USA > Missouri > Benton County > A sketch of the history of Benton County, Missouri > Part 4
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Judge Wright was appointed Judge in 1837. The Circuit then consisted of Benton, Pulaski, Polk, Groene, Barry and Taney, and was the 7th. These Counties then embraced about all of South- west Missouri. Judge Wright held his first Court at Mr. Fristoe's house, and, there not being room for all the lawyers at Fristoe's, Judge Wright, Winston and John Wilson went out to board at John Smith's, who then lived near the grave yard, in Mr. John Failer's field. Judge Wright liking the prairie bottom out there, Mr. Smith gave him a part of his claim, and he soon after settled on his farm, and lived there till about 1844, when he moved to Warsaw. The first few years of Judge Wright's service was a stormy time in the history of our Courts. During this time the cases growing out of the Howard and Newson feud and the "Slicker war" were tried. Of the latter, some account will be given hereafter. Of the nature of the Howard and Nowson feud I can get no very correct information. It seems to have existed soon after the organization of the County, between John H. Howard and Nathan Newson, both of whom lived on the river, below Warsaw, the latter keeping a ferry, for some time, at the farm now owned by Vaitch Light. Each had his party, and much bad feeling prevailed, resulting in many fist fights and law suits, and some bloodshed. Ono trial gave rise to an unusual manner of administering justice in this county. Howard had been indicted for unlawfully co-habit- ing with a woman who lived in his family, and was acquitted. Jo- seph McCarty had sworn against him on the trial, and he had him indicted and convicted of perjury. The sentence was, one dollar fine, one hour in jail, and one hour in the pillory. There being no
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pillory, Sheriff Cornwall executed the latter part of the sentence by tying McCarty to a horse rack with a bridle rein. Among the lawyers who practiced in our Court at an early day, were Jno. S. Phelps, Charles S. Yancey, John S. Waddle, and L. Henricks, of Springfield, Jno. Wilson, of Boonville, father of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in 1871, and James Winston, famous as the author of the remark that " a turkey was a very inconvenient bird, being too much for one man and not enough for two." He and Hendricks both, afterward, moved to Warsaw, and, in 1844, I think, Winston ran for Governor, and Hendricks for Lieutenant Governor. Winston canvassed the State, traveling on foot. He was a very eccentric man, improvident in money matters, careless in his dress, but, withal, a man of unusual genius and eloquence. When he went to speak at St. Louis, his friends, ashamed of his shabby appearance, dressed him up in a suit of fine broadcloth, with swallow tail coat and stove pipe hat. After leaving St. Lonis, he continued to foot it over the State in his new suit, and kept it on till it was worn out. He was elected State Senator in 1850. Among the resident lawyers were C. P. Bullock, D. C. Ballou, Benjamin P. Major, George Dixon, R. B. Ridgley, Mark L. Means, Thomas Ruffin and Felix Hunton. Benj. P. Major was elected State Senator in 1842.
X.
BANK OF NIANGUA.
About 1830, a man by the name of Garland came to the lower Big Spring, on Niangua, which is two miles above the crossing of the Linn Creek and Warsaw road. He greatly pleased the few settlers in that region by announcing his intention of putting up a fine grist mill. He never put up anything, however, at the spring, but a blacksmith shop. With him were Spence, Quillen, Cross and Earley, and perhaps others. It soon became known that they received occasional visits from companies of four or five well dressed and equipped men, who came from the direction of St. Louis, with the avowed purpose of starting iron works at the spring. No iron works, however, appeared, but the country was soon found to be flooded with counterfeit bank bills. Suspi- cion settled on Garland and his friends as the makers of them, and a party of hunters finally came upon them at their headquarters, in a secluded and almost inaccessible ravine near the spring. The counterfeiters fled, and the hunters found their counterfeiting implements under a shelving rock, and a large quantity of unsigned counterfeit bills. It is said their practice was to take the bills to St. Louis, and have them signed in a cellar by a Mrs. Skid- more, whose husband belonged to the band. The band was organized as a bank, with a President, Cashier, Clerks, and a Board of Directors. Some of them operated in St. Louis, putting the money in circulation there. They had agencies, facetiously called branch banks, scattered through the country, who aided in putting the bills out in the country. Several men, who were prominent in this county, at that time, were supposed to be " branches " of the bank. The operations of the Bank were large, and the bills so well executed that they passed readily with indif- ferent judges of money. A small store of Wyan & Trigg's, at Warsaw, which was conducted by their agent, is said to have received one of its $100 bills, and to have been so crippled by the loss that it had to close up.
