I have written previously about the Alsup family of Douglas County and especially about Shelt Alsup, who served as sheriff of the county in the mid to late 1870s. Specifically, my book Desperadoes of the Ozarks contains a chapter about the Alsups focusing in particular on the shootout between Sheriff Hardin H. Vickery and ex-sheriff Alsup, which left both men dead, a few months after Vickery had defeated Alsup in his reelection bid in the fall of 1878.
Recently I ran across a newspaper story about an incident involving Shelt Alsup that I was previously unaware of and, therefore, did not include in my Desperadoes book. It involves another shooting affray that occurred in 1876 when Shelt was still sheriff. Late on the night of September 4, 47-year-old James P. Stockton and Sheriff Alsup got into a dispute at the Berry Silvy place in the Arno neighborhood west of Ava. Exactly what the argument was about is unclear, but one report said they quarreled over a card game. Also, a constable said that a couple of weeks earlier he had encountered Stockton on a rural road as he was putting up a "notice to taxpayers" at the sheriff's direction and that Stockton had cursed him and drawn a revolver on him. In addition, Stockton was a fugitive from Dade County, where he was wanted on a charge of assaulting his brother, but Sheriff Alsup said he had no intent to make an arrest and had made no move to do so when Stockton attacked him. Finally, Stockton had reportedly been drinking on the night in question, and it's possible that both men had been imbibing.
Whatever the reason for the confrontation, Stockton yelled at the sheriff, "Damn you, you can't play off on me," pulled his gun, and started shooting. Shelt received several wounds, but he returned fire and, when he ran out of bullets, picked up a rock and knocked his assailant down with it. Stockton sprang up almost immediately, though, and retreated toward the house of Jesse McClain, his 66-year-old brother-in-law.
At the McClain residence, he roused the family and angrily demanded to see Margaret McClain, his 28-year-old niece, because she had supposedly spread some rumor about him. Jesse said his daughter was in bed and told Stockton he couldn't see her, but Stockton checked Margaret's bed for himself and found that she was not there. This angered him even more, and he began using threatening and violent language toward McClain. Stockton's sister, 48-year-old Lydia McClain, tried to calm her brother down and got between him and her husband. Stockton, however, pulled out his revolver, reached the weapon around Lydia, shot McClain, and ran from the house.
A couple of Jesse McClain's sons, including 16-year-old Newton McClain, gave chase, and Newt shot Stockton as he rose up on the far side of a fence. Following her sons outside, Lydia McClain told them, "Boys, don't shoot Uncle Jimmy any more." Seriously wounded but still on his feet, Jesse McClain appeared at the door and added, "Let him alone for he has killed me" and then collapsed in the doorway. Stockton, wounded but still very much alive, then made his getaway.
Meanwhile, Alsup, on his way to Ava to seek medical help, happened by the McClain place shortly after Stockton had arrived. The sheriff heard loud shouting, but he declined to intervene because of his wounded condition. When he reached town, a doctor treated him for two gunshot wounds to the upper left arm and one gunshot wound to the lower right arm. As soon as he was bandaged up, Shelt went back out "on the war-path," according to a report in the Douglas County Leader. Accompanied by a posse of three men, the sheriff set out after Stockton. At the McClain place, the posse found Jesse McClain dead, although he had lived about an hour after collapsing in the doorway. Continuing their pursuit, the posse split into two groups, with Shelt and his father (Lock Alsup) going to the left and Deputy Woods and Jesse Cox going right.
As Woods and Cox neared the Silvy place, where Stockton had assaulted Alsup, Stockton sprang up from behind a pile of brush, spooking Cox's horse, which became uncontrollable and went tearing off through some timber, leaving Woods to confront the fugitive alone. The deputy demanded Stockton's surrender, but Stockton declined the invitation to give himself up. Each man started shooting, and Stockton soon fell mortally wounded with three shots from Woods's rifle.
The next day, McClain and his murderous brother-in-law were buried near each other in the Ritter Cemetery.
Sources: Springfield Leader, Springfield Weekly Patriot, Find-A-Grave entry for Jesse Jasper Newton, census records.
Sunday, October 2, 2016
Sunday, September 25, 2016
Murder of John Henry Boller
On July 15, 1864, 63-year-old John Henry Boller was driving his horse and buggy into Boonville, Missouri, from his residence west of town when he passed three young men resting under a shade tree at the side of the road. One of the three young men was notorious Johnson County guerrilla Bill Stewart, another one was Stewart's sidekick Al Carter, and the third was a local young hellion named Robert Sloan. Stewart and Carter asked Sloan who the passerby was, and after being informed of the man's identity, Stewart decided to rob him. (The fact that Boller was German-born might have had something to do with Stewart's decision, since Germans were usually very strong Union supporters and were almost universally despised by the Missouri guerrillas.)
