KYLE BROWN
Kyle Brown has been missing since December 28, 2014. (Source: Tina Brown)
Kyle Brown's mother, Tina Brown (left), has organized several searches for her son. (Source: Giaccomo Luca, KFVS)
HARRISBURG, IL (KFVS) - The search for a missing Harrisburg, Illinois man continued this weekend March 15 -- More than two months after his disappearance.
20-year-old Kyle Brown left his Harrisburg, Ill. home December 28, 2014 and hasn't been seen since.
In another round of search efforts, a crew of more than 30 people scoured through the Shawnee National Forest Saturday and Sunday in search of the young man.
His mother, Tina Brown, is praying that her son is safe somewhere Southern Illinois.
“I guess I just keep hoping that he's out there alive," Brown said. "As long as we don't find something else than I have hope that that's the case. And that's what keeps me hanging on.”
Search crews worked for more than 15 hours on land and by water in search of Brown.
Crews by water used sonar equipment in a nearby lake to search for the black 2001 Honda CRV with Illinois plates that Brown was believed to be driving.
Anyone interested in volunteering to search can visit the group “Search for Kyle Brown” on Facebook.
Anyone with information is asked to call police.
Copyright 2015 KFVS. All rights reserved.
Williamson and Franklin counties "scary past"
Happy Halloween
Eva Locker Williamson County, IL
During the 1830s, on a place called Davis’ Prairie (also known as David’s Prairie), there lived a woman named Eva Locker, who was widely reputed to be a witch. Eva was notorious for her ability to steal milk from cows by hanging a towel over a rack or door and then, magically, wringing out the milk from the towel. Pioneers of the area blamed this old spinster for maladies of all kinds. “She could do wonders, and inflict horrible spells on the young, such as fits, twitches, jerks and such like; and many an old lady took the rickets at the mere sound of her name,” Milo Erwin, author of the History of Williamson County Illinois, wrote. According to historian John W. Allen, Eva had the ability to kill cattle by shooting them with balls of hair, which were found in the stomachs of the afflicted animals. Whenever Eva Locker struck, the men of Williamson County sent for Charley (Charlie) Lee, a noted “witchmaster” from Hamilton County who broke Eva’s spells by piercing an effigy of her with silver bullets.
“Black Annie”Mount Vernon, IL
Between the late 1860s and the early 1930s, Mount Vernon was plagued by the appearance of a female spirit known variously as “Black Annie,” “Lady of Sorrow,” or “Cyclone Annie.” According to Michael Norman, sightings of Annie began when the citizens of Mount Vernon ran off a witch who was threatening their cattle. They thought they were rid of her, until February 9, 1888 when a tornado touched down in Mount Vernon and destroyed a half-mile wide swath of homes and businesses, killing 37 and injuring as many as 800 people. After the disaster, several eyewitnesses reported seeing a woman dressed in black—wailing and screaming—wandering among the debris. In 1918, residents of Mt. Vernon were terrified by the appearance of a woman dressed in black who chased pedestrians. Finally, “Black Annie” was blamed for a series of strange attacks in 1936 involving sleeping powder thrown through open windows. She has not been seen since, but parents sometimes use “Black Annie” to scare their children into behaving properly.
The Williams SistersWest Frankfort, IL
In 1871, a farmer’s two daughters, 16 and 18 years of age, created quite a stir when they went on nightly dances around the edge of their roof, ate flies, and spoke to each other in a language only they could understand. Their dances were said to be accompanied by shrieks, groans, and acrobatic feats. Hundreds of visitors from around Illinois were said to have witnessed the strange performances, and both the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times reported on the incident. The sisters claimed to have been bewitched by an old woman who lived nearby in retribution for having refused to become witches themselves.
Cell Phone Security
[There have been many comments to this story from people who are assuming that these 'towers' are physical installations. There's no reason to assume this is the case: it's far likelier that they are mobile installations of the kind used not only by law enforcement and government agencies, but also by scammers and other criminals. (David Harley)]
Seventeen mysterious cellphone towers have been found in America which look like ordinary towers, and can only be identified by a heavily customized handset built for Android security – but have a much more malicious purpose, according to Popular Science.
The fake ‘towers’ – computers which wirelessly attack cellphones via the “baseband” chips built to allow them to communicate with their networks, can eavesdrop and even install spyware, ESD claims. They are a known technology - but the surprise is that they are in active use.
The towers were found by users of the CryptoPhone 500, one of several ultra-secure handsets that have come to market in the last couple of years, after an executive noticed his handset was “leaking” data regularly.
Its American manufacturer boasts that the handset has a “hardened” version of Android which removes 468 vulnerabilities from the OS.
Android Security: Towers in casinosDespite its secure OS, Les Goldsmith of the handset’s US manufacturer ESD found that his personal Android security handset’s firewall showed signs of attack “80 to 90” times per hour.
The leaks were traced to the mysterious towers. Despite having some of the functions of normal cellphone towers, Goldsmith says their function is rather different. He describes them as “interceptors” and says that various models can eavesdrop and even push spyware to devices. Normal cellphones cannot detect them – only specialized hardware such as ESD’s Android security handsets.
Who created the towers and maintains them is unknown, Goldsmith says.
Origin of towers ‘unknown’“Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith says. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”
Their existence can only be seen on specialized devices, such as the custom Android security OS used by Cryptophone, which includes various security features – including “baseband attack detection.”
The handset, based on a Samsung Galaxy SIII, is described as offering, a “Hardened Android operating system” offering extra security. “Baseband firewall protects against over-the-air attacks with constant monitoring of baseband processor activity, baseband attack detection, and automated initiation of countermeasures”, claims the site.
