USA > Missouri > Vernon County > History of Vernon County, Missouri : past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county Vol. I > Part 30
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Another noted case was that of Henry S. Stair, who was hung on January 15, 1886, near the site where Fox was executed, for the brutal murder of Jacob Sewell and his son Mack Sewell. On the morning of August 7, 1885, Thomas Hendricks and David and Joseph Wallace discovered a dead body in a shallow grave in a lonely spot on the Marmaton bottom, some three miles north- east of Nevada. On receiving the alarm Coroner Harris and Sheriff Hill and others hastened to the place and further search disclosed two bodies, which were recognized as those of Jacob Sewell, an elderly man 64 years old, and his son, Mack, 17. Prior to this Jacob Phillips and J. H. Cox had been searching and dig- ging in the Marmaton bottom for treasures supposed to have been secreted there during the war. On the morning before the finding
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of the bodies two wagons, one driven by a man and the other by a woman, drew near where Phillips and Cox were camping, and on their accosting the man he told them he was looking over the land with a view of buying, that the woman was his wife, and speaking of her apparent alarm, said she was timid and nervous and had been frightened by a large black dog she had seen. Phillips and Cox left. Soon afterward Mr. David Soward came upon the man and woman with the wagon, and the talk he had with them aroused his suspicions, 'and at night he, with Hen- dricks and the Wallace brothers, visited the place to investigate, but accomplished nothing in the darkness of the heavy timber. Late in the afternoon the man and woman having encamped a half-mile distant from the camp of Phillips and Cox, the man again visited them and said he had found good grass on the hill and pitched his camp there. It was near this camping place that the bodies were found. The mutilated bodies showed clearly that murder had been committed, and all the circumstances pointed to the man and woman as the murderers. From descriptions, given they were recognized as parties who had lived in a small house in Nevada, the same that had been the home of Fox, where they did laundry work, being known as Henry S. Stair and Nan- netta, his wife. It was known that the Sewells had been encamped near the fair grounds and that Stair and his wife had been in the habit of visiting them, and the conclusion was reached that the murder had been committed on one of these visits, the motive being to possess themselves of some eight head of ponies and horses of little value and some articles of trifling worth owned by the Sewells. On the afternoon of the day the bodies were discovered Stair and his alleged wife were found on Kitten creek, three miles from Harwood, and arrested by Marshal Brady and Deputy Sheriff White, and that night were placed in jail at Nevada. It was soon learned that the name of the woman, who was but the mistress of Stair, was Nannetta Osborne, that Stair had a wife in Indiana, that they met in Arkansas, lived together in various places and came to Nevada from Fort Scott ; that Stair was born of a respectable family in Indiana, but was a hardened criminal when he came to Nevada, having been concerned in numerous serious crimes, and with a penitentiary record. It also became known that he had been in an insane asylum in Minne- sota, though this fact was not mentioned at the trial in extenua-
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tion of the crime. The woman, who was 23 years old, came of a Quaker family in Indiana, and had fallen from her womanhood and became a partner of Stair in his crimes.
A special term of court was convened by Judge Burton on August 22, indictments against the man and woman were duly returned, and on the 24th both were arraigned and pleaded not guilty. H. H. Blanton, prosecuting attorney, presented the case of the state, and the defense was conducted by Messrs. Scott and Hoss, of Nevada, and a Mr. Martindale, of Indiana, a brother-in- law of Stair. His father, Frederick Stair, aided by furnishing money for his defense. Stair's claim that he paid the elder Sewell $350 for the teams and other property in the presence of a man named Green, who, he alleged, must have committed the murders to get the money ; that when he drove away he did not know the dead bodies were in the wagon and did not discover them till he reached the Marmaton bottom, and then sought to hide them to ward off suspicion against himself were such palpable lies that they had no effect, except to show the prisoner's further depravity by his willingness to add perjury to his already long list of crimes. The verdict of the jury, after a few minutes' deliberation, found both parties guilty of murder in the first degree, and Judge Burton sentenced them to be hung on October 22. On appeal to the supreme court the judgment of the circuit court was affirmed as to Stair, but on account of an error in the allowance of certain evidence against the woman, as was claimed, a new trial was granted her, though no one doubted she was as guilty as the man. Subsequently she confessed that Stair committed the murder, using an old hatchet as the death weapon. As stated, Stair was executed on January 15, 1886, and to the last he asserted his innocence from the scaffold, and denounced those who had secured his conviction. Among those who witnessed the hanging were Stair's father and a sister of his paramour, Mrs. Mattie Mulkey, to whom he threw a handkerchief with a request that she give it to the Osborne woman. After his last words, "Good-bye, I'm going to the angels," the trap was sprung, Sheriff Hill having charge of the execution. The difficulty that would be encountered in securing a conviction of the woman on a second trial, after the hanging of the principal malefactor, led the prosecuting attorney, in May following the execution, to consent to her pleading guilty
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to manslaughter, and a sentence of five years imprisonment in the penitentiary was imposed.