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The band is said, by some, to have been broken up on the information of the hunters who discovered them. By others it is said that Mr. Skidmore dying, and the bank refusing to con- tinue a proper share of the profits to Mrs. Skidmore, she went to the United States District Judge, at St. Louis, and exposed it. The Judge placed the case in the hands of Gen. Augustus Jones, United States Marshal, who succeeded in arresting Garland and his chief confederates, and seizing their implements. Some say they escaped, others that they were acquitted, because all the bills found in their possession were unsigned.
About the same time, and later, a man named Abee, with some confederates, made spurious coin at some point on Niangua, between the two Big Springs. Abee's money became famous all over this country, and a number of Benton County men were sup- posed to have aided in its circulation. One of them paid off an execution, in the hands of E. W. Ramsey, Deputy Sheriff, with sixty odd dollars, in bright new counterfeit silver coin. Mr. Ramsey discovering the money to be false, it was replaced with good, without a word. After an overflow, Mr. Josephus Gill dis- covered a large quantity of counterfeit gold on the river, below Warsaw, under a cabin that had been washed away. One of their crucibles was found in a cave, on the Gravois.
In 1874 a copper plate for printing U. S. Bank notes was plowed up in a field near Linn Creek, and Mr. Armstrong, of the Linn Creek Rustic took a very legible impression from it on coarse printing paper.
XI.
SLICKER WAR.
About the year 1839, came to Benton County, Hiram K. Turk, and his wife and four sons, James, Thomas J., Nathan and Robert. They settled on the road north of Quincy, just south of the old Archibald Cock place. Quincy was not then known, but that vicinity was called Judy's Gap, from Samuel Judy, who settled at the gap of prairie connecting Hogle's Creek prairie with the 25 mile prairie. Turk came from Tennessee where he had been selling goods. He is said to have had considerable property at one time, but was broken up when he came herc. He had been Colonel of militia, in Tennessee, and was known here as Col. Turk. It is said that he had several buck shot in his body when he came. He and his boys at once opened a small store and dram shop, which became a kind of rallying point for the neighborhood. From the first, Hiram, James, and, in a less degree, Tom, acquired the repu- tation of being quarrelsome, violent, and overbearing men. Hiram, and, perhaps, James, drank to excess. They were men of fine forms, dressed well, for those times, and, in their better moods, were men of unusually courteous and dignified manners. They possessed more than an average degree of intelligence and education. Tom Turk's writing, found among the records, shows a trained business hand.
They had been here but a few months till we find them engaged in difficulties. We first have an indistinct account of James Turk swearing and threatening, on the arrest of some par- ties for theft. On the 18th of February, 1840, he made a violent assault on John Graham, a man of some prominence, at that time, in the neighborhood of Judy's Gap .. On the next day Mr. Graham wrote the following note to the Justice of the Peace :
February the 19 day-1840.
mister wisdom sir please to come fourth with to my house and fetch your law books and come as quick as you can as I have been Lay waid by James turk and smartley wounded sow that I Cant Come to your house and is A fraid that he will Escape JOHN GRAHAM.