“What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases.” says Goldsmith. “Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.”
Baseband attacks are considered extremely difficult – the details of the chips are closely guarded. “Interceptors” are costly devices – and hacking baseband chips is thought to be technically advanced beyond the reach of “ordinary” hackers, ESD says. The devices vary in form, and are sold to government agencies and others, but are computers with specialized software designed to defeat the encryption of cellphone networks. The towers target the “Baseband” operating system of cellphones – a secondary OS which sits “between” iOS or Android, for instance, and the cellular network.
Goldsmith says that the devices cost “less than $100,000” and does not mention what level or type of device his team has detected. Most are still out of reach of average hackers, although freely advertised. One model is the VME Dominator, which is described as, “a real time GSM A5.1 cell phone interceptor. It cannot be detected. It allows interception of voice and text. It also allows voice manipulation, up or down channel blocking, text intercept and modification, calling & sending text on behalf of the user, and directional finding of a user during random monitoring of calls.”
What has come as a surprise is how many “interceptors” are in active use in the U.S., and that their purpose remains mysterious.
[There have been many comments to this story from people who are assuming that these 'towers' are physical installations. There's no reason to assume this is the case: it's far likelier that they are mobile installations of the kind used not only by law enforcement and government agencies, but also by scammers and other criminals. (David Harley)]
Seventeen mysterious cellphone towers have been found in America which look like ordinary towers, and can only be identified by a heavily customized handset built for Android security – but have a much more malicious purpose, according to Popular Science.
The fake ‘towers’ – computers which wirelessly attack cellphones via the “baseband” chips built to allow them to communicate with their networks, can eavesdrop and even install spyware, ESD claims. They are a known technology - but the surprise is that they are in active use.
The towers were found by users of the CryptoPhone 500, one of several ultra-secure handsets that have come to market in the last couple of years, after an executive noticed his handset was “leaking” data regularly.
Its American manufacturer boasts that the handset has a “hardened” version of Android which removes 468 vulnerabilities from the OS.
Android Security: Towers in casinosDespite its secure OS, Les Goldsmith of the handset’s US manufacturer ESD found that his personal Android security handset’s firewall showed signs of attack “80 to 90” times per hour.
The leaks were traced to the mysterious towers. Despite having some of the functions of normal cellphone towers, Goldsmith says their function is rather different. He describes them as “interceptors” and says that various models can eavesdrop and even push spyware to devices. Normal cellphones cannot detect them – only specialized hardware such as ESD’s Android security handsets.
Who created the towers and maintains them is unknown, Goldsmith says.
Origin of towers ‘unknown’“Interceptor use in the U.S. is much higher than people had anticipated,” Goldsmith says. “One of our customers took a road trip from Florida to North Carolina and he found eight different interceptors on that trip. We even found one at South Point Casino in Las Vegas.”
Their existence can only be seen on specialized devices, such as the custom Android security OS used by Cryptophone, which includes various security features – including “baseband attack detection.”
The handset, based on a Samsung Galaxy SIII, is described as offering, a “Hardened Android operating system” offering extra security. “Baseband firewall protects against over-the-air attacks with constant monitoring of baseband processor activity, baseband attack detection, and automated initiation of countermeasures”, claims the site.
“What we find suspicious is that a lot of these interceptors are right on top of U.S. military bases.” says Goldsmith. “Whose interceptor is it? Who are they, that’s listening to calls around military bases? The point is: we don’t really know whose they are.”
Baseband attacks are considered extremely difficult – the details of the chips are closely guarded. “Interceptors” are costly devices – and hacking baseband chips is thought to be technically advanced beyond the reach of “ordinary” hackers, ESD says. The devices vary in form, and are sold to government agencies and others, but are computers with specialized software designed to defeat the encryption of cellphone networks. The towers target the “Baseband” operating system of cellphones – a secondary OS which sits “between” iOS or Android, for instance, and the cellular network.
Goldsmith says that the devices cost “less than $100,000” and does not mention what level or type of device his team has detected. Most are still out of reach of average hackers, although freely advertised. One model is the VME Dominator, which is described as, “a real time GSM A5.1 cell phone interceptor. It cannot be detected. It allows interception of voice and text. It also allows voice manipulation, up or down channel blocking, text intercept and modification, calling & sending text on behalf of the user, and directional finding of a user during random monitoring of calls.”
What has come as a surprise is how many “interceptors” are in active use in the U.S., and that their purpose remains mysterious.
Keith Brown Murder
Keith L Brown
On Feb. 3, 1993, the wife of Keith L. Brown 34, of Buckner reported her husband was missing. Brown's blue 1989 Plymouth hatchback, (IL. Reg. KWA682) was located two days later in a remote area near Crab Orchard Lake in Williamson County. On June 29,1993, Brown's skeletal remains were found in a hay field near Crab Orchard Lake by a farmer. Brown had been shot several times.
Keith L Brown
- Age: 35
- Sex: Male
- Race: Caucasian
- Cause of Death: Shooting
- Body Found: 1993-06-29
- City: Marion, IL
- Zip Code: 62959
- Possible Suspect: Unknown
On Feb. 3, 1993, the wife of Keith L. Brown 34, of Buckner reported her husband was missing. Brown's blue 1989 Plymouth hatchback, (IL. Reg. KWA682) was located two days later in a remote area near Crab Orchard Lake in Williamson County. On June 29,1993, Brown's skeletal remains were found in a hay field near Crab Orchard Lake by a farmer. Brown had been shot several times.