Stewart and his two companions caught up with and waylaid Boller about a mile from Boonville. They demanded his money, and Stewart reached for a watch Boller was carrying. Instead, of turning over his money and valuables, though, Boller resisted and started to drive on. Stewart promptly opened fire, hitting Boller four or five times. The bushwhackers then robbed him and also robbed another old man who happened along.
After he was robbed, Boller managed to drive on into Boonville, where a resident noticed his weak, bloody condition and took him into his house. Boller, however, died almost as soon as he got inside. The local militia was notified of the incident and immediately started in pursuit of the three bushwhackers. They overtook Sloan, and one of the Union soldiers shot him in the side of the head. Taken into custody, Sloan did not die of the wound but was left blind by it.
Meanwhile, Stewart and Carter escaped, at least temporarily. Carter and four other guerrillas were killed by Federal soldiers in Howard County on September 12, and Stewart was finally killed by a cattle drover on November 11 at Old Franklin in Howard County just across the Missouri River from Boonville when Stewart attempted to rob the cattleman.
On December 5, 1864, Louisa A. Boller filed an affidavit with officials at Boonville swearing that she was the widow of John Henry Boller, stating that his death had left her destitute and without means of support, and asking that she be given an allowance as compensation for his death. She swore that she had never given aid to anybody in rebellion against the U.S. and had, to the contrary, always been a strong Union woman. Whether any aid was given to Mrs. Boller is unknown.
Stewart and his two companions caught up with and waylaid Boller about a mile from Boonville. They demanded his money, and Stewart reached for a watch Boller was carrying. Instead, of turning over his money and valuables, though, Boller resisted and started to drive on. Stewart promptly opened fire, hitting Boller four or five times. The bushwhackers then robbed him and also robbed another old man who happened along.
After he was robbed, Boller managed to drive on into Boonville, where a resident noticed his weak, bloody condition and took him into his house. Boller, however, died almost as soon as he got inside. The local militia was notified of the incident and immediately started in pursuit of the three bushwhackers. They overtook Sloan, and one of the Union soldiers shot him in the side of the head. Taken into custody, Sloan did not die of the wound but was left blind by it.
Meanwhile, Stewart and Carter escaped, at least temporarily. Carter and four other guerrillas were killed by Federal soldiers in Howard County on September 12, and Stewart was finally killed by a cattle drover on November 11 at Old Franklin in Howard County just across the Missouri River from Boonville when Stewart attempted to rob the cattleman.
On December 5, 1864, Louisa A. Boller filed an affidavit with officials at Boonville swearing that she was the widow of John Henry Boller, stating that his death had left her destitute and without means of support, and asking that she be given an allowance as compensation for his death. She swore that she had never given aid to anybody in rebellion against the U.S. and had, to the contrary, always been a strong Union woman. Whether any aid was given to Mrs. Boller is unknown.
Sunday, September 18, 2016
A Civil War Murder in Springfield
As even casual students of the Civil War in Missouri know, the conflict in our state was characterized by bitter guerrilla fighting that spawned rampant lawlessness. Robberies, destruction of property, and even murders were not uncommon. Most of these criminal acts were related at least peripherally to military operations—either committed during the fight for control of the state early in the war or else during Confederate efforts to dislodge the occupying Federal Army after the Union secured Missouri in the spring of 1862. However, some crimes were personally motivated and had little or nothing to do with military operations. In the rural parts of the state, most such outrages were committed by partisans and freebooters who identified at least nominally with the Southern cause. However, crimes in the larger cities, which served as Union posts and headquarters, were also not uncommon, and these were often authored by the Federal soldiers themselves. An example is a shooting affray that occurred in Springfield in the spring of 1862, perhaps the city’s most notorious incident of the Civil War that did not directly involve military operations.