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The following is Graham's testimony in regard to the as- sault :
On the 18th of February I went to Jas. Dudley's Blacksmith Shop to get my brother's mare shod to ride to Sac River. On my return home I met James Turk, and when he got in about fifty or sixty yards of me he got off of his horse, led it to the bushes and hitched, and came up into the road rolling up his sleeves. When he got in fifteen or twenty steps of me, he named that he had been wanting to meet with me some time back. I halted my mare, and told him to stand back, and he said, "G-d d-n your soul, I don't ask you any odds." I reined my mare back, and he still rushed on towards me, with his staff drawn. I still told him the second time to " stand back and have some honor in him and not rush on a man in that way." By this time he had got within about three steps of me. He pitched at me, and, with his left hand, caught my mare by the bridle. He threw his hand behind him, and drew out his bowie knife, and aimed at me with it ; and, as he struck at me, I jumped on the opposite side of the nag. He ran around the mare's head, where I was, and made another lick at me, and I broke to run. He took after me with his bowie knife, striking at me as I ran, swear- ing, "G-d d-n you, I will kill you." 'The distance we ran, I think, was about twenty or thirty yards. I think I fell twice or three times in the distance, and he kept striking at me. By that time I had got rather out of the thicket into open ground. I drew out a pistol and told him, if he rushed on me any further, I would kill him, and cocked it. He halted but very little when he saw the pistol presented at his breast, and still moving toward me with his bowie knife and club, I bursted a cap at him. I wheeled, then, to run, and he made at me with his bowie knife and club, and struck me with his club and knocked me down, and, as I was raising, he struck me across the head with his bowie knife. By this time Andy Ripetoe ran up facing Turk, and told him he had to stop. Turk observed to Ripetoe that he had nothing against him, but that lie would kill me. He made a halt when Ripetoe told him to stop, and by that time I had got out of the thicket and up to my mare, and on her, and left him there, hunting the scabbard of his bowie knife. I lost my pistol when he knocked me down the last time, and I was afraid to go back into the thicket to luunt it while he was there. I went to Mrs. Ripetoe's and got a gun, and came back again to hunt my pistol. He was about one hundred and fifty yards from the place where we fought, in the road, going towards Judy's. He saw me coming with the gun, struck his horse, and broke in a gallop toward Judy's; then jumped off his horse and said, " G-d d-n you, come on; I will go home and get father, and all my brothers, and come to your house this night, and I will have your heart's blood at the risk of my life." Then I went into the thicket to look for my pistol, and saw it lying in the leaves where he knocked me down, and spoke to Ripetoe to pick it up; he did so, and we went back to his mother's, and stayed all night.
A warrant was issued, and W. W. McMillan deputized to execute it. With a posse of five men, he went to James Turk; and arrested him, but Turk refused to go to Gra- ham's house for trial. Graham refused to go into the pres- ence of Turk to testify till he was disarmed. Justice Wisdom ordered him to be disarmed, and took hold of him to assist, when old Hiram pulled him off, and Tom Turk drew his pistol, and made the officers stand off. The Turks and their friends then took James and went home. On McMillan's warrant, I find the return, " Levied on the body of Jas. Turk, Fob. 19, 1840," entered and
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erased. A warrant was sworn out against them for rescuing a prisoner. Sheriff Smith went out and made the arrest, and they were bound over by 'Squire Wisdom,-James, for the assault; Tom, for rescuing James; and Hiram for the rescue, and to keep the peace toward John Graham, whom he had threatened. During the procecding, Hiran Turk charged Justice Wisdom with prose- cuting him through malice, whereupon the Justice fined him $20, the collection of which Turk had stayed by writ of prohibition from the Circuit Court. These proceedings aided in planting the animosity that took shape in the Slicker war.
Some years before the Turks came to the County, the Joneses, four brothers, Andrew, Samuel, Isaac and John, had settled on Big Pomme de Terre, just above the Breshears' prairie. Among the carly settlers they were prominent as horse racers and gam- blers. They were coarse men, whose manners had been formed in the rough society of the borders. They are said to have been illiterate. I find their names always signed by mark.