Ancient fact or ancient fiction? You be the judge.
Ryan Livingston Case Still unsolved
UPDATED! Carterville man stabbed to death after concert
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July 14, 2006 12:00 am • ANDREA HAHN, THE SOUTHERN
(0) Comments
CARBONDALE - The 22-year-old Carterville man stabbed to death after the Sunset Concert has been identified as Ryan Livingston.
Preliminary investigation indicates he was stabbed during a robbery.
Livingston was able to give police some information before he died. The two suspects in this case are described as black males, one of which is light complected. One was wearing some type of hat turned backward. The incident most likely occurred between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. in the 300 BLK of W. Walnut.
Livingston was found in the 300 block of West Walnut at about 10:50 p.m. He had attended the Sunset Concert on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus and had gone to a friend's house after the concert.
Anyone with information or with pictures or video to share with police is asked to call the Carbondale Police Department at (618) 457-3200 or the Carbondale Crime Stoppers anonymous tipline at (618) 549-COPS.
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July 14, 2006 12:00 am • ANDREA HAHN, THE SOUTHERN
(0) Comments
CARBONDALE - The 22-year-old Carterville man stabbed to death after the Sunset Concert has been identified as Ryan Livingston.
Preliminary investigation indicates he was stabbed during a robbery.
Livingston was able to give police some information before he died. The two suspects in this case are described as black males, one of which is light complected. One was wearing some type of hat turned backward. The incident most likely occurred between 10:00 and 10:30 p.m. in the 300 BLK of W. Walnut.
Livingston was found in the 300 block of West Walnut at about 10:50 p.m. He had attended the Sunset Concert on the Southern Illinois University Carbondale campus and had gone to a friend's house after the concert.
Anyone with information or with pictures or video to share with police is asked to call the Carbondale Police Department at (618) 457-3200 or the Carbondale Crime Stoppers anonymous tipline at (618) 549-COPS.
Beth Bently Still Missing
MT. VERNON — Friends and family of a Woodstock woman are hoping the public can help find out what has happened to her — after having gone missing since May 23.
Benedetta “Beth” Bentley of Woodstock was in Jefferson County visiting friends, and was last seen at the Amtrak station in Centralia, according to Mt. Vernon Police Chief Chris Mendenall.
“We saw information on our Facebook page, and contacted the Woodstock Police,” Mendenall said. “We contacted the investigator in Woodstock, and the Illinois State Police are now heading the investigation in this area.”
Friends and family of the woman are grasping at any help they can get to determine her whereabouts, starting in the King City.
According to family friend Angela Montgomery, Bentley and another friend rented a car from Woodstock May 20 and traveled to Mt. Vernon to visit mutual friends in the King City. The 41-year-old mother of three was expected to be back at her home Sunday, May 23, called her husband to report her friend wanted to stay an extra day, and the couple made arrangements for Bentley to get on a late afternoon train in Centralia, arrive in St. Louis at about 10 p.m., then take the Metra from Union Station to Woodstock. Montgomery said her friends in the area dropped her off at the train station, but she never got on the train.
“She was supposed to call when she got close, but no one heard from her, and no one heard from her, and no one heard from her,” Montgomery said. “Her husband reported her missing on Monday, May 24.”
Family and friends are doubly concerned, as the Bentley missed last weekend’s graduation ceremonies for her 18-year-old son.
“He just couldn’t go through the ceremonies,” Montgomery said. “All of us are so upset.”
Montgomery said information about the missing person case has been posted online with Google, Facebook, and has been featured on the CBS 48 Hours Mystery Website.
“The next step is to have the family come (to Mt. Vernon) and the area to look,” Montgomery said. “We need help, contacts, people that can help us. She was supposed to be home. I just can’t believe we’re this far into it and she’s still not home.”
Beth Bentley is described as 5-feet, 6-inches tall and weighing about 165 pounds. She has blonde hair, brown eyes and is 41 years old. She was last seen wearing a black tank-top shirt, a blue jean mini skirt and carrying a white purse and pink and orange overnight bag.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Woodstock Police Depart-ment at 815-338-2131 or the Illinois State Police District 13.
Benedetta “Beth” Bentley of Woodstock was in Jefferson County visiting friends, and was last seen at the Amtrak station in Centralia, according to Mt. Vernon Police Chief Chris Mendenall.
“We saw information on our Facebook page, and contacted the Woodstock Police,” Mendenall said. “We contacted the investigator in Woodstock, and the Illinois State Police are now heading the investigation in this area.”
Friends and family of the woman are grasping at any help they can get to determine her whereabouts, starting in the King City.
According to family friend Angela Montgomery, Bentley and another friend rented a car from Woodstock May 20 and traveled to Mt. Vernon to visit mutual friends in the King City. The 41-year-old mother of three was expected to be back at her home Sunday, May 23, called her husband to report her friend wanted to stay an extra day, and the couple made arrangements for Bentley to get on a late afternoon train in Centralia, arrive in St. Louis at about 10 p.m., then take the Metra from Union Station to Woodstock. Montgomery said her friends in the area dropped her off at the train station, but she never got on the train.
“She was supposed to call when she got close, but no one heard from her, and no one heard from her, and no one heard from her,” Montgomery said. “Her husband reported her missing on Monday, May 24.”
Family and friends are doubly concerned, as the Bentley missed last weekend’s graduation ceremonies for her 18-year-old son.
“He just couldn’t go through the ceremonies,” Montgomery said. “All of us are so upset.”
Montgomery said information about the missing person case has been posted online with Google, Facebook, and has been featured on the CBS 48 Hours Mystery Website.
