As someone who came of age during the hippie era of the 1960s and 1970s, I am well aware of the Back to the Land movement of the 1970s. It was led mostly by young people, often hippies or erstwhile hippies, who valued self sufficiency and wanted to commune with nature.
At the time, I thought it was unusual, if not unprecedented, but I have since learned that the Back to the Land movement of my generation was not the only such movement this country has experienced. During the first two decades of the twentieth century, a Back to the Farm movement, or Back to the Soil movement as it was sometimes called, gained traction in this country, and Missouri's own Governor Hadley was one of its leaders.
The Back to the Farm movement was more organized than the spontaneous, hippie-inspired Back to the Land movement that came later, as the fact that prominent politicians like Hadley were among its leaders would attest. Hadley and other leaders of the Back to the Farm movement had watched as millions of Americans left their farms for work in the cities during the Industrial Revolution, and they feared that, as fewer and fewer people were being called upon to feed the rest of the country, food shortages and hunger would result. They also felt that getting people, particularly young people, out of the urbans areas and back to the farm would spare them the corrupting influence of the cities. In this respect, they were similar to the Back to the Land crowd of the 1970s, but they targeted whole families, not just youth.
Meeting in St. Louis in May 1910, leaders of the Back to the Farm movement formed the National Farm Homes Association, with Hadley as the group's president. They began acquiring cheap land with the idea of establishing farm colonies, primarily in the Midwest, under the supervision of an expert agriculturist. The colonies would consist of 32 families living on forty acres each surrounding a 160-acre central farm where the supervising farmer lived and taught agricultural techniques.
In my next post, I'll write about one of the first colonies formed by the National Farm Homes Association, in south central Missouri, just a few months after the May meeting in St. Louis.
Sunday, June 5, 2016
Sunday, May 29, 2016
Another Lynching Debunked
In recent months I've written about two supposed incidents of violence in the Ozarks that have often been cited on the Internet and elsewhere as lynchings of black people. When I looked at these incidents more closely, however, I found that one of them did not occur at all and that citations about the other one usually contain erroneous and misleading details.
The whipping of Paralee Collins in Howell County, Missouri, in June of 1914 is one such incident. In fact, Collins was not black, and she was not lynched in the popular sense of the word. Originally, the word "lynch" meant simply to administer any extralegal punishment, especially by flogging. Its meaning likely derived from William Lynch, leader of a vigilante movement in early Virginia. In this broad sense, Collins was indeed lynched, but in modern times the word "lynch" has taken on a narrower sense, meaning vigilante execution by hanging. Most people nowadays understand the word "lynch" in this narrower sense; so it is misleading simply to say that Paralee Collins was lynched without giving all the facts, as most citations about her on the Internet do. In fact, some of them specifically say that she was hanged, and, of course, she was not.
The other supposed lynching of a black person in the Ozarks that I've debunked recently is that of Andy Clark in January 1903 in Wayne County, Missouri. Clark was black. At least the people who persist in listing Clark as a victim of vigilante hanging have gotten that part right. However, he was not hanged and was not even administered any sort of vigilante punishment, because he was never captured after he committed the deed that supposedly resulted in his lynching.
Now comes a third dubious victim of lynching in southern Missouri: Nelson Simpson, who was supposedly lynched near Neelyville in Butler County, Missouri. On the night of January 1, 1901, a masked band of whitecaps visited a black neighborhood near Neelyville, shooting out windows and doors of the residents as a warning for them to leave the area. (The White Caps were originally a vigilante group that started in Indiana during the 1870s to enforce morality and community standards. For instance, men who neglected their families or women who had children out of wedlock were prime targets. However, as the movement spread to the Southern states during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the word "whitecaps" became more generic and the vigilante mobs mainly targeted black people.)
The mob that visited the black community in Neelyville summoned Simpson to his door, and when he appeared, "It was the signal for the discharge of a dozen or more firearms," according to a report in a St. Louis newspaper. "The bullets fairly rained into the house." Simpson fell badly wounded, and his ten-year-old daughter also received a serious wound. (Other newspapers reported that Simpson was mortally wounded.) The outlaws kept shooting "until every window in the house was riddled and the structure was perforated with bullets in a hundred places." Before the whitecaps left, the leader of the gang told the family that they must leave the territory within twenty days or they would receive a second visit, their house would be burned, and the residents punished.
Other houses in the neighborhood were also visited, and similar outrages perpetuated. Several black men were threatened with lynching if they did not leave within twenty days.
So, Nelson Simpson was, in fact, a victim of lynching in the original sense of the word, but, like Paralee Collins, he was not hanged. He also was not mortally wounded, as several newspapers reported in the immediate wake of the incident. He was still alive at the time of the 1910 census, almost ten years later. He also did not scare easily, because he was still living in the Neelyville area in 1910.