Union sympathizer Mrs. Mary Willis, having lost two sons at the hands of bushwhackers in her home territory of northern Arkansas, sought refuge at Springfield during the latter part of the winter of 1861-1862, and she and her family were placed in a vacant house in the east part of town. Because the house had previously been occupied by “a squad of accommodating girls,” two soldiers were placed as guards at the house to turn away unwelcome visitors. About sundown on the evening of May 21, 1862, duty officer John R. Clark and his orderly, A. J. Rice, both in a state of intoxication, called at the Willis home and demanded dinner. When Mrs. Willis declined to prepare the meal, Captain Clark and his companion grew irate, began cussing, pulled their pistols, and tried to force their way into the house. One of the guards shot Clark through the body, and he staggered back a few steps and fell dead. Rice promptly fired at the guard but missed and hit Mrs. Willis’s daughter, Miss Mary Willis, in the head, killing her instantly. The second guard then shot Rice and wounded him severely. The ball struck him in the breast and ranged up through the shoulder, which was badly shattered.
A Mexican War veteran, Clark was a member of Company B, Fifth Kansas Cavalry, but he and most of the men of his company had been recruited into Federal service from Mercer County, Missouri, where he had served four years as sheriff of the county and had been a delegate to the 1856 Democratic State Convention. Despite the circumstances of his death and despite the fact that he was considered by at least one member of his own regiment “a Pro-Slavery brute” who “ought to have joined the rebels instead of our side,” Clark was buried in Springfield the day after his death with both military and Masonic honors.
Upon initial examination, A.J. Rice’s wound was considered mortal, but he lived long enough to be indicted the following summer in Greene County Circuit Court for the murder of Miss Mary Willis. At the August 1862 term of court, he took a change of venue to Phelps County. He was tried at Rolla in late October and convicted on October 30 of first degree murder. The next day, he appealed and was granted a new trial on November 1. The following April the case was continued, but no record of it has been found after that. Rice might have died before the new trial began, because, according to Holcombe’s 1883 History of Greene County, Rice’s wound “eventually proved fatal.”
Union sympathizer Mrs. Mary Willis, having lost two sons at the hands of bushwhackers in her home territory of northern Arkansas, sought refuge at Springfield during the latter part of the winter of 1861-1862, and she and her family were placed in a vacant house in the east part of town. Because the house had previously been occupied by “a squad of accommodating girls,” two soldiers were placed as guards at the house to turn away unwelcome visitors. About sundown on the evening of May 21, 1862, duty officer John R. Clark and his orderly, A. J. Rice, both in a state of intoxication, called at the Willis home and demanded dinner. When Mrs. Willis declined to prepare the meal, Captain Clark and his companion grew irate, began cussing, pulled their pistols, and tried to force their way into the house. One of the guards shot Clark through the body, and he staggered back a few steps and fell dead. Rice promptly fired at the guard but missed and hit Mrs. Willis’s daughter, Miss Mary Willis, in the head, killing her instantly. The second guard then shot Rice and wounded him severely. The ball struck him in the breast and ranged up through the shoulder, which was badly shattered.
A Mexican War veteran, Clark was a member of Company B, Fifth Kansas Cavalry, but he and most of the men of his company had been recruited into Federal service from Mercer County, Missouri, where he had served four years as sheriff of the county and had been a delegate to the 1856 Democratic State Convention. Despite the circumstances of his death and despite the fact that he was considered by at least one member of his own regiment “a Pro-Slavery brute” who “ought to have joined the rebels instead of our side,” Clark was buried in Springfield the day after his death with both military and Masonic honors.
Upon initial examination, A.J. Rice’s wound was considered mortal, but he lived long enough to be indicted the following summer in Greene County Circuit Court for the murder of Miss Mary Willis. At the August 1862 term of court, he took a change of venue to Phelps County. He was tried at Rolla in late October and convicted on October 30 of first degree murder. The next day, he appealed and was granted a new trial on November 1. The following April the case was continued, but no record of it has been found after that. Rice might have died before the new trial began, because, according to Holcombe’s 1883 History of Greene County, Rice’s wound “eventually proved fatal.”
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Murder of Peter P. Keen
On or about March 26, 1862, thirty-seven-year-old Peter P. Keen was killed by a gang of bushwhackers in Johnson County, Missouri, in the vicinity of Holden. Members of the gang included Andrew J. Wallace, Joseph Ross, Jack Briscoe, George Smith, and William F. Smith, but nothing was done about the crime at the time because the alleged perpetrators could apparently not be located.
In late December of 1862, however, two and a half years after the crime, an investigation was undertaken after several letters passed through the Holden post office addressed to Andrew J. Wallace, giving his address as Frankford, Illinois. (This might have been a misspelling of Frankfort.) Three citizens of Johnson County, including Keen's widow, promptly offered their testimony about Wallace's involvement in the killing of Peter Keen.
Harriett Keen said she knew Wallace was one of those who had participated in the murder of her husband and that Wallace was known in the area at the time as a notorious bushwhacker.
