linn County in October 1876, and the other man was charged with assault. Around the beginning of 1878, Brock was charged in Linn County with highway robbery after sticking a man up at gunpoint, and he was lodged in jail at Mound City. In March of the same year, he escaped but was soon recaptured and taken back to the county jail. In April, soon after he was brought back, he and his girlfriend were united in marriage at the jailhouse.
Brock was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in the state prison at Lansing. Admitted on May 1, 1878, he soon took up the study of law as he whiled away the hours during his incarceration. By the mid-1880s, some of his friends were circulating a petition to be given to the governor urging a pardon for Brock. The pardon finally came through in August of 1889. Brock came back to the Mound City area, promptly took the bar exam, and passed it. One of his first acts as an attorney was to sue the estate of his deceased father, seeking a bigger piece of the inheritance than he'd previously been given.
In the spring of 1890, Brock moved to Forsyth in Taney County, Missouri. He stayed there just a short while before relocating to Ash Grove. In January 1891, he was arrested on a charge of slander after a complaint from another Ash Grove resident, but apparently nothing came of the matter. Brock's first wife must have divorced him after he went to prison because, in January 1892, he married an Ash Grove girl, Miss Allie Swinney. In March of 1894, Brock was charged with perjury during a legal case, but he was acquitted.
Sometime around late 1895, a man named James Gilmore borrowed some money from Brock, who was operating not just as a lawyer but also a small-time financier. Gilmore gave Brock some farm animals as collateral, but after Gilmore paid off the loan, Brock wouldn't give back the animals, claiming Gilmore also owed him for lawyer's fees. Gilmore hired a man to go the Brock's home, take back the animals, and run them off.
The dispute between the two men escalated from there, with each accusing the other of making threats. Finally on February 22, 1896, Gilmore came into Ash Grove, where he and Brock got into another heated argument on the streets. Gilmore pulled out a gun and shot and killed Brock.
Gilmore was tried for murder in July of 1896, but the trial ended in a hung jury. The retrial took place in December of the same year. The prosecution argued that Gilmore was the aggressor in the dispute between the two men and that he drew his gun and shot Brock almost in cold blood. The defense maintained just the opposite--that Brock was the aggressor and that Gilmore only drew his gun because Brock was reaching for a weapon. This time, Gilmore was acquitted.
No comments:
Post a Comment