USA > Missouri > Greene County > Past and present of Greene County Missouri, early and recent history and genealogical records of many of the representative citizens, Volume I > Part 24
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In 1841 John T. Shanks perpetrated another saloon murder in Springfield, killing a man named Davis. Shanks cut his way through the log walls of the jail and escaped, and was never tried for his crime.
THE WORK OF MOBS.
In 1859 occurred the first outbreak of mob violence in Greene coun- ty. It was caused by that ever-present menace where there is a large negro population, the assault committed upon a white woman by a black man. Mart Danforth, a negro slave, committed this crime, for which the law then provided no adequate punishment. He was arrested and promptly indicted, and confessed his guilt without reserve. Before he could be brought to trial a crowd gathered, took him from the custody of his guards and hung him upon a tree in the Jordan valley, just east of where Benton avenue now crosses that stream.
In 1871 another negro, Bud Isbell, was hanged by a mob, almost on the same spot, and for the same crime. In neither of these cases were any arrests or indictments had for any of the mob. This, not because Greene county is a lawless community, but because, anywhere in the United
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States, North as well as South, this crime committed by a black ruffian. upon a helpless white woman instantly kindles a flame that nothing short of the quick and merciless death of the guilty one can satisfy, and for which it has so far been impossible to convict one of the indignant slayers. of the ravisher.
In 1884-5 there occurred perhaps the most cruel murder in the his- tory of Greene county, followed by a lynching of the murderer that was certainly excusable if lynching is ever so; and afterward by a trial as. accessories before and after the fact of two women, which was the most spectacular court procedure in the entire life of the county.
In the winter of 1884-5 there came, by invitation of the church, Mrs. Emma Molloy, a woman evangelist, to hold a series of meetings in the- First Congregational Church. Mrs. Molloy was a wonderful woman. A brilliant writer, she had edited and led to a great success and enormous circulation a prohibition paper called The Morning and Day of Reform. On the rostrum, either as a temperance advocate or as an evangelist, she had very few equals and no superiors. Her eloquence and her ability to sway a great audience at her will were such as to give her a reputation that. was nation-wide.
Her series of meetings in Springfield awakened the greatest interest, and after concluding at the First Congregational church she was invited to the old town and held a successful revival there. With her when she came to Springfield was an adopted daughter, Cora Lee, and before her series of meetings was closed there arrived George Graham, who was intro- duced as the manager of Mrs. Molloy's paper. Graham was a well educated' man, and was apparently a devoted suitor of Cora Lee's.
After ending her revival services Mrs. Molloy bought a small farm. on the road between Springfield and Brookline, about three miles from the latter place. Here Graham soon brought his two little boys, and here he was married to Cora Lee. Soon after the marriage a sister of Gra- ham's first wife, came to Springfield, and at her instigation Graham was arrested under the charge of having committed bigamy by marrying Cora Lee. The sister also claimed that she was unable to find trace of her sister, Mrs. Graham, and that she feared that Graham had made away with her. The charge aroused the greatest interest, and, especially among the citizens in the neighborhood of Brookline, suspicion against Graham steadily increased.
At length a party of men from Brookline went to the Molloy farm and instituted a thorough search of the place for any signs that murder had been committed. Coming to an abandoned well, they lowered one of their number, Isaac Hise, into the shaft, which terminated in an open- ing or small cave in the rock. Here Hise found the nude and mutilated remains of Graham's first wife !
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The news caused the most intense excitement, and threats were openly made of lynching the murderer, for none doubted that Graham was the guilty party. As yet he had not been indicted, and his attorney was endeavoring to obtain his release from prison, where he was hield under the first charge of bigamy. A writ of habeas corpus was applied for, and it was thought that it would be successful and that Graham would be released.
This probably intensified the excitement, and brought deadly and prompt action, for that night the sheriff was aroused from his sleep, and, at the point of a revolver, gave up the keys of the jail to the leader of a small but determined company of men. Graham was then taken from his cell. placed in a wagon and carried to a lonely spot in the northwest part of town, a short distance north of the old woolen mill, and was there strung up to a post oak tree, where he hung until cut down by the cor- oner the next morning.