“The next step is to have the family come (to Mt. Vernon) and the area to look,” Montgomery said. “We need help, contacts, people that can help us. She was supposed to be home. I just can’t believe we’re this far into it and she’s still not home.”
Beth Bentley is described as 5-feet, 6-inches tall and weighing about 165 pounds. She has blonde hair, brown eyes and is 41 years old. She was last seen wearing a black tank-top shirt, a blue jean mini skirt and carrying a white purse and pink and orange overnight bag.
Anyone with information is urged to contact the Woodstock Police Depart-ment at 815-338-2131 or the Illinois State Police District 13.
Joel Moore Still Missing
SOUTHERN ILLINOIS HISTORY MYSTERY
In 1982, a spelunker named Russell Burrows from the southern Illinois town of Olney, discovered a mysterious cave along a branch of the Little Wabash River. The startling contents of the cave would set long-held standards of American archaeology on its ear and provide evidence that visitors from the old world may have reached the center of the North American continent long before it was generally believed.
Or were the contents merely an elaborate hoax? Did the weird figures and strange carvings really just prove that trickery was alive and well in Illinois?
The discovery of enigmatic archaeological finds is nothing new in America. For many years, scientists and ordinary people have happened upon everything from the skeletal remains of visitors that should NOT exist to ancient coins that logically cannot exist where they are found, bizarre writings and carvings, mystery stones in ancient languages and more. Entire theories have been formulated to explain such things, along with well-written books like AMERICA BC by Barry Fell.
So what makes Burrows Cave so different? Perhaps it is the sheer number of oddities, consisting of ancient corpses and thousands of black stones that have been carved with symbols and languages seemingly unknown in the Illinois country of earlier times. Needless to say, mainstream scientists immediately dismissed the discovery as a hoax. More kindly, others suggested that the carvings may have been placed in the cave, and forgotten, by an innocent hobbyist years before. They believed this unknown person would have never dreamed the stones would be accepted as genuine.
Other researchers were not so quick to dismiss the site and continue to study the artifacts today. They believe that it just might be possible that the stones are real... that ancient travelers somehow journeyed up the Mississippi and ended up in southern Illinois. With the death of a number of the party, they created the hidden tomb and filled it with the carved stones, created as the travelers passed the time in this harsh and uncivilized land. Is this possible?
One thing is sure, whether authentic or not, the cave was certainly well hidden. Russell Burrows was walking along a wooden path and literally stumbled onto the opening. As he fell, he dislodged a massive stone that, if it had not jammed, would have flipped over and deposited him into a stone chamber that was 12 feet deep. The stone had then been designed to turn over and seal the intruder into the chamber... permanently. Instead, Burrows noticed the strange carvings and writings on the bottom of the stone and peered deeper into the cavern. On one wall was a huge face that had its eyes fixed on the deadly “trap door”. This nearly fatal discovery would begin a mystery that remains unsolved today.
For those who have seen the carvings and artifacts from the cave (seen in the book MYSTERY CAVE OF MANY FACES by Russell Burrows and Fred Rydholm) most confess to being puzzled, mystified and skeptical. The stones seem to have a disturbingly amateurish look to them that does not conform to the types of ancient drawings were are used to seeing. Some would say that this is because of the conditions the ancient travelers were forced to work under, while others would say this provided proof of the hoax. Many of the other theories about the artifacts have puzzling questions and theories concerning them.
One thing that is always pointed out is that the writings on the stones (in tongues like Egyptian, Punic, Libyan, Green and Arabic) make no sense in the languages of their scripts. Skeptics point to this and say that the writings were obviously done by someone illiterate in these actual languages and who simply copied the text from somewhere else. However, those who continue to study the stones offer alternate explanations. They point to the fact that the writings show a curious consistency and may actually be made up of an older language and one that provided a basis for the others. Its also possible that this could be a language that is only similar to the others as well. The early American settlers noted that the Algonquin language of the American Indians sounded like Hebrew. (NOTE: Author Barry Fell even claims that the Algonquin language DID include remnants of Hebrew, Greek, Norse, Arabic, Gaelic and Egyptian... could these languages have been absorbed into Algonquin, thanks to the ancient visitors?)
Another criticism is that the engravings do not fit with historical precedents as we know them, but could they represent something previously unknown to archaeologists? The carvings depict mostly warrior profiles, animals, and ships of many periods and traditions. We must also remember that the cave is also a mausoleum containing skeletons and grave furniture, weapons and urns. Whether or not these bodies have been studied closely is unknown.
No matter what you may think of the discovery, or believe about its authenticity, it remains a puzzling enigma. Is it real? And if not, then why was it created? Who would stand to gain from such an expensive, elaborate and time-consuming hoax? Is it all a mistake? Could the stones be the work of some strange hobbyist who never expected his creation to be found?
Who knows? At this point, Burrows Cave is as much a mystery as it was in 1982. Speculation, debate and conjecture continues... and will not cease at any point in the near future!
In 1982, a spelunker named Russell Burrows from the southern Illinois town of Olney, discovered a mysterious cave along a branch of the Little Wabash River. The startling contents of the cave would set long-held standards of American archaeology on its ear and provide evidence that visitors from the old world may have reached the center of the North American continent long before it was generally believed.
Or were the contents merely an elaborate hoax? Did the weird figures and strange carvings really just prove that trickery was alive and well in Illinois?
The discovery of enigmatic archaeological finds is nothing new in America. For many years, scientists and ordinary people have happened upon everything from the skeletal remains of visitors that should NOT exist to ancient coins that logically cannot exist where they are found, bizarre writings and carvings, mystery stones in ancient languages and more. Entire theories have been formulated to explain such things, along with well-written books like AMERICA BC by Barry Fell.