Elijah Buchanan echoed Mrs. Keen's testimony, saying that, at the time of the murder, he was close enough to the scene of the crime to hear the gunfire, that he saw the gang of bushwhackers immediately afterward, and that Wallace was one of them.
Holden postmaster William Rose (who no doubt was the one who called attention to the letters addressed to Wallace) said that Wallace and his comrades had taken him prisoner on the same day Keen was killed and had threatened to kill him, too. Rose said the bushwhackers spared him only because his father-in-law pled with them to do so. Rose added that the bushwhackers said in his presence that they "would kill every damned Union man in the county" or any man who went among the Federal soldiers. Rose said that Wallace had been a schoolteacher before the war and that he thought he was also teaching school in Illinois.
Apparently Wallace was never brought back to central Missouri to answer the charge of killing Peter Keen, or if he was, he was not detained long. He spent most of his adult life in the Decatur, Illinois, area and died there in 1908.
In late December of 1862, however, two and a half years after the crime, an investigation was undertaken after several letters passed through the Holden post office addressed to Andrew J. Wallace, giving his address as Frankford, Illinois. (This might have been a misspelling of Frankfort.) Three citizens of Johnson County, including Keen's widow, promptly offered their testimony about Wallace's involvement in the killing of Peter Keen.
Harriett Keen said she knew Wallace was one of those who had participated in the murder of her husband and that Wallace was known in the area at the time as a notorious bushwhacker.
Elijah Buchanan echoed Mrs. Keen's testimony, saying that, at the time of the murder, he was close enough to the scene of the crime to hear the gunfire, that he saw the gang of bushwhackers immediately afterward, and that Wallace was one of them.
Holden postmaster William Rose (who no doubt was the one who called attention to the letters addressed to Wallace) said that Wallace and his comrades had taken him prisoner on the same day Keen was killed and had threatened to kill him, too. Rose said the bushwhackers spared him only because his father-in-law pled with them to do so. Rose added that the bushwhackers said in his presence that they "would kill every damned Union man in the county" or any man who went among the Federal soldiers. Rose said that Wallace had been a schoolteacher before the war and that he thought he was also teaching school in Illinois.
Apparently Wallace was never brought back to central Missouri to answer the charge of killing Peter Keen, or if he was, he was not detained long. He spent most of his adult life in the Decatur, Illinois, area and died there in 1908.
Sunday, September 4, 2016
Maria McKeehan, Another Bushwhacker Belle
Sometime in the fall of 1863, Union authorities in Johnson County, Missouri, arrested several young men, supposed to be members of what was called the Knob Noster Independent Company, as bushwhackers and as suspects in the murder of a man named William Dillingham. Twenty-four-year-old Maria McKeehan (spelled Mariah in Union records) was arrested near the same time for aiding and abetting them.
In December of 1863, Dr. James M. Mitchell of Knob Noster gave a statement to Union authorities against Maria. Presumably he was compelled to do so, since he himself was a Southern sympathizer.
Dr. Mitchell said that on the 9th of August, he was called to the home of Catherine Hart, Maria's married sister, located in the Bristle Ridge neighborhood about six miles southwest of Knob Noster, because a family named Jones who was staying there had a sick child. While Dr. Mitchell was at the Hart residence, Maria, whose parents lived about two miles east of Knob Noster but who was then staying with her sister, asked Dr. Mitchell for a bottle of medicine for her sick brother, who was in the bush with the bushwhackers. Maria informed the doctor that she had been to the bushwhackers' camp that very morning and that the guerrillas told her that they had killed Dillingham earlier the same morning about two miles from her sister's home. (Dillingham was indeed killed on the morning of August 9 at his home near Bristle Ridge and his body was found "shot into holes" about 30 yards from his house.)
Maria further stated that she regularly fed the bushwhackers and aided them with medicine and information. She told Dr. Mitchell that she had heard one of the bushwhackers, Sam Whitley, threaten to kill him (i.e. Dr. Mitchell) because he would not come into the bush to administer to the bushwhackers' medical needs, and she told the doctor which road to take back to Knob Noster to avoid the guerrillas. Dr. Mitchell said the reason he thought Maria had helped him was that he had been kind to her aged father and had been the family doctor for a number of years.
A Union official noted on Mitchell's deposition that the doctor was a truthful man, even though he was "secesh."