Mrs. Molloy and Cora Lee were indicted as accessories before the fact, but after a long and exciting trial they were both acquitted. The prosecuting attorney was John A. Patterson, still a leading attorney of Springfield, and he conducted his difficult duties in this trial in a way that won him the respect of all acquainted with the facts. The leading coun- sel for the defense was O. H. Travers. late prosecuting attorney of Stone ·county, Missouri.
THE REGULATORS.
There was one strange outbreak of lawlessness, at an earlier date than that related above, that should not be omitted in this history. This was the doings of the organization known as the "Regulators," in 1866, the year succeeding the close of the Civil war. That long conflict had trained thousands of men in the ways of plunder and license. In a single day, as it were, these men found the war ended, their regiments dis- banded, and themselves forced to take up the peaceful avocations that they had followed before the beginning of hostilities. A very large ma- jority of them, to their everlasting honor, quietly returned to their homes and became at once the peaceful, industrious citizens that they had been before the war. But there was a small percentage that refused to aban- don the methods of pillage and free living that they had followed for four years.
All over the Southwest, and in Greene county no less than elsewhere, rob- bery, attempted murder, horse stealing and theft of all grades was rampant. It became the opinion of honest men that there was an organized band preying upon the community. Evidence to warrant arrest was hard to
,
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get, and even when arrested, indicted and brought to trial it seemed an impossibility to convict. Alibis, the defense by well-paid lawyers, and, perhaps, fear of personal consequences on the part of some jurymen, led to almost certain acquittal of the prisoners. Under these circumstances some of the best citizens in the county were goaded into doing that which history shows that men of Anglo-Saxon blood have ever done when the courts of law failed to afford them protection-they met and organized to take the punishment of the marauders into their own hands.
This organization they christened "The Honest Man's League," al- though it has come down in history oftener as "The Regulators" than by any other name. The new enforcers of justice openly proclaimed that their purpose was to rid Greene county of the thieves and robbers that infested its borders-to do this by the forms of law if possible, but, at all hazards, to do it, even to the extent of hanging the guilty ones.
The first victim was Capt. Green B. Phillips, who lived some two miles northeast of Cave Spring, in Cass township. Captain Phillips was an old citizen, had been a brave soldier in the Federal army and had taken an active part in the defense of Springfield when that city was at- tacked by the Confederates under Marmaduke in 1863, the last man, one would naturally think of as a robber or the associate of robbers. But, in some way suspicion attached to him, and, early one morning in May, 1866, three men came upon him when he was husking corn to feed his stock, and shot him to death without mercy.
Many at that time declared their belief that an awful mistake had been made, and an innocent man murdered. Others as strenuously as- serted their belief that Phillips was a sympathizer with the lawless ele- ment. if not, indeed, a sharer with them. At this late day there are no means of getting the actual truth, but to an impartial mind it would seem as if in this case at least the "Regulators" had acted in undue and cruel haste.
But this one victim did not satisfy the avengers. Three days after the killing of Phillips, two young men, John Rush and Charles Gorsuch, were captured in the village of Walnut Grove, given a short trial, found guilty of theft and hanged to a tree, about a mile southwest of the village.
The "Regulators" also assisted the sheriff in arresting several men accused of various minor crimes. When some of these men were bailed out of jail and others were shrewdly taking advantage of the law's delays, the "Regulators" published the following card to let all men know that they did not propose to have any foolishness in Greene county :
"Headquarters Regulators. Walnut Grove, June 16th. 1866. "To the Citizens of Southwest Missouri:
(15)
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"We, the Regulators, organized to assist in the enforcement of the civil law and to put down an extensive thieving organization known to exist in our midst, having succeeded in arresting and committing to jail a number of persons charged with grand larceny, robbing and general lawlessness, whom we believe to be bad men; and, finding that some of them have been bailed out, thereby extending to them an opportunity of again putting into execution their diabolical purposes of robbing, plun- dering and murdering their neighbors, therefore we hereby give notice that all persons bailing such parties out of jail will be regarded as in sym- pathy, if not in full co-operation, with such, and will be held strictly re- sponsible for the conduct and personal appearance at court for trial of all persons thus bailed out of jail.