So what makes Burrows Cave so different? Perhaps it is the sheer number of oddities, consisting of ancient corpses and thousands of black stones that have been carved with symbols and languages seemingly unknown in the Illinois country of earlier times. Needless to say, mainstream scientists immediately dismissed the discovery as a hoax. More kindly, others suggested that the carvings may have been placed in the cave, and forgotten, by an innocent hobbyist years before. They believed this unknown person would have never dreamed the stones would be accepted as genuine.
Other researchers were not so quick to dismiss the site and continue to study the artifacts today. They believe that it just might be possible that the stones are real... that ancient travelers somehow journeyed up the Mississippi and ended up in southern Illinois. With the death of a number of the party, they created the hidden tomb and filled it with the carved stones, created as the travelers passed the time in this harsh and uncivilized land. Is this possible?
One thing is sure, whether authentic or not, the cave was certainly well hidden. Russell Burrows was walking along a wooden path and literally stumbled onto the opening. As he fell, he dislodged a massive stone that, if it had not jammed, would have flipped over and deposited him into a stone chamber that was 12 feet deep. The stone had then been designed to turn over and seal the intruder into the chamber... permanently. Instead, Burrows noticed the strange carvings and writings on the bottom of the stone and peered deeper into the cavern. On one wall was a huge face that had its eyes fixed on the deadly “trap door”. This nearly fatal discovery would begin a mystery that remains unsolved today.
For those who have seen the carvings and artifacts from the cave (seen in the book MYSTERY CAVE OF MANY FACES by Russell Burrows and Fred Rydholm) most confess to being puzzled, mystified and skeptical. The stones seem to have a disturbingly amateurish look to them that does not conform to the types of ancient drawings were are used to seeing. Some would say that this is because of the conditions the ancient travelers were forced to work under, while others would say this provided proof of the hoax. Many of the other theories about the artifacts have puzzling questions and theories concerning them.
One thing that is always pointed out is that the writings on the stones (in tongues like Egyptian, Punic, Libyan, Green and Arabic) make no sense in the languages of their scripts. Skeptics point to this and say that the writings were obviously done by someone illiterate in these actual languages and who simply copied the text from somewhere else. However, those who continue to study the stones offer alternate explanations. They point to the fact that the writings show a curious consistency and may actually be made up of an older language and one that provided a basis for the others. Its also possible that this could be a language that is only similar to the others as well. The early American settlers noted that the Algonquin language of the American Indians sounded like Hebrew. (NOTE: Author Barry Fell even claims that the Algonquin language DID include remnants of Hebrew, Greek, Norse, Arabic, Gaelic and Egyptian... could these languages have been absorbed into Algonquin, thanks to the ancient visitors?)
Another criticism is that the engravings do not fit with historical precedents as we know them, but could they represent something previously unknown to archaeologists? The carvings depict mostly warrior profiles, animals, and ships of many periods and traditions. We must also remember that the cave is also a mausoleum containing skeletons and grave furniture, weapons and urns. Whether or not these bodies have been studied closely is unknown.
No matter what you may think of the discovery, or believe about its authenticity, it remains a puzzling enigma. Is it real? And if not, then why was it created? Who would stand to gain from such an expensive, elaborate and time-consuming hoax? Is it all a mistake? Could the stones be the work of some strange hobbyist who never expected his creation to be found?
Who knows? At this point, Burrows Cave is as much a mystery as it was in 1982. Speculation, debate and conjecture continues... and will not cease at any point in the near future!
Not a Mystery but more an enigma: Charlie Burger. My uncle used to tell me stories about Charlie Burger when I was a young boy.
Outlaw Associations
Dancin' and Dates at Shady Rest
by William R. Carr
Charlie Birger — that Knight of Another Sort — seems to be ever-popular in Southern Illinois. As a one-time soldier, cowboy, and bronc-buster, and the romantic qualities of Robin Hood after he commenced his outlaw career, Charlie had many of the requisites of an American folk hero. He will certainly remain an integral part of the region's folklore. If not quite "popular" with some, he at least continues to evoke considerable interest, especially around Harrisburg where many saw him as hero rather than hoodlum.
Gangsters and outlaws loom large and significant in our rather colorful regional history. Though I suspect those "good old days" seem colorful only in retrospect — with the passing of sufficient time to render up a sense of security and safety in our relatively tranquil present. I think it is probably natural, given the passage of time, that some of us enjoy basking in a little reflected glory (or reverse glory), from past family associations with the more colorful players of times past. It seems that almost everybody in these parts has a Charlie Birger tale or two to tell, and I think they should all be told.
Yours truly admits to a slight fascination with our historic outlaw eras and their principle participants, and even an inexplicable tinge of pride at having ancestors who were right in there with the worst of them. Of course that tinge of pride would be less inexplicable, and perhaps even understandable, had any of my ancestors been among the heroic champions of law and order, rather than on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, that isn't the case, although I'll have to admit (or plead), that the overwhelming majority of my ancestors have been upstanding citizens. The nearer those ancestors approach myself, of course, the better they got. In fact, I know of one or two fairly close relatives I can actually brag about openly and honestly. Honest.
In the present case, with a view toward maybe fleshing out the saga of Charlie Birger somewhat, albeit with some rather obscure and unimportant tidbits, I thought I'd troop out my little store of family tradition in the interests of perversity, and for the benefit of posterity. Now that most of the respectable (or more sensitive), members of the older generation have passed on, I can do this without fear of embarrassing anybody — except, perhaps, myself.