My intention in debunking these supposed lynchings of black people in the Ozarks is not to try to dismiss or diminish the tragic violence that blacks in the Ozarks experienced during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Although mob violence against blacks was not as prevalent in the Ozarks as it was in the South (at least partly, no doubt, because there weren't as many black residents as a percentage of the population), there were still plenty of blacks who were lynched (i.e. hanged illegally) in the Ozarks. Enough that we don't need to invent more.
I might add as well that Richard Mays (aka Mayes) is often cited as a black man who was lynched in Springfield, Missouri, in 1893. He was, in fact, lynched near Springville, Alabama.
The whipping of Paralee Collins in Howell County, Missouri, in June of 1914 is one such incident. In fact, Collins was not black, and she was not lynched in the popular sense of the word. Originally, the word "lynch" meant simply to administer any extralegal punishment, especially by flogging. Its meaning likely derived from William Lynch, leader of a vigilante movement in early Virginia. In this broad sense, Collins was indeed lynched, but in modern times the word "lynch" has taken on a narrower sense, meaning vigilante execution by hanging. Most people nowadays understand the word "lynch" in this narrower sense; so it is misleading simply to say that Paralee Collins was lynched without giving all the facts, as most citations about her on the Internet do. In fact, some of them specifically say that she was hanged, and, of course, she was not.
The other supposed lynching of a black person in the Ozarks that I've debunked recently is that of Andy Clark in January 1903 in Wayne County, Missouri. Clark was black. At least the people who persist in listing Clark as a victim of vigilante hanging have gotten that part right. However, he was not hanged and was not even administered any sort of vigilante punishment, because he was never captured after he committed the deed that supposedly resulted in his lynching.
Now comes a third dubious victim of lynching in southern Missouri: Nelson Simpson, who was supposedly lynched near Neelyville in Butler County, Missouri. On the night of January 1, 1901, a masked band of whitecaps visited a black neighborhood near Neelyville, shooting out windows and doors of the residents as a warning for them to leave the area. (The White Caps were originally a vigilante group that started in Indiana during the 1870s to enforce morality and community standards. For instance, men who neglected their families or women who had children out of wedlock were prime targets. However, as the movement spread to the Southern states during the late 1800s and early 1900s, the word "whitecaps" became more generic and the vigilante mobs mainly targeted black people.)
The mob that visited the black community in Neelyville summoned Simpson to his door, and when he appeared, "It was the signal for the discharge of a dozen or more firearms," according to a report in a St. Louis newspaper. "The bullets fairly rained into the house." Simpson fell badly wounded, and his ten-year-old daughter also received a serious wound. (Other newspapers reported that Simpson was mortally wounded.) The outlaws kept shooting "until every window in the house was riddled and the structure was perforated with bullets in a hundred places." Before the whitecaps left, the leader of the gang told the family that they must leave the territory within twenty days or they would receive a second visit, their house would be burned, and the residents punished.
Other houses in the neighborhood were also visited, and similar outrages perpetuated. Several black men were threatened with lynching if they did not leave within twenty days.
So, Nelson Simpson was, in fact, a victim of lynching in the original sense of the word, but, like Paralee Collins, he was not hanged. He also was not mortally wounded, as several newspapers reported in the immediate wake of the incident. He was still alive at the time of the 1910 census, almost ten years later. He also did not scare easily, because he was still living in the Neelyville area in 1910.
My intention in debunking these supposed lynchings of black people in the Ozarks is not to try to dismiss or diminish the tragic violence that blacks in the Ozarks experienced during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Although mob violence against blacks was not as prevalent in the Ozarks as it was in the South (at least partly, no doubt, because there weren't as many black residents as a percentage of the population), there were still plenty of blacks who were lynched (i.e. hanged illegally) in the Ozarks. Enough that we don't need to invent more.
I might add as well that Richard Mays (aka Mayes) is often cited as a black man who was lynched in Springfield, Missouri, in 1893. He was, in fact, lynched near Springville, Alabama.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
A Sooner Lynched By Boomers
There were several land runs during the late 1800s when Oklahoma was being opened up to white settlement, but the biggest was the one that occurred when the Cherokee Outlet, a six million acre strip of land along Kansas's southern border, was opened up in September 1893. Prospective landowners poured into so-called "boomer" camps to await the official opening of the Indian land. The word "boomer" referred to those who had been lobbying since 1879 for the opening of the Indian lands, but it took on a double meaning in the context of the land runs because those who gathered in the camps just outside the Indian land were awaiting the "boom" of the cannon as the official signal that the rush was on. Spurred by high land prices elsewhere and the financial panic of 1893, people poured into the camps by the thousands. People who wanted to participate in the land run had to acquire certificates authorizing them to do so, and the government posted guards along the border to try to keep unauthorized settlers out. Still, many "sooners," as they were called, sneaked in ahead of time. Tensions ran high in such an atmosphere, and incidents of violence were almost inevitable.