In Vernon county, as in many other quarters, the time was when a horse thief was regarded as worse, even, than a murder, and more than one such offender paid with his life the penalty of of his crime, extra-judicially, at the hands of a vigilance com- mittee. Men, also, have been lynched for murder and other crimes. For several years after the close of the Civil War, as has been stated, there was much lawlessness, and this method of pun- ishment was regarded by many as the most effectual way of suppressing it. For helping the murderers of Gen. Joseph Bailey to escape, Tom Ingram was hung by a mob in March, 1867; John Chrisman suffered a like punishment in Richland township for stealing mules ; a charge of horse stealing led to the lynching of a man on Upper Clear creek. In October, 1874, James Harris, of Virgil township, was arrested and, while being guarded in the house of Constable James Quick, who executed the writ, a band of men took him out at midnight and riddled his body with bullets, from the effects of which he died the next day, after intense agony, at the home of Mr. Cranmer, whither he had man- aged to drag himself. In July, 1875, a 20-year-old boy named Dudley, accused of theft in Bates county, was chased by a band of men and overtaken and killed at Balltown, despite his agoniz- ing pleas for mercy. On the night of July 19, 1874, a mob of eight men entered a house in Nevada and took Oliver P. Frakes from the company of his mistress, and hung him a half-mile east of town, riddling the body with bullets as it swung. He was sus- pected of horse stealing and of participating in the robbery of an elderly man near Eldorado, but these charges were afterwards disbelieved when it was learned he was only a gambler, which accounted for his being able to live in idleness, with plenty of money and good clothes. And there have been other cases of a similar nature, but enough have been mentioned to show the danger and futility of seeking the atonement of one crime by the commission of another, and that as long as criminal statutes and courts exist, whatever the offense, and against whomsoever charged, no irresponsible mob of men can be justified in taking upon themselves the administration and execution of what some are pleased to call the unwritten law.
CHAPTER XXVI.
REMINISCENCES.
REMINISCENT HISTORY OF VERNON COUNTY.
By DR. E. R. MOREROD, WRITTEN FOR THE NEVADA LEDGER IN 1884.
The Osage Indians. The history of this most remarkable tribe of Indians in the West would doubtless be fraught with exceeding great interest, but the most is now shrouded in ob- livion, and what is left are but fragmentary tradition. Neither tradition nor history give us any account of who the Osages were or how they came in possession of this land of flowers, prairie and timber, but certain it has been over several centuries that they maintained occupation of the territory of Vernon and a large portion of the county adjoining. Doubtless this fair, wild land of flowers and prairies as well as timber, where game of every character common to the North American continent was abundant and was highly prized and coveted by the Indians; and tradition gives some faint traces of terrible conflicts that the war like Osages had to encounter to maintain possession of the same. It was a paradise of a hunting ground to the Indians, as elk, bison or buffalo, deer, bear and other game roamed o'er these prairies at a very early day, now . dotted with farms, happy homes and schoolhouses, as places where they frequented to lick and wallow, called wallos by early set- tlers, still perceptible, are not infrequent over the county, and deer were abundant in 1867, and herds of twenty to twenty-five deer were not unfrequently seen bounding gracefully o'er the tall grass of the prairie. In 1867 venison meat was cheaper than fresh beef in Nevada, and deer has been killed within hearing of the point of the M., K. & T. depot at Nevada in 1871 or 1872. The Indians for years after they left came back to hunt.