"Emphatically by the Regulators."
About June 1st, the "Regulators" rode into Springfield in force, to the number of two hundred and eighty horsemen. Forming a hollow square in the Public Square in front of the court house, they were ad- dressed by Rev. Mr. Brown, a Presbyterian minister from Cave Spring, and an active member of their organization. Other speakers, who were in sympathy with their movement, were Major Downing, Senator J. A. Mack and Col. James H. Baker. On the other hand, Hon. John M. Rich- ardson and Col J. S. Phelps spoke against the "Regulators" and condemn- ing their action. When this meeting was adjourned, the "Regulators" showed their grim determination to extirpate crime in the Southwest by riding through Springfield into Christian county, through Ozark and out from that town on the Forsyth road for a mile or two. Here they ar- rested a fugitive from Greene county by the name of James Edwards, tried him on the charge of theft, found him guilty and hung him to a large oak tree at the side of the road. All these activities on the part of the "Regulators" struck terror into the hearts of the thieving element, and very quickly rendered Greene county as free from depredations of the kind as any spot in any state could be.
Nearly fifty years have passed since the "Regulators" finally dis- banded, with their work accomplished. But the terror of their name en- dures, and more than once, when some unusually wicked crime has been perpetrated, men have been heard to wish that the old "Honest Men's League" was still in existence, to mete out swift and terrible justice to the criminals.
THE. HEADLEE . MURDER.
On the 26th of July of this same year occurred a cruel murder of a minister of the gospel, one of those events resulting from the angry pas- sions of the Civil war just ended. Rev. S. S. Headlee was the presiding elder for the Springfield district of the Methodist Episcopal church
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South. He had been an active partisan of the South all through the war. In following his calling he was undertaking to organize a church at Pleasant Grove, just across the line in Webster county. There was quarreling between the two branches North and South of the Methodist Episcopal church, and when Headlee gave notice that he would preach at Pleasant Grove he was notified by members of the other faction that he must not do so. He, however, was on hand for that purpose at the time set. However, the forces against his speaking were so large that Mr. Headlee started for his own property, a short distance away, where he intended to preach to such as chose to come. But before reaching the place, some cowardly wretch fired on him from the brush by the roadside and killed him.
Headlee was a man universally respected, and his cruel murder aroused intense excitement throughout this section. The Northern Methodist Episcopal pastor at Pleasant Grove, Rev. McNabb, was ar- rested and indicted for the murder, but was acquitted, as was also a man by the name of William Drake. So ended one of the foulest crimes ever committed in the State of Missouri.
Other tragedies in which the old enmities of the war formed the moving impulse occurred. Kindred Rose, an old settler and most highly respected citizen, a sympathizer with the South, was met and taunted about going South in 1861, by an old friend, a Union man, named James Simpson. Simpson, under the influence of liquor, attacked Rose, and was killed by a blow on the head. Rose was tried and acquitted on the plea of self-defense.
In the same year as the Simpson killing, 1867, Judge H. C. Christian, who had recently moved to Springfield, was shot dead in his place of busi- ness, about 9 o'clock in the evening of May 24. The murderer fled, was arrested and jailed, but broke jail, stole a horse from a farmer six miles from town, and escaped for the time. He was afterward caught in a blacksmith shop near Houston, Texas county, and brought back to Springfield, and again jailed. On the 24th of October he again broke jail and succeeded in making his escape and was never heard from again. The supposition is that he had acted as a hired assassin in killing Judge Christian, and that his employers were rich and able to use money to set him free. At all events, he escaped. Years after it was reported that he had been hung in Texas for a murder committed there.
Several other murders blot the pages of Greene county's history in the few years after the war, for none of which did any man suffer on the gallows. In January, 1871, occurred, perhaps, the last murder in this region growing out of the happenings of the war. One William Canne- fax, a member of one of the old pioneer families, claimed the right to redeem a tract of land bought under sale for taxes delinquent during the,
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war by Judge Harrison J. Lindenbower, of Springfield. This right Lin- denbower denied, and Cannefax brooded over the matter until he was ready for almost anything which seemed to him to give him revenge against the man who held his land.