One such incident was the lynching of a sooner named Asa Youmans (or Yeamans). Youmans was an ex-sailor who'd formerly lived at Carthage, Missouri. He was one of several Missourians organized and paid by a syndicate of real estate men to acquire land in the Cherokee Outlet, and they sneaked onto the land south of Arkansas City, Kansas, prior to September 16, the official opening day. When the cannon boomed at noon on the 16th, the land run was officially on, and men thronged across the border in search free land on which to stake their claims.
When the first group of boomers from the Arkansas City camp reached the vicinity of present-day Blackwell, Oklahoma, they found about fifty sooners holding down claims with rifles as their only authority. One man, Asa Youmans, was holding down two claims, saying his partner had gone out in search of water. The first boomers went on without attempting to dislodge Youmans but reported what they'd witnessed to some of their fellow boomers. Two of the newcomers defiantly planted their flags on the land Youmans was claiming and resolved to stand by them. Youmans raised his rifle and ordered the two men off his claim. One of them asked to see his certificate, and Youmans admitted he had none and did not propose to get one. "I am a sooner," he reportedly proclaimed, "and I would like to know what in the hell you propose to do about it."
Facing the threat of a gun, the two men, like their predecessors, departed without further resistance, but they rounded up about two dozen of their friends and returned. Now greatly outnumbered, Youmans still showed fight and claimed, perhaps in the spirit of bravado, that he had already killed two settlers and could get away with killing more. The boomers promptly dispensed with anymore of Youman's braggadocio by placing a rope around his neck and stringing him up to a nearby tree, where they left him hanging as a warning to other sooners.
One such incident was the lynching of a sooner named Asa Youmans (or Yeamans). Youmans was an ex-sailor who'd formerly lived at Carthage, Missouri. He was one of several Missourians organized and paid by a syndicate of real estate men to acquire land in the Cherokee Outlet, and they sneaked onto the land south of Arkansas City, Kansas, prior to September 16, the official opening day. When the cannon boomed at noon on the 16th, the land run was officially on, and men thronged across the border in search free land on which to stake their claims.
When the first group of boomers from the Arkansas City camp reached the vicinity of present-day Blackwell, Oklahoma, they found about fifty sooners holding down claims with rifles as their only authority. One man, Asa Youmans, was holding down two claims, saying his partner had gone out in search of water. The first boomers went on without attempting to dislodge Youmans but reported what they'd witnessed to some of their fellow boomers. Two of the newcomers defiantly planted their flags on the land Youmans was claiming and resolved to stand by them. Youmans raised his rifle and ordered the two men off his claim. One of them asked to see his certificate, and Youmans admitted he had none and did not propose to get one. "I am a sooner," he reportedly proclaimed, "and I would like to know what in the hell you propose to do about it."
Facing the threat of a gun, the two men, like their predecessors, departed without further resistance, but they rounded up about two dozen of their friends and returned. Now greatly outnumbered, Youmans still showed fight and claimed, perhaps in the spirit of bravado, that he had already killed two settlers and could get away with killing more. The boomers promptly dispensed with anymore of Youman's braggadocio by placing a rope around his neck and stringing him up to a nearby tree, where they left him hanging as a warning to other sooners.
Sunday, May 8, 2016
Irene McCann: Good Girl or Bad Woman?
Irene Scott, according to her mother, was a “good girl” growing up in Alabama in the 1920s and even taught a Sunday school class, but shortly after she turned eighteen she just decided to “pick up and run off.” After sending a few letters home, Irene quit writing, and her mother, Velma Richardson, began to worry she might be dead. She wasn’t, but Velma was right to be worried.
Irene traveled back and forth across the country from Dallas to Chicago to New Orleans working as a waitress and dancer in various restaurants and clubs. In the fall of 1930, while working as a waitress at a restaurant and boardinghouse in Springfield, Missouri, she met a seventeen-year-old Joplin boy named Albert McCann. They were married just a few weeks later, and Albert, supposedly a perfect gentleman during their courtship, began to curse and beat her during drunken rages. She stayed with him out of fear, she later claimed.
In late November of 1930, Albert, Irene, and another couple drove from Joplin to Kansas City, where Albert and the other young man killed a drugstore owner during a robbery attempt, while Irene and the other woman waited in the car. After the crime, the foursome fled back to Jasper County.
