McDonald County, Missouri - Chapter 10: Summary Justice, 1897

In connection with this subject it might be in order to mention the Slickers. In the early settlement of the county a custom was established of laying claim to certain designated tracts of land and holding it against all new comers. A man would pick out his location on some water course, build his cabin and mark out a tract of land coresponding in size with the extent of his enterprise. Some would be satisfied with forty acres, others with eighty or a hundred, while a few ran into the thousands.

When the government survey was made this land was reported vacant. But little of it was in cultivation, and many of the claims were marked only by the blazes on the trees or an occasional stake driven dowm. New settlers coming in would inquire at the land office and, finding the land vacant, would enter portions of it. These entries were opposed by the claimants and intimidation or open resistance used as occasion might require. As immigrants increased in number and their encroachments grew numerous, the claimants organized, and were called the Slickers. It was their province to see that all parties taking or attempting to take land claimed by an older settler were promptly waited on and induced to abandon the enterprise.

This sentiment was quite strong and extended throughout the entire county and embraced all classes of our people. It did not entirely die out until some years after the war. There were a few instances where the party was taken out and whipped, a few were compelled to leave the county, and some who had entered land were forced to deed it to the claimant.

One of the most noted cases was the contest between Mark Harmon and others. Harmon came to this county with considerable money and entered a fine body of land on Indian Creek near the mouth of Elk Horn. Several years previous, Jonathan Blair had located near the present site of McNatt's Mill, and laid claim to a tract extending some two miles up and down the creek bottom. Harmon's entry cut a big slice out of Blair's claim and he was notified of that fact. However he had paid his money and proposed to hold the land. He was remonstrated with in a friendly manner and then threatened, but without effect. At last one day some thirty or forty men came to his house bringing with them a justice of the peace and a deed to the land properly filled out, also a rope, and he was given his choice between executing the deed and wearing the halter. They told him that as a man they had no objection to him and did not desire to do him harm, but the land must be given up. Mr. Harmon and his wife signed and acknowledged the deed under protest and a few years later went into the U. S. court and had the conveyance set aside and his title re-established.

This interesting reminiscence has almost passed from the memory of our people and, were it not recorded here, in a f ewT more years would be numbered among the forgotten incidents of long ago. I asked an old gray-haired gentleman about it, and he replied that it happened w^hen he was quite a small boy, and he did not know much about it.

From the best information it has been possible to obtain it occurred in the very early settlement of the county and wras practically over in 1845. Nearly all the lands in this county were govern- ment lands, and there were extensive pine forests in the hills bordering on the two Sugar creeks and extending from Pineville to the east side of the county. There was also, considerable pine lands along the river west of Pineville and extending south to the Arkansas line. A number of saw mills were in operation manufacturing this pine timber. The United States marshals undertook to protect the timber. John B. King who operated a mill on Kings creek, and perhaps others, was arrested. Several were subpoened as witnesses. Mark Harmon was one of the leading spirits in favor of the prosecution, and had a few followers but people generally took the side of the mill men.

They gathered together in groups and discussed the matter, held meetings, passed resolutions and organized for the purpose of in every way obstructing and, if occasion should require, resisting the United States marshals. It was carried to such an extent that at Cassville a marshall was run clear out of the state, seeking refuge at Bentonville, Arkansas. The leader of this resistance, a Cassville lawyer, was sent to jail at St. Louis under a charge of treason, but was eventually released.

For several years after the close of the war the people in various parts of the county were more or less annoyed by petty theiving. It got so bad that it was never safe to turn hogs on the range which to many was the chief source of profit. The masts were generally good and the range so extensive that hogs grew and fattened without other food. When the owners wanted meat they would usually kill direct from the mast, or feed a few weeks to harden the meat. The farmers on the narrow valleys who thus counted on supplying their own families and selling enough to provide other necessaries, when the time came to collect their hogs, were often unable to find more than a few carcasses where they had been shot in the timber and the best parts taken by the thieves. An occasional heifer or a fat cow would "come up missing" in the same mysterious manner. Various prosecutions were instituted against suspected parties but few, if any, convictions were ever had.

The people in the vicinities where these offenses were most common, finding the law did not afford them sufficient protection on account of the failure of the evidence, concluded to take the matter in their own hands. A few of the suspected parties were warned to leave the count 7. They were generally worthless characters that had temporarily settled in some remote ridge or hollow, and were without visible means of support. Sometimes a bundle of switches would be left with the note of warning. From 1882 to 1884 some three or four parties were whipped and a few others visited by a committee, but the offenders happened to be absent and thus escaped.