Apparently little more ever happened in Maria McKeehan's case, as I have been unable to find any record of her having been shipped to St. Louis for banishment or trial as many women arrested during the Civil War for helping Missouri's guerrillas were. And that's why I did not include her in my Bushwhacker Belles book published earlier this year.
In December of 1863, Dr. James M. Mitchell of Knob Noster gave a statement to Union authorities against Maria. Presumably he was compelled to do so, since he himself was a Southern sympathizer.
Dr. Mitchell said that on the 9th of August, he was called to the home of Catherine Hart, Maria's married sister, located in the Bristle Ridge neighborhood about six miles southwest of Knob Noster, because a family named Jones who was staying there had a sick child. While Dr. Mitchell was at the Hart residence, Maria, whose parents lived about two miles east of Knob Noster but who was then staying with her sister, asked Dr. Mitchell for a bottle of medicine for her sick brother, who was in the bush with the bushwhackers. Maria informed the doctor that she had been to the bushwhackers' camp that very morning and that the guerrillas told her that they had killed Dillingham earlier the same morning about two miles from her sister's home. (Dillingham was indeed killed on the morning of August 9 at his home near Bristle Ridge and his body was found "shot into holes" about 30 yards from his house.)
Maria further stated that she regularly fed the bushwhackers and aided them with medicine and information. She told Dr. Mitchell that she had heard one of the bushwhackers, Sam Whitley, threaten to kill him (i.e. Dr. Mitchell) because he would not come into the bush to administer to the bushwhackers' medical needs, and she told the doctor which road to take back to Knob Noster to avoid the guerrillas. Dr. Mitchell said the reason he thought Maria had helped him was that he had been kind to her aged father and had been the family doctor for a number of years.
A Union official noted on Mitchell's deposition that the doctor was a truthful man, even though he was "secesh."
Apparently little more ever happened in Maria McKeehan's case, as I have been unable to find any record of her having been shipped to St. Louis for banishment or trial as many women arrested during the Civil War for helping Missouri's guerrillas were. And that's why I did not include her in my Bushwhacker Belles book published earlier this year.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
A Civil War Murder at New Tennessee
Around the middle of July, 1864, a young man named Eli Vansickles was arrested by Union authorities at Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, on suspicion of having been an accessory to the murder of a school teacher in the New Tennessee settlement of Ste. Genevieve County in the fall of 1861. On July 20th, an anonymous letter writer told officials that he knew several people who were knowledgeable about the murder, and he forwarded the names of Thomas Arendall, Arendall's wife, and Joseph Townsend as possible witnesses.
Authorities apparently did not locate Joseph Townsend, but they did take a statement from his older brother, John Townsend, on July 29. John Townsend told them that he lived in the New Tennessee settlement (located in the southern part of Ste. Genevieve County) and that it was "generally known in the neighborhood that Andrew Burnett, a rebel, murdered the man and that Eli Vansickles, now under arrest as accessory to said murder, was at the time and place in company with said Burnett and that said Eli Vansickles is also a rebel and was in the Rebel Army."
John Townsend went on to say that, after the murder, he and Joseph Townsend (whom he did not identify as his brother) went to the place where the body was lying dead, that Joseph Townsend helped bury the corpse, that he saw Joseph Townsend take a watch and some other articles off the body before the burial, and that, as far as he knew, Joseph Townsend had never accounted to anyone for those items.
The same day, July 29, William Thomas Arendall also gave a deposition in which he stated that he knew Andrew Burnett, now deceased, was the person who killed the school teacher (name not given), and he recalled the date of the murder as approximately November 1, 1861. He said the school teacher was just passing through and was shot down about 300 yards from his (Arendall's) house. Later that same evening, Arendall saw Burnett at a mill about three-fourths of a mile from where the murder had occurred and that Burnett told him that he was the one who had killed the man and that Vansickles was with him when he did it. Burnett, according to Arendall's testimony, said that both he and Vansickles belonged to Jeff Thompson's Rebel army.
Whether Vansickles (sometimes spelled Van Sickles or Van Sickle) was ever punished for his part in the crime and, if so, how severely, is not known. What is known is that Vansickles continued to live in Ste. Genevieve County after the war and died there on the last day of 1882 after "a long, painful illness."
Authorities apparently did not locate Joseph Townsend, but they did take a statement from his older brother, John Townsend, on July 29. John Townsend told them that he lived in the New Tennessee settlement (located in the southern part of Ste. Genevieve County) and that it was "generally known in the neighborhood that Andrew Burnett, a rebel, murdered the man and that Eli Vansickles, now under arrest as accessory to said murder, was at the time and place in company with said Burnett and that said Eli Vansickles is also a rebel and was in the Rebel Army."