In mid-December, Irene agreed to help Albert try to break a friend of his out of the Jasper County jail at Carthage. During the attempt, McCann shot and killed jailer E.O. Bray when he put up a struggle. After the shooting, Irene and her villainous husband ran from the jail yard through a gate, where she stumbled and broke a heel off one of her shoes.
The couple fled to Oklahoma and stopped at Chelsea to buy bandages for a wound Albert had sustained in his gun battle with Bray. Irene went into a drugstore to make the purchase, and the town marshal, who happened to be present, noticed the missing heel on her shoe. The next day he read a news story about the killing of Bray, and it mentioned the woman accomplice having lost a heel from her shoe. The marshal sent for photos of the suspects to confirm they were the same couple he’d seen at the drugstore. When they showed back up in Chelsea a couple of weeks later, he arrested them without incident, and they were taken back to Missouri to face first-degree murder charges.
Tried in April 1931, Albert McCann was convicted and sentenced to hang in July, but the verdict was appealed and the sentence postponed. Irene testified in her own defense at her trial in May, claiming she’d only gone along with Albert out of fear, and she was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to ten years in the state prison.
Transferred to the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Irene escaped from a hospital at the prison farm on November 10, 1931. She left behind a note explaining that she escaped because she wanted to try to get evidence to help her husband. Irene, whom one of the prison matrons called “a bad woman,” was recaptured the next day. Granted a retrial in Springfield, Albert was again convicted of murder in May of 1932, but this time he received a sentence of fifty years in prison instead of the death penalty.
In December of 1932, Irene made another dash for freedom. She and another inmate, Edna Murray, known as “the kissing bandit,” sawed their way out of a building at the prison farm that was reserved for unruly female prisoners.
After more than a year on the lam, Irene turned herself in at Chicago in January of 1934, saying that she was tired of running and wanted to go back to prison and finish her term. She was taken back to Jefferson City but stayed only about two years. Suffering from serious illness, she was paroled in January of 1936 and died shortly afterwards.
Irene traveled back and forth across the country from Dallas to Chicago to New Orleans working as a waitress and dancer in various restaurants and clubs. In the fall of 1930, while working as a waitress at a restaurant and boardinghouse in Springfield, Missouri, she met a seventeen-year-old Joplin boy named Albert McCann. They were married just a few weeks later, and Albert, supposedly a perfect gentleman during their courtship, began to curse and beat her during drunken rages. She stayed with him out of fear, she later claimed.
In late November of 1930, Albert, Irene, and another couple drove from Joplin to Kansas City, where Albert and the other young man killed a drugstore owner during a robbery attempt, while Irene and the other woman waited in the car. After the crime, the foursome fled back to Jasper County.
In mid-December, Irene agreed to help Albert try to break a friend of his out of the Jasper County jail at Carthage. During the attempt, McCann shot and killed jailer E.O. Bray when he put up a struggle. After the shooting, Irene and her villainous husband ran from the jail yard through a gate, where she stumbled and broke a heel off one of her shoes.
The couple fled to Oklahoma and stopped at Chelsea to buy bandages for a wound Albert had sustained in his gun battle with Bray. Irene went into a drugstore to make the purchase, and the town marshal, who happened to be present, noticed the missing heel on her shoe. The next day he read a news story about the killing of Bray, and it mentioned the woman accomplice having lost a heel from her shoe. The marshal sent for photos of the suspects to confirm they were the same couple he’d seen at the drugstore. When they showed back up in Chelsea a couple of weeks later, he arrested them without incident, and they were taken back to Missouri to face first-degree murder charges.
Tried in April 1931, Albert McCann was convicted and sentenced to hang in July, but the verdict was appealed and the sentence postponed. Irene testified in her own defense at her trial in May, claiming she’d only gone along with Albert out of fear, and she was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to ten years in the state prison.
Transferred to the state penitentiary in Jefferson City, Irene escaped from a hospital at the prison farm on November 10, 1931. She left behind a note explaining that she escaped because she wanted to try to get evidence to help her husband. Irene, whom one of the prison matrons called “a bad woman,” was recaptured the next day. Granted a retrial in Springfield, Albert was again convicted of murder in May of 1932, but this time he received a sentence of fifty years in prison instead of the death penalty.
In December of 1932, Irene made another dash for freedom. She and another inmate, Edna Murray, known as “the kissing bandit,” sawed their way out of a building at the prison farm that was reserved for unruly female prisoners.
After more than a year on the lam, Irene turned herself in at Chicago in January of 1934, saying that she was tired of running and wanted to go back to prison and finish her term. She was taken back to Jefferson City but stayed only about two years. Suffering from serious illness, she was paroled in January of 1936 and died shortly afterwards.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
Mass Murderer Bertha Gifford
I wrote briefly about Bertha Gifford on this blog a few years ago, but since I've included her in my latest book, Wicked Women of Missouri, I'm going to write about her again, this time a little more extensively. What follows is condensed from a chapter in the book.