Meeting in a saloon, he asked Lindenbower: "Well, what are you going to do about that land?" To which the judge is said to have an- swered : "Oh, you go and see your lawyer about that, and let him attend to it for you." At that Cannefax stepped behind his victim and shot him three times. Lindenbower died in a few minutes. Cannefax was ar- rested and indicted for murder in the first degree. He took a change of venue to Taney county and the next June he and three others escaped from the Greene county jail, and he was not taken until June, 1874, when he returned to Greene county and was captured by Sheriff A. J. Potter after a sharp struggle. On trial at Forsyth he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to the penitentiary for life.
In July, 1873, one Buis was lynched near Walnut Grove under the charge of stealing sheep, which, it was said, he sold to Springfield butch- ers. This was another inexcusable crime. If guilty, the law would have abundantly punished him with a term in the penitentiary. Nevertheless, men chose to stain their hands with his blood, and became thus his mur- derers and a thousand times more guilty than their victim. There were several other homicides, suicides and horrors of the sort, none of which require stating here. And again it is to be said, none of these murderers were ever punished upon the gallows. Either the hearts of Greene county juries are unusually susceptible or the powers of our attorneys in defense of criminals are unusually great.
The last murder which I shall mention in this list was of compara- tively recent date. In February, 1909, an inoffensive old man and his aged wife were shot to death by one Tucker at a little farm about half a mile west of the new Frisco shops. The old man, whose name was Ellis, had shut up some of Tucker's cows which had broken in his (Ellis') field. He refused to release them unless Tucker paid a trivial amount of dam- ages. On that Tucker flew into a fierce passion, and, without warning, shot the poor old couple dead.
Tucker was tried in the Greene county criminal court and was sen- tenced to death, the only man who was ever so sentenced in the old court house then standing on the Public Square. The date of execution was set, and Tucker's case seemed hopeless. But there are never lacking those to flock to the help of a man sentenced to death, and the rule had no exception in this case. If ever a man deserved the death penalty, surely this man did, but such pressure was brought to bear upon the governor, Hon. Herbert S. Hadley, that he finally commuted the sentence to im- prisonment for life, and Tucker is now serving that sentence in the peni- tentiary at Jefferson City.
CHAPTER XI.
MILITARY HISTORY OF GREENE COUNTY.
Approved by Judge J. J. Gideon and Capt. George M. Jones.
No one conversant with the facts can deny that of the one hundred and fourteen counties of Missouri, none has a more interesting or important mili- tary history than Greene county. From her earliest organization down to the present time, covering a period of eighty years, her citizens have proved their patriotism and gallantry on many a "blood red field of Mars," unhesi- tatingly offering their services and their lives, if need be, on the altar of their country in every war; and neither this or any other state of our Union has produced a braver, more intelligent or effective body of soldiers. This is partly accounted for by the fact that their progenitors were military men, having fought in the early wars of the nation, their fathers and grandfathers shedding their blood in the Revolution and the War of 1812, enlisting in the defense of "the flag that has never touched the ground," from Virginia, Ten- nessee, Kentucky, the Carolinas and others of our older states. Another reason is that the earlier residents of Greene county were outdoor men, engaged in farming, for the most part, and, the country being new and well stocked with game of all kinds, they were hunters and familiar with fire- arms, most of them being expert marksmen, consequently they loved adven- ture, camp life and enjoyed the familiar feel of their trusted weapons. But whatever the cause, they covered themselves with glory, and their descend- ants will always be proud of their war records.
REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIERS.