At the August clection, in 1840, held at Turk's house, James Turk and Andrew Jones became involved in a controversy about a bet ou a horse race .* Jones proposed to fight it out in the usual style of those days, with the fists. Turk agreed, but stepping into the house, came out with a knife, and attacked Jones, when a general row onsued ; Turk's father and brother assisting him, and two of the Keaton's, and others, assisting Jones. At the Circuit Court sitting a few days later, Tom, James and Robert, were indicted for a riot, and Hiram and James for the assault on Andrew Joncs. John B. Clark was foreman of this Grand Jury, and Hendricks Circuit Attorney. At the December terin, 1840, the three boys were convicted of the riot. and fined $100. The fine was remitted by Gov. Thos. Reynolds. The case against Hiram and James was continued to the April term, 1841. A chief witness against tho Turks was Abraham C. Nowell, a quiet and respectable citizen living three miles north-west of Judy Gap. The Turks had sworn he should never testify against them. On the morning of April 3, 1841, the first day of Circuit Court, Nowell, coming to Warsaw, in company with Julius Sutliff, who lived close to the Turks, was
* Other accounts say that the Turks had just opened a new stock of goods, and, making considerable sales on election day, soon discovered that several counterfeit bills, of the same denomination, had been passed on them. On Inquiry, they traced them all back to Andy Jones, and the difficulty is said to have arlsen from the Turks charging hlu with circulating counterfelt money.
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overtaken at the branch this side of Arch. Cock's, and assaulted with a pistol, by James Turk. Nowell, in self-defence, got Sutliff's gun, and shot Turk dead. A full account of the affair is contained in the following evidence :
Julius Sutliff testified as follows :
On the first day of the Benton County Circuit Court, in the Spring Term, in 1841, I was at a Blacksmith shop belonging to Mr. Glazebrook, in Benton County. I found Mr. Nowell, Mr. Addington and others, there. Mr. Glazebrook's shop is about 400 yards from the house in which he lived. I started from the shop and went to Mr. Cock's, about 400 yards. I stopped at Mr. Cock's until Mr. Nowell and Mr. Addington came up, then got on my horse and started on with them. I rode on with them till they all came to a little branch, between Mr. Cock's and Mr. Bishop's. I here stopped to drink, and Mr. Nowell stopped by tlie side of me. Mr. Addington's horse stopped a few steps beyond us. While I was drinking, Mr. James Turk, and another gentleman, came up and passed Nowell and me. I heard Mr. James Turk speak to Mr. Addington, and say " Good morning." James Turk passed myself and Nowell about fifteen or twenty steps. He turned in his saddle, and said to Mr. Nowell, " Which one of your places, or quarters, shall I settle on ?" Mr. Nowell said, " Neither." Turk said "I will be d-d if I don't." Mr. Nowell said, "Jimmy Turk, you can never settle on my place." Turk then replied "d-n your old soul, if you say much I will settle it on the spot." Nowell said, "no you won't." Turk, thereupon, got off his horse, and ran his hand in his pocket, on the left hand side of his coat, and drew out a pistol, and advanced on Nowell. Nowell told Turk to stop. When Turk got his pistol out, Nowell spoke to me and said "let me have your gun." Turk was still advancing. Nowell took the gun from me and drew it up to his face, Turk still advancing. Nowell told him to stop, and, if he advanced any further, he would shoot him. Turk kept on advancing and Nowell shot him. James Turk's general character was that of a fighting man. I was his nearest neighbor; never had any difficulty with him myself. Mr. Nowell has the reputation of being a peaceable man; I never heard of him quarrelling with any other man.
John Prince testified as follows :
I heard James Turk say that Mr. Nowell was a main witness, and never should give in evidence against them, that he intended to take the d-d old son of a b-h off his horse and whip him, so he could not go to court. Turk further said that if they took the case to Springfield he would have him (Nowell,) fixed so he never would get there ; I think that the case in which Nowell was a witness, is the case that Andrew Jones had against James Turk and Hiram K. Turk. I think it was about a fight that took place at Hiram K. Turk's on an election. I think that the parties to the fight, from what I understood, were Jones, James Turk, Hiram K. Turk, and perhaps Bob Turk. This conversation I had with James Turk in the last part of last month, about a week before the spring term of the Benton Circuit Court, 1841.