Twenty-two-year-old Bertha Williams was said to be one of the prettiest girls in Jefferson County, Missouri, when Henry Graham married her in 1894. Ten years later, though, their marriage hit the rocks. According to later rumors, Henry started carrying on with another woman, but Bertha, still a beautiful woman, wasted little time pining over her husband’s infidelity. Instead, she started spending time with Eugene Gifford, a young man ten years her junior, and he fell under her spell and broke off his engagement to another young woman.
The Graham marital drama came to an abrupt halt when Henry suddenly took sick and died of pneumonia. Then, in 1907, after a respectable mourning period, Bertha married Gene Gifford, and the couple moved to Catawissa in neighboring Franklin County, just far enough away to escape the gossip of Morse Mill.
Gifford became a successful farmer in the Big Bend area north of Catawissa, and Bertha, who fed the hired hands, became noted for her cooking. She also cared for her neighbors whenever they took sick and soon gained a reputation as a respected country nurse.
From 1912 through the early 1920s, a number of her patients, including several children, died from unknown causes, but few people, if any, thought the deaths suspicious. That changed though, when seven-year-old Lloyd Schamel and his six-year-old brother, Elmer, died within six weeks of each other in 1925 while under Bertha’s care. The deaths aroused the suspicions of Dr. W.H. Hemker, who was summoned in both cases when the boys were already beyond help. He recommended an autopsy after Elmer died, but the boy’s father did not agree to the procedure. Deciding not to press the issue, Dr. Hemker wrote “acute unknown disease” and “acute gastritis” on Elmer’s death certificate, wording similar to what he had written on the death certificates of several of Bertha’s previous patients.
After the Schamel boys’ deaths, Bertha’s neighbors started whispering about possible foul play, and some even wrote anonymous letters to Franklin County prosecuting attorney Frank Jenny urging an investigation, but no official action was taken. Then in May of 1927, yet another of Bertha’s patients, forty-nine-year-old Ed Brinley, died at her home under mysterious circumstances. The death renewed Dr. Hemker’s suspicions, but he and a second doctor, whom Hemker had called in on the case, could not agree on a cause of death. Hemker again ended up writing “acute unknown disease” and “acute gastritis” on the death certificate.
After Brinley’s death, though, the tongues of Catawissa started wagging again, and the prosecutor received more letters urging an investigation. A St. Louis newspaperman arrived on the scene and, after talking to people around Catawissa, wrote a story naming at least five people who had died mysteriously while under Bertha Gifford’s care. In November of 1927, the prosecutor finally ordered a grand jury to look into Brinley’s death. Bertha reportedly “scared off the investigation” by threatening libel suits against anyone who testified against her, and the jury failed to indict her.
Not long afterward, Bertha and Gene moved to neighboring St. Louis County, but her former neighbors kept up the pressure on Prosecutor Jenny, who summoned another grand jury in August of 1928. After hearing testimony that Bertha Gifford had often purchased arsenic at a Pacific drugstore, several times just prior to the death of one of her patients, the jury indicted her for first degree murder in the poisoning deaths of Elmer Schamel and Ed Brinley. A charge of murdering Lloyd Schamel was later added to the indictment, and during the subsequent investigation, Bertha was implicated in at least seventeen deaths going all the way back to her first husband. She was charged only for the last three deaths, though, and she was tried only in the case of Ed Brinley. In November 1928, a Franklin County Circuit Court jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was committed to the State Hospital at Farmington the following month. She died there in 1951.
Twenty-two-year-old Bertha Williams was said to be one of the prettiest girls in Jefferson County, Missouri, when Henry Graham married her in 1894. Ten years later, though, their marriage hit the rocks. According to later rumors, Henry started carrying on with another woman, but Bertha, still a beautiful woman, wasted little time pining over her husband’s infidelity. Instead, she started spending time with Eugene Gifford, a young man ten years her junior, and he fell under her spell and broke off his engagement to another young woman.
The Graham marital drama came to an abrupt halt when Henry suddenly took sick and died of pneumonia. Then, in 1907, after a respectable mourning period, Bertha married Gene Gifford, and the couple moved to Catawissa in neighboring Franklin County, just far enough away to escape the gossip of Morse Mill.
Gifford became a successful farmer in the Big Bend area north of Catawissa, and Bertha, who fed the hired hands, became noted for her cooking. She also cared for her neighbors whenever they took sick and soon gained a reputation as a respected country nurse.