In 1883 old man Bird, who had settled on some land near James Tatum,s farm in Beaver valley, was taken out one night and severely whipped. Bird claimed the chastisement was administered for settling on the land, but the committee said it was for appropriating his neighbor's swine without authority or due process of law. A man named Martin was subjected to a similar treatment. Also one Joy in the vicinity of Indian Springs was taken out one cold night and thoroughly dressed down. When turned loose he started off on a run and did not stop until he got to Pools Prarie in Newton county where he crawled into a straw stack and finished the night. The next morning the owner went out to the stack, and seeing a pair of boots sticking out of the straw rousted him out and asked if it wasnt a pretty cold birth. Joy replied "If you'd been where I was last night, you would have thought it pretty d - n hot ! " If he kept on at the rate at which he started, it is likely that Mr. Joy fried his pork a few weeks later at the camp fire which he kindled out of the north pole. There was much difference of opinion among the people as to these proceedings and a persistent effort was made to punish the parties who were engaged in these nightly administrations of "justice.' Various persons were arrested and in one trial before a justice of the peace the evidence seemed conclusive that two of the parties held loaded pistols on the complainant while others did the whipping. At the discovery of this evidence, J. C. Cole, prosecuting attorney, asked the justice to discharge the jury and hold the defendants to answer for a felony. The justice sustained the motion and put the defendants under bond to await the action of the grand jury. Before that time arrived the complainants had moved away and the prosecutions were dismissed.

While these matters were serious, and it is to be regretted that they, or the circumstances which led to them ever occured, there were many amusing incidents connected with them. It was during the progress of one of these trials that a witness swore that Mart Epperson was one of the parties that whipped him, giving as his reason for knowing who it was that he saw and identified Epperson at the time. To the surprise and consternation of his friends and attorneys Epperson remarked in a crowd. ' 'That feller swore to a d - n lie, for I had my coat turned wrong side out and a handkerchief over my face, and he couldn't see who it was. '

It was about this time that the Law and Order Brotherhood sprang into existence. It is said to have numbered over four hundred members and included many of the best citizens of our county. Its province was to aid in the enforcement of the law and it no doubt did much to put a cheek to the perpetration of crime in our county.

These comparatively mild applications were followed later by the killing of Garland Mann in the Neosho jail and the hanging of Irwin Grubb and Canada Bill. After these events murders were much less frequent and the petty thieving almost entirely ceased. Prosecution in our courts have been much more effective, convictions having been the rule rather than the exception, as before, and our people almost universally rejoice that there is no necessity for further invoking mob violence.

old jail at Pineville, on a conviction for stealing chickens and geese, it took lire and burnt down. The jail was a log structure with a door on top through which ingress and egress was made. The floor was composed of three layers of hewn logs, the second laid cross-wise of the first and the third across the second, the three layers being about eighteen inches thick. When the fire got started down into the cracks of the floor there was no chance to get water to it and no way to tear it up. The people of Pineville and vicinity turned out almost to a man and worked all day carrying and hauling water trying to save the old building. While they were thus at work the prisoners, who had been removed to the court house, stood at the windows and jeered at the men at work trying to extinguish the fire.

Their day of jubilee, however, did not last through the night. Tired and wet and muddy, the men were not in a mood to be ridiculed with inpugnity, besides it was thought the prisoners had fired the building with hopes of making their escape.

The prisoners were placed in charge of J. F. Pulkerson, constable of the township, to guard through the night. Along in the early part of the night some one called to him to come down stairs, that Kenney, the jailer, wanted to come up. He came down, and the moment he opened the door he was seized by a couple of men. Others went up and got the prisoners who were just getting into bed. They were taken off up the ridge northwest of town a short distance, Fulkerson being taken by the guards along a few yards back of the crowd. He fired his pistol a few times to give the alarm, but the citizens who saw the mob either thought the prisoners were escaping, or did not feel disposed to interfere. Kenney, the Jailer, followed in dead earnest to recover the prisoners, but he missed the way and went the wrong road, running until he was entirely out of breath and exhausted.

The prisoners were very much frightened and thought they were going to be hung. Old man Bird said to them in a very solemn and impressive voice. "Do you know there is a hell ?" One of the mob replied, "yes by, - and we are going to give you a taste of it. ? When they reached a spot that was convenient and sufficiently secluded, they halted and prepared to administer the whipping. Old man Bird was asked if he had not been whipped once before. He replied that he had for preempting a piece of land. He was then told he could take another for preempting a goose. He was then given a severe whipping, the shreds of his shirt being left on the withes that were used. One of the boys was given a few licks, and the other one excused with a reprimand. They were then turned loose with an injunction to leave the county. Fulkerson was also discharged and sent back to town. The three prisoners found their way to W. R. Barnes' house, where they were supplied with shoes, and went on to A. J. Watkins ' . He gave them a firebrand and directed them to a vacant house, but they failed to find it and built up a fire and staid in the woods all night. They suffered intensely through the night and the next morning they returned to Watkins ' nearly frozen, the weather being very cold. They were given breakfast and then went to their homes.

Bird and his family remained in the county for some time swearing eternal vengeance, but no attempt was made to execute their threats. An effort was made by the next grand jury to investigate the matter, but no one knew anything until after the case was barred by limitation.