Nowell being told by his friends that the Turks would kill him, fled the country, but returned in September, went to the Sheriff, was committed to jail and bailed out. He was tried at the April term, 1842, and acquitted, Thomas Rank being foreman of the Jury Phelps, Ben. P. Major and Ridgley defended him. Dixon was Circuit Attorney. On the death of Jas. Turk and the flight of Nowell, the cases against Jas. Turk were dismissed, and 7
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those against Hiram continued, and he was killed before they were again called.
During the spring in which James Turk was killed, Hiram and Tom. Turk were engaged in a number of petty lawsuits with their neighbors, and I have an imperfect account of Hiram Turk going to the house of Arch. Cock after night, in liquor, and break- ing into the house with the avowed purpose of killing Cock; Tom. followed him and prevented him from doing any harm.
But the first event after the killing of James Turk which had a marked effect in fixing the animosity between the Turks and Joneses, was the kidnapping of James Morton. Morton was related by marriage to the Joneses. In 1830 he had killed a Sheriff in Alabama, who was attempting to arrest him, and fled to this County. On the 20th of May, 1841, one McReynolds called on Sheriff Smith, at Warsaw, with a copy of an indictment found against Morton in Alabama, and a copy of a proclamation of the Governor of Alabama, offering $400 reward for him. The Sheriff not deeming the papers sufficient refused to make the arrest. McReynolds declared he would get somebody to make the arrest, and went on South. He fell in with the Turks, with whom he had probably been in communication before, and on the evening of the 21st of May, they went with him to take Morton. The circumstances of the arrest are given in the following testimony of Wm. Paxton, before D. C. Ballou, Justice of the Peace :
I was better than a mile from mine and Rankin's mill. I was going home on foot. Hiram K. Turk overtook me on the road and told me that a couple of gentlemen from Alabama had come on with authority to take Morton. He said that they were then going to take Morton, as he understood that he was at the mill. There was no one immediately along with Turk then. The company was at the left of Turk and myself. Hiram Turk and myself and the company, met just at the edge of the prairie. The company consisted of Condley, Rice, Thos. Turk, McReynolds and Gunter. The company consulted together and it was agreed by the company (I do not think that Rice and Condley said anything,) that Mr. MeReynolds and Turk should go the way I was going, and they went with me. The others took a left hand road and I did not see any of them except Rice until they met at the mill. After Turk, MeReynolds and myself started towards the mill, Turk insisted that I should ride his horse as he was tired of riding, which I did, and Turk then went ahead, MeReynolds and myself staid behind talking together. Just behind the mill in the edge of the woods, James Morton was gathering up plank. Turk went towards him and appeared to say something to him, and I think that Morton answered Turk, though I did not hear what was said. Morton stooped down to gather up more plank and Turk jumped and caught Morton by the waistband and the back of the neck, and told him that he need not make any resistance that he could not get loose, that he was in the hands of a man. Morton said he was not trying to get loose, or, who was trying to get loose. Turk let go of his collar and Morton insisted on know-
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ing by what authority they took him. I think Turk told him "we will show you." McReynolds got off of his horse and pulled out a pistol. Morton asked what that pistol was out for. McReynolds told him that if he attempted to get away or make any resistance it was to shoot him with. Turk spoke to McRey- nolds and told him to get the strap. McReynolds got out the strap and Turk held Morton and McReynolds tied him. Morton complained that they were tying him too tight. Morton was then lead out of the woods to the road. I cannot say who lead him. Morton still insisted on knowing by what authority they took him. Turk said it would be there in a few moments. Turk and all made a move down the road to meet the other company which had not got there yet. Just as they got started the other company came in sight. Gunter who was foremost got down off of his horse and took a rope and tied around the strap that fastened Morton's arms together. Morton asked Condley if he was the officer who was taking him, and he said that he had nothing to do with it. They then put Morton on a horse and took him back to my house. They all ate supper at my house except Morton, who would not eat anything. They all got their horses ready, and Turk took off his coat and put it on Morton, and I think Thos. Turk put Morton on the horse. He was still bound. When Morton was asked to eat he said they would never get him to Alabama and that he never would eat another bite in the world. McReynolds said he would show his authority for taking Morton to the proper authority and took a paper from his pocket. It had some writing on it and something that looked like a State seal. I did not examine it. I understood from Turk and McReynolds that they intended to take Morton to Alabama. In the first place I think they talked of giving him up to Sheriff Smith. The company consulted together before they left my house, and the conclusion was that they should take him to Alabama. They talked of going by the way of Bolivar, also by Boonville, and Jefferson City and Cape Girardeau.