From 1912 through the early 1920s, a number of her patients, including several children, died from unknown causes, but few people, if any, thought the deaths suspicious. That changed though, when seven-year-old Lloyd Schamel and his six-year-old brother, Elmer, died within six weeks of each other in 1925 while under Bertha’s care. The deaths aroused the suspicions of Dr. W.H. Hemker, who was summoned in both cases when the boys were already beyond help. He recommended an autopsy after Elmer died, but the boy’s father did not agree to the procedure. Deciding not to press the issue, Dr. Hemker wrote “acute unknown disease” and “acute gastritis” on Elmer’s death certificate, wording similar to what he had written on the death certificates of several of Bertha’s previous patients.
After the Schamel boys’ deaths, Bertha’s neighbors started whispering about possible foul play, and some even wrote anonymous letters to Franklin County prosecuting attorney Frank Jenny urging an investigation, but no official action was taken. Then in May of 1927, yet another of Bertha’s patients, forty-nine-year-old Ed Brinley, died at her home under mysterious circumstances. The death renewed Dr. Hemker’s suspicions, but he and a second doctor, whom Hemker had called in on the case, could not agree on a cause of death. Hemker again ended up writing “acute unknown disease” and “acute gastritis” on the death certificate.
After Brinley’s death, though, the tongues of Catawissa started wagging again, and the prosecutor received more letters urging an investigation. A St. Louis newspaperman arrived on the scene and, after talking to people around Catawissa, wrote a story naming at least five people who had died mysteriously while under Bertha Gifford’s care. In November of 1927, the prosecutor finally ordered a grand jury to look into Brinley’s death. Bertha reportedly “scared off the investigation” by threatening libel suits against anyone who testified against her, and the jury failed to indict her.
Not long afterward, Bertha and Gene moved to neighboring St. Louis County, but her former neighbors kept up the pressure on Prosecutor Jenny, who summoned another grand jury in August of 1928. After hearing testimony that Bertha Gifford had often purchased arsenic at a Pacific drugstore, several times just prior to the death of one of her patients, the jury indicted her for first degree murder in the poisoning deaths of Elmer Schamel and Ed Brinley. A charge of murdering Lloyd Schamel was later added to the indictment, and during the subsequent investigation, Bertha was implicated in at least seventeen deaths going all the way back to her first husband. She was charged only for the last three deaths, though, and she was tried only in the case of Ed Brinley. In November 1928, a Franklin County Circuit Court jury found her not guilty by reason of insanity, and she was committed to the State Hospital at Farmington the following month. She died there in 1951.
Sunday, April 24, 2016
The Lynching That Wasn't
Doing credible research online is much more feasible than it used to be, because many more original records are now available than was the case just a few years ago. Also, secondary Internet sources such as Wikipedia, which were once considered very unreliable, have greatly improved. Still, the Internet has a well-deserved reputation for false and misleading information. After all, people can put about anything they want on the Internet.
For instance, a month or two ago, I wrote about the vigilante whipping of Paralee Collins in Howell County, Missouri, in 1914. As I pointed out, this incident has been cited on various websites as a lynching, either implying or directly stating that Paralee was hanged. In addition, the victim has often been identified as a black woman. In fact, Paralee was not black, and she was not lynched except in the broad sense that she was administered extralegal punishment.
Similar misinformation has been dispensed on the Internet and elsewhere about the case of Andy Clark, a black man who was supposedly lynched in Wayne County, Missouri, in 1903.
Clark, about 57, lived near Leeper in the southwest part of the county. On Monday, January 19, 1903, he was at the neighboring farm of a forty-six-year-old white man named James Thurman when the two men got into an argument over some land. Clark finally left and went to his own home about a quarter mile away, where he procured a shotgun. Returning to the other man’s house, according to one newspaper report, he called Thurman to the door and “shot his head almost off by emptying both barrels of the gun at his victim.”
Clark escaped and eluded capture until Wednesday afternoon the 21st, when he was captured in the swamps east of Leeper. Taken into town, he was placed in the village calaboose, but about eight o’clock that night, a mob of seventy men “battered in the prison door, took the trembling negro to a nearby tree and hanged him.”
That’s the story that was published in several newspapers in the immediate wake of the incident, and now, over a hundred years later, the story is still repeated as fact on the Internet and elsewhere. Andy Clark’s name is almost always included in lists of black men lynched in America that various people and organizations have compiled over the years.
The only problem is it didn't happen. Clark apparently wasn’t lynched at all. Just days after the initial report of the lynching was published, at least one newspaper (i.e. the Iron County Register) stated, “The report that A.N. Clark, who killed James Thurman, was lynched at Leeper, proves to be unfounded.” The paper went on to say that, in fact, Clark made his escape and that the report of his lynching was only “indicative of the fate that awaits him if he is caught.”