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The early trapper and hunter ascribed more nobility of char- acter, and qualities of greater personal bravery to the Osages than to any other tribe of Indians, and very probably the pos- session of rich hunting grounds and other circumstances around tended to make them so. The old settlers of our county repre- sent the Osages, particularly the big Osages, to have been aver- age size, fine looking, portly, well proportioned, athletic, pos- sessing extraordinary powers and endurance. It is stated that the settlers of the Harmony mission established near Papinsville, Bates county, in 1821, under the auspices of the Presbyterian general assembly of the United States, got their mails at long intervals from Fort Osage, on the Missouri river, in the north- west corner of Jackson county, nearly eighty miles distant, em- ployed friendly Osages to express mails and to bring what might be in waiting there, which they did on foot, going and coming in much less time than one could on horseback. The mission was under the general management of Rev. Nathaniel Dodge, a zealous missionary, which was productive of much good, as many of the Indians were instructed in the various common branches of English education. They were also as a rule very apt schol- ars and very quick of apprehension.
Many became proficient in geography, also many professed Christianity and died professed Christians.
At the time and somewhat earlier than the establishment of the Harmony mission the Indians had several large villages scat- tered o'er Vernon county, one called Old Town, by the French traders and trappers, some eight miles little east of north from Nevada. This town belonged to the big Osage Indians ; they were governed by a chief called White Hair, who was said to have been a chief of extraordinary influence with the Indians; very tall, commanding in appearance, but of slender build. He fell a victim to that fell destroyer, consumption, after removing from Vernon to the Osage reservation in Kansas. This chief White Hair may have been a lineal descendant of Pah-hu-shah, or White Hair, who was buried on the twin Blue Mound, north of Nevada, where De Soto is supposed to have arrived 150 years ago.
The Little Osages had a considerable village on the land of Mr. Allen, three miles northeast of Balltown, where the remains of very extensive earth works were visible on close notice in 1876.
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Too, quite a number of Indian graves were observed at the time. The little Osages were governed by a chief called Big Chief.
Many relics are found on the sites of these villages of French and Spanish ornaments belonging to fire and side arms; also of pottery resembling old French gallipots; also a great many ani- mal bones mingled with human bones.
At an early day there was an Indian village near the Blue Mounds. some eight miles from Nevada ; also very probably one near Beal's ford, on the Osage, four miles northwest of Schell City, where similar fragments of pottery, and gun locks are yet found.
Traditions among them give an account of a very sanguinary engagement in which the Osages were victorious over the Sacs and Foxes, their hereditary enemies, both parties suffering se- verely. The exact date is not known, probably over a hundred years ago. The account given is of a very large force of Sacs and Foxes endeavoring to take advantage of the extraordinary high water prevailing at the time over the bottoms of the Little Osage, Marmaton, Marais des Cygnes and Old Town branch, by advancing in canoes and pirogues, having carried their arms by land and landed them so they could approach the Little Osage Indians and take them on surprise; and the strategy of the Sacs and Foxes came near being successful; but timely reinforcement from the Big Osages from Old Town, who in order to reënforce the Little Osages had to swim Old Town, Marmaton and Little Osage, and turned the tide of battle; and for many years after the coming in of early settlers, the bones of the Sacs and Foxes lay bleaching in the sun where the engagement was fought. There are various accounts of the affair, some placing the number of the Sacs and Foxes at 5,000 warriors. The Osages, it is said, always carried their right arm bare, winter and summer, to be ready to strike or defend, as they alleged, and it was by this peculiar custom they were distinguished from other tribes.
They were at war more or less with all tribes around, and the one for whom they entertained the strongest aversion or con- tempt were the Pawnees.
One of the chiefs who had been successful in a raid upon the Pawnees was once entertained at dinner by Col. R. C. McNeil at Balltown. On being asked how many Pawnee braves he had killed, when the question was interpreted to him by Newell
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Dodge, Indian interpreter, who had lived a long while amongst them, the Indian quickly arose from his seat, and with impatient gesture and flinging his arms aloft with his eyes flashing fire, re- plied in the Indian language : "Tell the white brother my lodge is dark with their scalps," and sat down again in perfect gravity.