Our Birger associations come from both the paternal and maternal sides of my family.
My great Uncle Bill Gurley, after whom I take my first name, occasionally worked on Charlie Birger's automobiles at his place of employment as a mechanic on Harrisburg's west side. Though he, like just about everybody else in Harrisburg, knew Charlie in passing, he never claimed to be his friend. But he said Charlie provided them with plenty of work, was jovial, and always conducted himself as a gentlemen.
He told of one time when Charlie came to the garage and told everybody they'd better clear out for awhile. Charlie said he expected a visit from some of the Shelton gang, and there might be some shooting. The employees cleared out for a little unscheduled coffee break. Whether or not the Sheltons showed up, and shots were fired, is uncertain.
By far, our closest family associations with notorious characters have been on my father's paternal side. My father is fond of expressing the opinion that his father's branch of the family, while perfectly respectable back east, "had mixed up," (in Mike Fink's vernacular), "with horses and alligators during its pioneer march westward."
Our supposed outlaw associations range way back to the early 1800's and my five times great uncle — one of the area's earliest settlers. This was Isaiah L. Potts, of Potts' Tavern fame. Though I personally believe old uncle Isaiah is getting somewhat of a bum rap in the "Legend of Billy Potts," there's no denying that he was an associate of "Satan's Ferryman" himself, James Ford. But those were rough, tough, and lawless, times on the as yet untamed frontier.
In more recent times, some of this same clan found Charlie Birger pleasant company. When Charlie first set up shop in our area, sometime around 1913, it was in a little "store" at Ledford, just southwest of Harrisburg. Less than a mile to the east of that establishment was the farm of Joseph Potts, my great-grandfather. It seems my great-grandfather's family and the Birgers became amicable neighbors and some lasting friendships ensued. My grandmother, Sybil Gurley, had married my grandfather (Joseph, Jr.), only a few years prior to Birger's arrival. This family friendship, and the associations it engendered, became something of an embarrassment to the Gurley side of the family. Later on, Sybil divorced Joseph Jr. and her second husband officially adopted her children in 1918, changing their surname. This partially alleviated some of the embarrassing social stigma the original name had caused.
Though details and verification are lacking, my father claims that my grandfather ran an "establishment" for Charlie for a while located somewhere on North Main Street in Harrisburg. My great aunt, Ollie Potts, of course, became Charlie's long-time housekeeper and Girl Friday — and some claim the relationship was much more than just that (both personally and professionally).
According to Ruby Brown (one of Ollie's nieces), Ollie also conducted a romantic liaison with Connie Ritter, which caused some serious friction between the Birger and Ritter. Ruby also claimed (contrary to the reasons given in the books on the subject), that when Shady Rest was burned, it was the result of jealous rage on Birger's part, and a failed attempt on Ritter's life.
Aunt Ollie was noteworthy in her own right. Both attractive and adventurous, she was once a circus motorcycle dare-devil who rode around, and upside down, inside a large barrel cage, and (according to Ruby), did a little aerial wing-walking on the side. My father says Ollie was known as Kitty La Dare during her circus days. At one point in her life (and I learned it from an impeccable non-family source), she is said to have gone by the handle of the "Queen of Sheeba." Most likely, this was a title Birger's cohorts pinned on her. Perhaps she seemed to enjoy an unduly exulted status in the gang. The same source also told me that she and one of her later boyfriends made the sojourn up to Menard penitentiary to visit Connie Ritter, who was then in residence. Apparently the meeting didn't go particularly well, since Mr. Ritter wasn't pleased to share the visit with Ollie's new beau.
One of my father's most prominent memories of his grandfather's farm was catching a glimpse of one of Charlie Birger's young daughters skinny dipping in the farm pond. My dad, James Robert Carr, was pretty small at the time (as was the young lady), but old enough to be interested.
He was prevented from fully satisfying his boyish curiosity, however. "A bunch of old ladies were standing around," he said, "and kept me from getting a good look." He also remembers his grandfather's fine watermelon patch, which probably provided Charlie with some of the watermelons he took pride in selling at his store.
My aunt Flo remembered Charlie during his early years at the Ledford establishment, where he was a favorite with the local children.
Perhaps Flo was was a chiseler, prone to bargain for favors or lower prices on candy and soda pop. "He used to call me his 'little Jew girl'," she said. "I didn't even know what a Jew was, but he always teased me that way. I thought it must be something good, and loved the special attention."
Flo grew into a assertive, but respectable, young lady—but Charlie continued to teasingly flirt with her whenever they chanced to meet. By then, Charlie had gained his notorious, and growing, reputation—and Flo, as well as the rest of her immediate family, were careful to distance themselves from any association with him, as well as all other members of his gang. Still, Flo retained fond feelings for Charlie in spite of his growing reputation. She liked to tell of one chance meeting on the Harrisburg square when she was a budding teenager. When Charlie greeted her as his little Jew girl, she retorted in mock outrage, "Don't talk to me! You're a gangster!" Charlie laughed and good-humoredly chastised his "little Jew girl" for calling him any such thing.
Flo was a pretty spunky young woman with a sense of humor to match. She told me of one exploit some years later at the Red Bird Inn, at Herod, during that settlement's more lively period. There was a certain deputy sheriff who she said would come in strutting like a rooster. On the subject occasion he came in acting like he owned the world, with an "everybody better beware" continence. His obvious superiority complex, and overly authoritative demeanor, made him a shoe-in for one of Flo's practical jokes. As he stood next to her at the bar, surveying the clientele with a jaundiced eye, she deftly lifted his pistol out of its holster and secreted it in her purse.