Clark had still not been captured a year and a half later. On the last day of June 1904, Missouri governor Alexander Dockery offered a reward of $100 for the arrest and conviction of “Andrew Clark, colored, accused of killing James Thurman in Wayne County in January 1903.”
Whatever happened to Clark is unknown, although he apparently was never brought to justice. One thing seems clear: he wasn’t lynched at the hands of a mob in Leeper, Missouri, in 1903.
For instance, a month or two ago, I wrote about the vigilante whipping of Paralee Collins in Howell County, Missouri, in 1914. As I pointed out, this incident has been cited on various websites as a lynching, either implying or directly stating that Paralee was hanged. In addition, the victim has often been identified as a black woman. In fact, Paralee was not black, and she was not lynched except in the broad sense that she was administered extralegal punishment.
Similar misinformation has been dispensed on the Internet and elsewhere about the case of Andy Clark, a black man who was supposedly lynched in Wayne County, Missouri, in 1903.
Clark, about 57, lived near Leeper in the southwest part of the county. On Monday, January 19, 1903, he was at the neighboring farm of a forty-six-year-old white man named James Thurman when the two men got into an argument over some land. Clark finally left and went to his own home about a quarter mile away, where he procured a shotgun. Returning to the other man’s house, according to one newspaper report, he called Thurman to the door and “shot his head almost off by emptying both barrels of the gun at his victim.”
Clark escaped and eluded capture until Wednesday afternoon the 21st, when he was captured in the swamps east of Leeper. Taken into town, he was placed in the village calaboose, but about eight o’clock that night, a mob of seventy men “battered in the prison door, took the trembling negro to a nearby tree and hanged him.”
That’s the story that was published in several newspapers in the immediate wake of the incident, and now, over a hundred years later, the story is still repeated as fact on the Internet and elsewhere. Andy Clark’s name is almost always included in lists of black men lynched in America that various people and organizations have compiled over the years.
The only problem is it didn't happen. Clark apparently wasn’t lynched at all. Just days after the initial report of the lynching was published, at least one newspaper (i.e. the Iron County Register) stated, “The report that A.N. Clark, who killed James Thurman, was lynched at Leeper, proves to be unfounded.” The paper went on to say that, in fact, Clark made his escape and that the report of his lynching was only “indicative of the fate that awaits him if he is caught.”
Clark had still not been captured a year and a half later. On the last day of June 1904, Missouri governor Alexander Dockery offered a reward of $100 for the arrest and conviction of “Andrew Clark, colored, accused of killing James Thurman in Wayne County in January 1903.”
Whatever happened to Clark is unknown, although he apparently was never brought to justice. One thing seems clear: he wasn’t lynched at the hands of a mob in Leeper, Missouri, in 1903.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
The Most Brutal Murder Ever in Cape Girardeau County
On the early morning of July 1, 1898, sixteen-year-old Jessie Lail and her mother, Bernice, finished milking the cows on the Lail farm about three miles south of Jackson, Missouri, and started toward a springhouse to store the milk. Jessie’s father, James Lail, briefly joined them but turned into the barn, remarking that he had work to do. Continuing toward a gate that led to the springhouse, Jessie and her mother saw nineteen-year-old John Headrick, who had previously worked on the Lail farm, come through a different gate and walk toward the barn, but nothing in his appearance aroused suspicion.
Jessie and her mother went through the gate and down a hill to the springhouse. They had just entered the building when they heard gunshots coming from the barn. Racing back up the hill, they saw Headrick chasing James Lail out of the barn and firing a pistol at him. After Lail collapsed from the gunshots, Bernice threw herself atop her husband’s body to try to shield him, while Headrick stood calmly reloading his pistol. He then shot Mrs. Lail in the back, fired several more shots into James Lail, and commenced to beat him with the pistol after he was dead. He also gave Mrs. Lail a lick or two and was getting ready to shoot her when Jessie arrived to intervene. “John Headrick,” she yelled, “what do you mean? You’re killed Papa and now you’re killing Mama.”
Jessie wrenched the gun away from Headrick, but he got it back and threatened to shoot her, too, if she didn’t back off. Headrick then started marching Jessie at gunpoint toward the Lail house. Looking back, he saw Bernice Lail get up and start running. The villain chased after her, knocked her down, and stabbed and slashed her with a knife. Leaving the woman weltering in her own blood, he met Jessie coming to her mother’s aid but turned her around and again herded her toward the house. As they neared the house, Bernice again got up and started running toward her mother-in-law’s nearby residence. Seeing she was too far away to overtake, Headrick remarked to Jessie, “The old woman is gone. You can’t kill her, can you?”