John Townsend went on to say that, after the murder, he and Joseph Townsend (whom he did not identify as his brother) went to the place where the body was lying dead, that Joseph Townsend helped bury the corpse, that he saw Joseph Townsend take a watch and some other articles off the body before the burial, and that, as far as he knew, Joseph Townsend had never accounted to anyone for those items.
The same day, July 29, William Thomas Arendall also gave a deposition in which he stated that he knew Andrew Burnett, now deceased, was the person who killed the school teacher (name not given), and he recalled the date of the murder as approximately November 1, 1861. He said the school teacher was just passing through and was shot down about 300 yards from his (Arendall's) house. Later that same evening, Arendall saw Burnett at a mill about three-fourths of a mile from where the murder had occurred and that Burnett told him that he was the one who had killed the man and that Vansickles was with him when he did it. Burnett, according to Arendall's testimony, said that both he and Vansickles belonged to Jeff Thompson's Rebel army.
Whether Vansickles (sometimes spelled Van Sickles or Van Sickle) was ever punished for his part in the crime and, if so, how severely, is not known. What is known is that Vansickles continued to live in Ste. Genevieve County after the war and died there on the last day of 1882 after "a long, painful illness."
Sunday, August 21, 2016
Lynching of Abraham W. Smith
Abraham W. Smith was convicted of murder in Madison County, Missouri, sometime around the early part of 1844. (I have yet to learn the details of his alleged crime.) He was sentenced to hang at the end of June, but the sentence was stayed until September 1. Apparently upset by the slow-turning wheels of justice, a mob tried to execute Smith around the first of June (probably near the time the stay was announced), but they were deterred by another group of citizens.
However, on August 5, a drunken mob broke into the county jail at Fredericktown with axes, crowbars, and other tools. One of the gang went down into the dungeon-like cell, where the prisoner was held in irons, and placed a rope around Smith's neck. The rest of the mob hauled him up by the rope and then dragged him down some stairs and outside to a walnut tree located about fifty yards from the jail. Notwithstanding the fact that he was apparently already dead by the time they reached the tree, the mob strung him up to the tree and let him hang for several minutes. They then let him down, but one of the gang, suspecting Smith might still be alive, insisted that they hang him again. The body was accordingly strung back up until the bloodthirsty mob was sufficiently convinced that life was extinct.
That very night, an inquest was held over Smith's body, and the jury returned a verdict that he had come to his death at the hands of a mob that included men named Jones, Sinclair, Mayse, Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, and Shetley, as well as five other men. Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, Shetley and one other man suspected in the vigilante execution were promptly arrested. Several days later Mayse was spotted at St. Mary's Landing, a small community on the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve County. It was presumed he was trying to catch a boat to make his escape. Around the first of October, John Sinclair was recognized on the streets of St. Louis and arrested. Accused of being the man who had placed the rope around Smith's neck, he was taken back to Madison County, where he and several of the other men involved in the lynching of Smith were indicted on charges of murder. However, I have so far been unable to determine the outcome of their cases.
However, on August 5, a drunken mob broke into the county jail at Fredericktown with axes, crowbars, and other tools. One of the gang went down into the dungeon-like cell, where the prisoner was held in irons, and placed a rope around Smith's neck. The rest of the mob hauled him up by the rope and then dragged him down some stairs and outside to a walnut tree located about fifty yards from the jail. Notwithstanding the fact that he was apparently already dead by the time they reached the tree, the mob strung him up to the tree and let him hang for several minutes. They then let him down, but one of the gang, suspecting Smith might still be alive, insisted that they hang him again. The body was accordingly strung back up until the bloodthirsty mob was sufficiently convinced that life was extinct.
That very night, an inquest was held over Smith's body, and the jury returned a verdict that he had come to his death at the hands of a mob that included men named Jones, Sinclair, Mayse, Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, and Shetley, as well as five other men. Pollis, Cox, Blackburn, Shetley and one other man suspected in the vigilante execution were promptly arrested. Several days later Mayse was spotted at St. Mary's Landing, a small community on the Mississippi River in Ste. Genevieve County. It was presumed he was trying to catch a boat to make his escape. Around the first of October, John Sinclair was recognized on the streets of St. Louis and arrested. Accused of being the man who had placed the rope around Smith's neck, he was taken back to Madison County, where he and several of the other men involved in the lynching of Smith were indicted on charges of murder. However, I have so far been unable to determine the outcome of their cases.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)