Fatal Affray Near Summersville

A baseball game was in progress at Summersville, Missouri, on Saturday, September 4, 1886, when two players from opposing sides, 20-year-old Jerry Orchard and 24-year-old Riley Martin, got into a heated dispute. Friends had to intervene to prevent "a serious termination of the quarrel," according to a Texas County correspondent.

The following Thursday, September 9, a corn-cutting, to be followed that evening by a dance to celebrate the harvest, was held at a farm near Summersville. Most of the members of the rival ball clubs were present, and "the little brown jug" passed freely among the workers throughout the day.

After the work was done, the womenfolk served a big feast for supper, and then the music and dancing got underway. The dance was "in full blast" when "brawling cries" came from the front yard, and dance-goers discovered that the week-old feud had been revived. Riley Martin was about to come to blows with 18-year-old Zem McCaskill when Jerry Orchard showed up and took McCaskill's side in the dispute. Angry that his old foe from the baseball diamond was trying to interfere, Martin drew his pistol and snapped it at Orchard three times on an empty cartridge.

Orchard took off running, but Martin gave chase. Suddenly, Orchard drew his pistol, wheeled around, and fired three shots in quick succession at his pursuer. Two of the shots shattered Martin's right arm, while the third struck him below the left shoulder, passed transversely through his body, and exited out the right breast.

At this point, 30-year-old James Stogsdale, a friend of Martin's, came up behind Orchard, leveled his pistol at him, and fired. The ball ranged through Orchard's body and came out the right breast.

A crowd gathered around the wounded men, who lay on the ground seriously wounded, and in the confusion, Stogsdale fired another shot, this one at Zem McCaskill. The ball grazed McCaskill on the left side of his chest, cutting a six-inch-long gash in the flesh above his heart about the depth of the bullet.

At this juncture, 24-year-old Lewis Raider, a Summersville druggist, shoved his way through the crowd to where Orchard lay on the ground in an effort to try to prevent more violence. Stogsdale, though, would have none of it. "Goddamn you," he yelled, "I'll give you the benefit of a shot." The gunman then fired a shot that made "a terrible wound" in Raider's right thigh.

The would-be murderer then "broke away from the crowd, leaped the fence and disappeared in the darkness."

The wildest confusion ensued. Men yelled, women screamed, and people from miles around hurried to the scene. The wounded men were taken to nearby residences, and doctors were summoned. The wounds of Martin and Orchard were thought to be fatal, while Raider and McCaskill were less seriously wounded. Martin did, indeed, die from his wounds a few days later, while the other three men, including Orchard, quickly recovered.

It was thought that McCaskill had escaped to Texas, but this supposition is called into question by later records. At any rate, little effort was apparently made to capture him. As far as I have been able to determine, no one was ever prosecuted for their part in this deadly melee.