At the house, Headrick forced Jessie to pour him some water so he could wash his hands. Then, threatening to kill Jessie if she reported him or tried to follow him, he took off on foot toward Jackson.
At least that’s the story Jessie told. Headrick was captured late on July 2, and Jessie was the main witness at a coroner’s inquest held shortly afterward. Headrick was indicted for first degree murder in August, and at his trial in November at Jackson, Jessie was again the star witness. Bernice, who had been near death at the time of the coroner’s jury and unable to testify, had recovered enough to corroborate her daughter’s story. The prosecution sought to show that the main motive for the crime was that Lail had fired Headrick from his job shortly before the murder.
The defense, however, tried to show there was a romantic relationship between Headrick and Jessie Lail, that James Lail was angry about it, that he had fired Headrick partly because of it, and that the confrontation leading to Lail’s death came about when the older man discovered Headrick and his daughter in the barn together that morning and started hitting him with a curry comb. The defense even hinted that Jessie had aided in the crime, but Jessie, who had gotten married since her father’s death, adamantly denied these accusations. The jurors either gave no credence to the defense theory, or they decided that Jessie’s alleged romantic involvement with the defendant didn’t matter, since he had admitted to repeatedly shooting James Nail even after Nail fled.
Headrick was convicted and, after a futile appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court, sentenced to hang on June 15, 1899. His last words on the gallows were that someone else was guiltier than he was of the crime for which he was about to pay the penalty. A few days after the hanging, a full confession he had written in his jail cell two days before the execution was published in a Jackson newspaper. He claimed that not only were he and Jessie romantically involved but that she had taken an active role in the murder of her father and the wounding of her mother.
If so, neither Jessie nor her mother ever admitted as much.
Jessie and her mother went through the gate and down a hill to the springhouse. They had just entered the building when they heard gunshots coming from the barn. Racing back up the hill, they saw Headrick chasing James Lail out of the barn and firing a pistol at him. After Lail collapsed from the gunshots, Bernice threw herself atop her husband’s body to try to shield him, while Headrick stood calmly reloading his pistol. He then shot Mrs. Lail in the back, fired several more shots into James Lail, and commenced to beat him with the pistol after he was dead. He also gave Mrs. Lail a lick or two and was getting ready to shoot her when Jessie arrived to intervene. “John Headrick,” she yelled, “what do you mean? You’re killed Papa and now you’re killing Mama.”
Jessie wrenched the gun away from Headrick, but he got it back and threatened to shoot her, too, if she didn’t back off. Headrick then started marching Jessie at gunpoint toward the Lail house. Looking back, he saw Bernice Lail get up and start running. The villain chased after her, knocked her down, and stabbed and slashed her with a knife. Leaving the woman weltering in her own blood, he met Jessie coming to her mother’s aid but turned her around and again herded her toward the house. As they neared the house, Bernice again got up and started running toward her mother-in-law’s nearby residence. Seeing she was too far away to overtake, Headrick remarked to Jessie, “The old woman is gone. You can’t kill her, can you?”
At the house, Headrick forced Jessie to pour him some water so he could wash his hands. Then, threatening to kill Jessie if she reported him or tried to follow him, he took off on foot toward Jackson.
At least that’s the story Jessie told. Headrick was captured late on July 2, and Jessie was the main witness at a coroner’s inquest held shortly afterward. Headrick was indicted for first degree murder in August, and at his trial in November at Jackson, Jessie was again the star witness. Bernice, who had been near death at the time of the coroner’s jury and unable to testify, had recovered enough to corroborate her daughter’s story. The prosecution sought to show that the main motive for the crime was that Lail had fired Headrick from his job shortly before the murder.
The defense, however, tried to show there was a romantic relationship between Headrick and Jessie Lail, that James Lail was angry about it, that he had fired Headrick partly because of it, and that the confrontation leading to Lail’s death came about when the older man discovered Headrick and his daughter in the barn together that morning and started hitting him with a curry comb. The defense even hinted that Jessie had aided in the crime, but Jessie, who had gotten married since her father’s death, adamantly denied these accusations. The jurors either gave no credence to the defense theory, or they decided that Jessie’s alleged romantic involvement with the defendant didn’t matter, since he had admitted to repeatedly shooting James Nail even after Nail fled.
Headrick was convicted and, after a futile appeal to the Missouri Supreme Court, sentenced to hang on June 15, 1899. His last words on the gallows were that someone else was guiltier than he was of the crime for which he was about to pay the penalty. A few days after the hanging, a full confession he had written in his jail cell two days before the execution was published in a Jackson newspaper. He claimed that not only were he and Jessie romantically involved but that she had taken an active role in the murder of her father and the wounding of her mother.
If so, neither Jessie nor her mother ever admitted as much.
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