The French in speaking of the Osages and the early settlers agree that the word Osage in the Indian tongue was not pro- nounced as one would suppose from present orthography. It is thus wise in three syllables of Ou-ah-sage, pronounced very quick and short, giving the first two syllables a very slight inflection of the letter "W," nearly of Wahsaye.
The Osage Indians ceded their reservation in Missouri to the United States in about 1825, and were removed to Kansas in 1826 to their reservation there, but as it is said, they came back for years afterwards on their annual hunt, as game was still abun- dant. They seemed favorably disposed to the whites. Perhaps this feeling was due to the good influences exerted by the Mis- sourians at Harmony mission, as they never gave trouble to the settlers as did most of the Indian tribes in many of the United States by brutal massacres.
No particular trouble occurred between them and the white settlers until the year 1838. Some twelve or thirteen years after their removal to Kansas an incident occurred that brought on a conflict with them. During the winter of that year they com- menced committing depredations on the citizens' stock, very probably on account of the search of game until they became so numerous that the settlers gave them notice to cease hunting in the county. But on the 8th day of March, 1838, Mr. Jesse Sum- mers went down in the Little Osage bottom to feed his hogs and found that the Indians had killed some of them and had left as many signs as they could in the spirit of bravado to let the whites know they disregarded their wishes. Mr. Summers soon let it be known, when thirteen of the fifteen settlers in the neigh- borhood took up the trail of the Indians in the snow and trailed them to the Marmaton river, near the Timbered Hill; and when they came up with the Indians in their encampment the settlers demanded of them to surrender up the perpetrators. They not only refused to give them up, but in addition threatened to kill Newell Dodge, one of the party in pursuit, who was an Indian interpreter, having lived among them when a boy. The Indians
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followed up their threats by taking up their guns, when the fight commenced. Two of the citizens were wounded, Nathaniel B. Dodge, afterwards died of his wounds, and Samuel N. Dodge, who recovered. Three of the Indians were killed on the spot and several more badly wounded. Fortunately for the settlers, this was the only affray or trouble of any note they ever had with the Osage Indians.
In connection with the history of the Osages it is perhaps not out of place here to give a sketch of the Rev. Nathaniel B. Dodge, who was sent out in 1820 by the Presbyterian general assembly of the United States to the Harmony mission at Papins- ville, Bates county, Missouri, who deserves far more than a pass- ing notice for his many arduous labors and privations in behalf of Christianity amongst the wild Osages. Actuated by that spirit that is born of ardent zeal and fervent piety, he left the comforts and pleasures of a civilized home to have plunged willingly into the far off wilderness to suffer privations, hardships and en- counter danger, with a large family, to teach the living truths of the gospel to the savages. Though his talents were not of the most commanding order, yet his ardent zeal, unalterable faith and persevering efforts, coupled with stern concern of duty, enabled him to achieve great success and accomplish much good in the cause of his Master in civilizing the Osages.
His birthplace was in Washington county, Vermont, on the 5th day of January, 1781, and was married to Miss Sallie Gale on the 22d day of March, 1803, she was a woman of energy and great force of character, and died universally beloved and re- spected on the 19th day of December, 1866, at the advanced age of eighty-two years and eleven months, in the blessed hope of immortality.
Mr. Dodge entered the ministry about the year 1811, and the year 1820 he was appointed a missionary to the Osage Indians by the Presbyterian general assembly, and in February, 1827, he started from Vermont with his wife and six children and was six months in making the trip to the Harmony mission, and in September, 1821, he was made superintendent of the mission, the duties of which station he faithfully performed until the spring of 1829, the Indians having left the country in 1826. It is very probable that the mission was kept up after the main body of the Indians had been removed, and there might have
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been Indians still in attendance at the mission. From the mis- sion Mr. Dodge removed to Independence, Jackson county, Mis- souri, where he remained one year, when he was again called by the Presbyterian board of mission to take charge of the mis- sion at the Osage agency in Kansas, where he remained laboring faithfully until the spring of the year 1835, when he moved to Vernon county, settling near Balltown, with his wife and chil- dren, Dr. Leonard Dodge, Jonathan Edwards Dodge, Samuel N. Dodge, Thomas Dodge and Harriet Dodge. His daughter, Philenia Dodge, preceded him to Vernon county, having married Squire Modrel in 1826, at the Harmony mission, who removed to Vernon county shortly afterwards.