It was believed up to some two years ago that only one veteran of the Revolutionary war ever settled in Greene county, but, thanks to the Spring- field Chapter of the Daughters of the Revolution, it has been found that six of the soldiers who fought in our war for independence wended their way from the Atlantic seaboard, most of them stopping in Tennessee a short time, then coming on to Greene county in the thirties, and here spent the rest of their lives. They were named as follows: William Freeman, who was one of General Washington's scouts, was the first of the present numerous and well known Freeman family here. He died about the middle of the nineteenth century and was buried in the National Cemetery here. James Barham died
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in 1864 and is buried in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery near Bois D' Arc. Timothy Scruggs died in the early forties and is buried in the Griffin Cemetery at old Delaware Town, four miles south of Battlefield. Samuel Steele died in the early forties and is buried at Mt. Comfort, near Hickory Barrens. David Bedell, who died in 1840, is buried in Old Salem Cemetery, near Hickory Barrens. His brother-in-law. Elisha Headlee, died a year later, and was also buried in the Old Salem Cemetery. Nathan Clifton settled very early in the eastern part of this county, later a part of Webster county, his death oc- curring near Marshfield at a very advanced age, in 1864. His daughter Eva- line remained unmarried in order to take care of him in his old age, and she lived to be ninety-six years old, dying on April 15, 1912, just across the line from Greene county.
THE OSAGE WAR.
The first military service in which the citizens of Greene county parti- cipated was the Osage war. Not much of a "war," it is true, but worthy of historical record, nevertheless. When the pioneers settled here in the early thirties this entire section of the state was occupied by the Osage. Indians, and in the winter of 1836-37 numerous bands of this tribe lived in various parts of Greene county, and they became more or less annoying to the settlers. Governor Lilburn W. Boggs was appealed to in the matter, and he ordered Col. Charles S. Yancey, who at that time was in command of a Greene county company of militia, to compel the Indians to at once leave this country, cross the state line and remain there, on their allotted lands in the Indian Territory. The object in forcing the red men to retire was to protect the settlers and prevent a collision between them and the Osages. When Colonel Yancey went to notify the head chiefs of the tribe of the governor's order, he was accompanied by Lieut. Col. Chesley Cannefax and Capt. Henry Fulbright, the colonel deeming it unwise to call out his regi- ment until it became absolutely necessary, believing it better that he go in person among the Indians and inform them of his mission. The three of- ficers, on a clear cold morning, set out to visit the camps of the red men which were located to the south and southwest of Springfield. They were accom- panied by a negro boy named Charley, who had been reared among the Delawares, who had also occupied a portion of southwestern Missouri, and the lad was well versed in various Indian dialects, so acted as interpreter. The first night out the party stopped with William Brooks, near the site of old Linden. The following day Brooks accompanied the party, and that night they camped on Bryant's fork on the North fork of White river, and while there snow fell to the depth of eighteen inches. The following morn- ing Brooks abandoned the party, and as he was a great hunter and familiar with the country, Colonel Yancey tried to pursuade him to remain with them
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until the Indians were found. Here the party debated for some time as to whether they should turn back, but finally pushed on over the rugged hills and through the deep snow banks.
They came upon the first party of Indians near the mouth of Flat creek, in what is now Stone county. It was a large party, all mounted on ponies, and was just starting on a bear hunt. Colonel Yancey was dressed in full regimentals, with cocked hat, sword, sash, epaulets and plumes, and, being a robust man physically, of unusual height, presented quite an imposing ap- pearance. He knew the savages' love for pomp and display, and believed his "armorial bearing" would make a deep impression upon them. As the officers drew up, the Indians halted, huddled together, gazing at the party a few moments without uttering a word, then, raising a shrill and peculiar yell, galloped rapidly past the colonel and his men and disappeared in the forest, giving no heed even to Charley, who called to them in their own language. The wild yell of the hunters was answered, caught up and re- peated, echoing from hill to hill and was sent up and down the valley, except to the north, a circumstance which the visitors noted and which occa- sioned them a great deal of uneasiness. Although they hardly knew how to interpret their strange conduct, the Indians were followed. Colonel Cannefax later said, in speaking of the incident: "I did not like the signs, and, as I rode up alongside Colonel Yancey, I looked to see if there was any change in his face, and I thought there was; but, if we were both scared, neither of us spoke our thoughts." After several surprises and much per- turbation, the officers finally came upon the Indian camp, where the entire band had gathered in the meantime, and had made a hideous savage toilet of feathers, paint, beads, bear-claws, deer-hoofs, and other Indian finery, presumably for the purpose of giving their strange visitors a proper recep- tion. From his dress the Indians had concluded that Colonel Yancey was a person of great consequence, perhaps the "Great White Father" himself from Washington.
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