Some of the customers saw what she'd done and began to giggle and laugh, much to the officer's consternation and annoyance. When he discovered that he was unarmed, his discomfiture was complete. He was not at all in a good humor, perceiving himself the subject of such amusement.
Red faced, he looked at Flo, who could not contain her mirth. He demanded the return of his side-arm, threatening to arrest Flo if she didn't give it up. In turn, she refused to return his artillery unless he promised not to arrest her. She suggested that he buy her a drink instead. He wasn't that generous, but didn't arrest her when she finally relinquished his side-arm. He left in an embarrassed huff — making a somewhat lackluster attempt to maintain his cock-of-the-walk poise.
When the smooth, young, Connie Ritter breezed into Harrisburg from points north, Flo was impressed by his sharp dress and cosmopolitan flair. She was flattered when he asked her out on a date. She said he was a wonderful gentleman and they'd had a grand time on their outing to Shawneetown. But when the family found out who he was — that he was a Birger henchman — the fledging relationship was brought to an abrupt end. Mr. Ritter later conducted a romantic liaison with his boss's "housekeeper" — Flo's aunt Ollie, who never shied from her associations with Charlie and his gang.
Charlie's establishment at Shady Rest, on Route 13 half way between Harrisburg and Marion, was a popular stopping place for many who traveled between those towns. As Birger's main roadhouse and headquarters, it was more than just a road-side Bar-B-Q stand, of course. It was a drinking establishment and a house of entertainment.
It was here that another of my relatives, Willard St. John, often stopped for a little refreshment on his way home to Harrisburg from the coal mine where he worked. Willard had been present, maybe a participant, at another of Southern Illinois' more lamentable episodes — the Herrin Massacre. He knew Charlie and considered him a friend. Gary DeNeal acknowledged Willard as one of his many sources in his book A Knight of Another Sort.
Willard liked to tell of one occasion at Shady Rest when one of Birger's men decided he'd like to see Willard dance. Willard found the proposition sufficiently compelling, in the face of of a pulled revolver pointed at his lower torso, to do a vigorous little gig for the ruffian's personal entertainment. Willard said he put all he had into it, though he'd never considered himself much of a dancer before that time. Before the dance was over (and there was no indication that the audience was satisfied), Charlie came in and quickly put a stop to it, roundly rebuking his fun-loving associate. But Willard, after thanking Charlie, was advised that it might be better to leave, and he left without finishing his beer.
There was another story Willard told, similar to the one my Uncle Bill told above. Willard was at Shady Rest when Charlie and his men came in and told his customers that they'd best get out for a while. The Sheltons were supposed to be on their way. Once again, Willard didn't finish his beer, and he said he heard shooting before he was half a mile down the road.
Shady Rest became a popular place for daring young men to take their dates. Whether just to the Bar-B-Q stand, or a bold foray into the main establishment, bold young men of the day considered Shady Rest a cool place to take their lady friends.
Aunt Flo told me of one of her dates who took her to Shady Rest to impress her with his boldness. The young man drove into the parking area and the couple were still in their car when Charlie Birger drove up and emerged from his vehicle. Recognizing Flo, Charlie approached the couple's car.
"Why, there's Charlie Birger!" Flo exclaimed to her date. The young man, who had no idea that Flo and Charlie were old acquaintances, was a little surprised at the familiar manner with which his date greeted the famed gangster. The young man wondered why Charlie was headed right in their direction as if he had some special interest in them. Charlie stopped on the passenger side of the vehicle and looked across at the young driver.
Much to the young man's discomfiture, Charlie looked him straight in the eye and demanded, "What are you doing with my girl?"
He made the inquiry with a false show of anger, followed, after a calculated pause, with a friendly smile. While the smile eased the boy's apprehension somewhat, Flo said his boldness and gaiety had visibly wilted. He was at a loss for words. His waning apprehension changed to palpable alarm an instant later, however, when he saw Charlie pull his pistol out of its holster and waved it in his direction.
Still smiling, Charlie inverted his pistol and playfully tapped Flo lightly on the head with the butt. Then Birger laughed and said, "Now you can say you've been hit over the head by Charlie Birger's gun."
Charlie engaged the couple in a little small talk for a few minutes. Most of the exchange was with Flo, as her friend seemed a little withdrawn, and disinclined to say much. Then, bidding them a cheerful adieu, Charlie left them to go on about his business.
Flo said that had been her first and last date with the companion of the day. He never asked her out again.
ALBERT GOODMAN
My maternal grandfather, Albert Goodman, a long-time resident of Gaskin's City, was a well respected Harrisburg mine inspector for many years. Family tradition has it (to my grandmother's lasting chagrin), that he was one of Charlie's poker buddies at frequent friendly games. Aside from that, the extent of the relationship was that of grandpa drinking too much of Charlie's bootleg beer and liquor.
Though my grandfather had a good job, he was always broke and in debt, due to his poker playing, boozing, and other escapades. This left little cash for the necessities of life, such as groceries and heating coal. His daughters often found themselves having to go out on cold mornings and collect "gob" (coal mine tailings used for gravel), from the road to heat the house.
Since Charlie was known as a good Samaritan, my aunt Martha remembers wishing he would drop them off a little coal, as he was known to do from time to time at the households of the poor. Her wish never came true.