His zeal in the cause of Christ did not permit Mr. Dodge to . remain idle, but he spent his time in preaching the gospel until August, 1848, when he became an invalid and September 3, 1848, he was called hence from earth to rest from his many arduous and adventurous labors. He was universally beloved and re- spected by all, and he was a great favorite with his dusky broth- ers as with his own people. He was very methodical in his habits, and it is said that he kept a regular diary of his travels from Vermont, and all the noted events connected with his labors at the mission, which record was unfortunately destroyed some years after he came to Vernon by the reason of his house taking fire from burning prairie one Sabbath in his absence from home. That record would have been an interesting one, doubtless, had they been preserved.
At an early day there were trappers, hunters and traders of the North American Fur Company employed in scouring over the present limits of Vernon county, besides trapping and hunt- ing, trading with the Indians, obtaining furs and peltries in ex- change for merchandise, but little is now known in regard to who they were. Among the first known was a Mr. Augustus Chouteau and a Mr. Papin, both French, who established a trading post on the Marmaton river below the mouth of Old Town branch- the exact date is not known-some locate the period as early as the year 1815, but all agree it was some years prior to the settlement of the Harmony mission in 1821, near Papinsville, Bates county.
Some years later or about the same time as the establishment of the mission, a Mr. M. Giraud, a French gentleman (the name
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is pronounced Jerou) established himself as a trader on the north side of the Osage, at what is now known as Collen's Ford, building the house now occupied by Mr. Peter Collin at the time of his death, in 1875. Mr. Giraud remained there till the year 1839, when he moved to the western boundary of the county and established a trading post on the farm of a Mr. Pittman; a few years since he was still living in Paris, France. In 1840 Mr. Giraud's trading post came into possession of Mr. Edwards and Charles Chouteau.
Probably the first regular mercantile establishment in Vernon county was established by William Waldo, who came from Vir- ginia to Vernon in the year 1837 and settled on the south side of the Marmaton, opposite the Bosworth place, but in 1839 he opened a regular dry goods store about one mile south of the old Cephas ford on the Marmaton, on the farm owned by the late William Tucker, some seven miles north of Nevada.
In 1843 Mr. Waldo removed to St. Clair county, Missouri, and in the year 1849 he, like many others at the time, was attracted by the discovery of gold in California and crossed the plains to the golden gulches of California, where he was very successful in all his enterprises, and in 1850 he assisted with lavish generos- ity in sending out relief to the distressed emigrants crossing the plains, spending over $20,000 in relieving them. This munificent act of liberality attracted the attention of the mining population, who nominated him by acclamation as an independent candidate for governor of California, and came very near being elected; when last heard from he was living in the state of Texas.
The first actual permanent settlers of Vernon county were the Summers, consisting of Moses, Allen and Jesse Summers, who first moved from Wayne county, Kentucky, to some portion of north- ern Arkansas, from thence to Vernon county with their children, among whom were Ira and Wesley Summers, sons of Moses Sum- mers and M. Summers, son of Jesse Summers. Moses and Allen settled on the south side of the Little Osage, some three miles west of Balltown.
There is a difference of opinion as to the exact date of the Summers' settling in Vernon; some placing it as late as the year 1829-others as early as the year 1825, and the latter date, 1825. is perhaps the most correct.
The next settler was Squire Wm. Modrel, who emigrated from
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Cooke county, East Tennessee, where he was born February 28, 1805, and came with the first missionaries, at the first establish- ment of the Harmony Mission, near Pappinsville, Bates county, in 1821, and on the 5th day of March, 1826, he married Miss Philenia Dodge, a daughter of the Rev. Nathaniel B. Dodge, su- perintendent of the missions, and moved to Vernon in 1829, with his family, with his son Martin L. Modrel, and his daughter Mrs. Mary E. Woodruff; and his daughter, Sarah Wells, was born soon after his removal from the missions to Vernon. Mr. Modrel had the misfortune of losing his wife on the 3rd of February, 1875, beloved and lamented by all who knew her, Mr. Modrel was one of our best citizens and acquired a competency and died several years since, severely regretted by a large circle of acquaintances.
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