The mill at which Morton was taken, was on the Pomme de Terre, below Hermitage, at the place where Hickman's mill now stands. Morton was taken during the night to Mr. E. T. Condley's house, and also to Mr. Judy's. Mr. Condley then had a blacksmith shop on the rocky ridge road beyond Mr. N. Campbell's house, where the old North Prairie and Judy's Gap road crossed. On the morning of the 22nd they crossed the ferry at Warsaw before sunrise and pushed on to the Missouri River. They were closely pursued by Morton's friends, including Judge Geo. Alexander, whose sister Morton married, but got out of the state. Morton was tried and acquitted, and returned in about a year. It is said that some connection with the trial of Morton, led to the removal of Judge Burr H. Emerson to this county.
Hiram K. Turk was arrested and bound over for kidnapping, by D. C. Ballou, Justice of the Peace. He was indicted and the indictment quashed about the time of his death; Finch, Otter and Hendricks were his Attorneys. The kidnapping of Morton warmed the already bad blood of the Joneses to murderous heat. According to the confession of Jabez L. Harrison when he was whipped by the Turks, a conspiracy was formed a few days after
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Morton was taken off, to kill Hiram K. and Tom Turk. The Joneses of whom Andrew was the leader, engaged the co-operation of their friends and the enemies whom the Turks had made, and about the first of July 1841, Harrison says they met at the house of Archi- bald Cock and entered into an agreement to kill Hiram K. Turk, a writing being drawn up by Henry Hodge binding them to kill Turk, and to kill any one of the party who should divulge the conspiracy. Harrison says that the following parties entered into the agreement, viz: Andrew Jones, Nicholas Suden, W m. Brook- shire, Milton Hume, John Williams, Henry Hodge, Thomas Mead- ows, Josiah Keaton, James L. Keaton, John Whittaker, Archibald Cock and Jabez L. Harrison. Mr. Cock, Harrison says, agreed to give Harrison a horse to join in killing the Turks. Justice to Mr. Cock, the Keatons and Mr. Hume, requires the statement here, that they were acquitted of this charge by the Courts. But such a conspiracy was doubtless formed, for on the 17th of July, 1841, Hiram K. Turk was shot from the brush and mortally wounded. He had been attending a law suit at Squire Alex. Breshear's, on Pomme de Terre, and was returning in the afternoon in company with Alex. and Thos. Cox, friends of the Turk's who lived near Judy's Gap, Andrew Turk and E. T. Condley. Andrew Turk was not related to the Turk's, but coming through the county and learning they were of the same name with himself, he stayed with them a while and took a hand in many of their difficulties. The company were riding along a road now disused, running from North Prairie to Judy's Gap through the Breshears prairie. This road passed by the house of Squire Sampson Norton, which is the second house south of Pomme de Terre on the Warsaw and Her- mitage road. Here many of the examinations were had during the "Slicker War." About a quarter of a mile west of Norton's while passing up a brushy hollow, Turk and Condley being some distance behind the others, a gun was fired from the brush, Turk's horse sprang forward and Turk fell off, exclaiming "I am a dead man." Mr. Condley while raising him up heard another gun fire, and Jabez Harrison afterwards said that he shot at Condley and would have killed him had he not stooped. The Cox's and Andy Turk ran back in great alarm. Andy Turk started at once to Warsaw for a doctor, and returned after dark with Drs. Tabor and Bush. The others took Turk back to Norton's, where he remained until a few
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