Albert always claimed that Charlie was a likable gentleman. That claim didn't sit well with my grandmother (Ruth [Grace] Goodman), however. She was convinced Charlie was responsible for just about all the evil in the world to date. She lived in daily fear of the gangsters and their turf war, though I don't think she was ever near the line of fire. Every automobile back-fire was a gunshot to her, and she would scramble the kids to safety. I don't believe she ever met Charlie, but she hated him so fervently that she couldn't be restrained from attending his hanging. She wanted to see him swing so she could be sure he was really gone. He was.
Yep, those were the good old days—Prohibition days, with Charlie Birger and Shelton gangs. I'm sure that Harrisburg was a much more exciting and interesting place back then than it is today. However, I don't believe I'm alone when I say that while I'd like to see a return of the "good old days," I'd just as soon they left Prohibition, and the Birgers and Sheltons, out.
One tangible relic of Charlie Birger remains in the family (aside from several old issues of the Harrisburg Daily Register which my great-grandmother saved), is one of Charlie's cartridge belts. My father, James Robert Carr, came into possession of the belt back in the late twenties. It was given to him by Bill R. Salus (Harrisburg High School, Class of 1931), who lived next door to the Birgers on West Poplar Street. Apparently Charlie had given it to Bill as a souvenir after buying a new one. The belt is made of leather with a dark natural finish and basket-weave tooling.
The bullet loops are missing, though the belt was intact when my father first received it. Another of my his friends, “Cowboy” Martin, borrowed the belt to wear it at the annual Harrisburg Halloween celebration on the square. My Dad couldn’t remember Martin’s first name, but said they always called him Cowboy because he liked to dress like a cowboy right up until high school. When Cowboy returned the belt, it was minus the bullet loops.
Finally, Gary DeNeal, one of my oldest and best friends, became our area's preeminent authority on Charlie Birger and the Prohibition era. He wrote several articles on Charlie for the Outdoor Illinois magazine, and finally wrote A Knight of Another Sort, Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger, a biography of Charlie which remains the definitive work on the subject.
The illustration at left (by yours truly), appeared in the Dec. 7, 1981 issue of The Prairie Post, with an article promoting Gary's book, shows Charlie in the Saline County jail with his Thompson submachine gun, on Feb., 8, 1925.
Gary DeNeal's authoritative biography of Charlie Birger, A Knight of Another Sort, Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger (304 pages, 72 black & white illustrations is available at local bookstores; or paperback $24.95 ppd., from the author at Springhouse Books, P.O. Box 8, Herod, Illinois 62947.
Dancin' and Dates at Shady Rest
by William R. Carr
Charlie Birger — that Knight of Another Sort — seems to be ever-popular in Southern Illinois. As a one-time soldier, cowboy, and bronc-buster, and the romantic qualities of Robin Hood after he commenced his outlaw career, Charlie had many of the requisites of an American folk hero. He will certainly remain an integral part of the region's folklore. If not quite "popular" with some, he at least continues to evoke considerable interest, especially around Harrisburg where many saw him as hero rather than hoodlum.
Gangsters and outlaws loom large and significant in our rather colorful regional history. Though I suspect those "good old days" seem colorful only in retrospect — with the passing of sufficient time to render up a sense of security and safety in our relatively tranquil present. I think it is probably natural, given the passage of time, that some of us enjoy basking in a little reflected glory (or reverse glory), from past family associations with the more colorful players of times past. It seems that almost everybody in these parts has a Charlie Birger tale or two to tell, and I think they should all be told.
Yours truly admits to a slight fascination with our historic outlaw eras and their principle participants, and even an inexplicable tinge of pride at having ancestors who were right in there with the worst of them. Of course that tinge of pride would be less inexplicable, and perhaps even understandable, had any of my ancestors been among the heroic champions of law and order, rather than on the other side of the fence. Unfortunately, that isn't the case, although I'll have to admit (or plead), that the overwhelming majority of my ancestors have been upstanding citizens. The nearer those ancestors approach myself, of course, the better they got. In fact, I know of one or two fairly close relatives I can actually brag about openly and honestly. Honest.
In the present case, with a view toward maybe fleshing out the saga of Charlie Birger somewhat, albeit with some rather obscure and unimportant tidbits, I thought I'd troop out my little store of family tradition in the interests of perversity, and for the benefit of posterity. Now that most of the respectable (or more sensitive), members of the older generation have passed on, I can do this without fear of embarrassing anybody — except, perhaps, myself.
Our Birger associations come from both the paternal and maternal sides of my family.
My great Uncle Bill Gurley, after whom I take my first name, occasionally worked on Charlie Birger's automobiles at his place of employment as a mechanic on Harrisburg's west side. Though he, like just about everybody else in Harrisburg, knew Charlie in passing, he never claimed to be his friend. But he said Charlie provided them with plenty of work, was jovial, and always conducted himself as a gentlemen.
He told of one time when Charlie came to the garage and told everybody they'd better clear out for awhile. Charlie said he expected a visit from some of the Shelton gang, and there might be some shooting. The employees cleared out for a little unscheduled coffee break. Whether or not the Sheltons showed up, and shots were fired, is uncertain.
By far, our closest family associations with notorious characters have been on my father's paternal side. My father is fond of expressing the opinion that his father's branch of the family, while perfectly respectable back east, "had mixed up," (in Mike Fink's vernacular), "with horses and alligators during its pioneer march westward."
Our supposed outlaw associations range way back to the early 1800's and my five times great uncle — one of the area's earliest settlers. This was Isaiah L. Potts, of Potts' Tavern fame. Though I personally believe old uncle Isaiah is getting somewhat of a bum rap in the "Legend of Billy Potts," there's no denying that he was an associate of "Satan's Ferryman" himself, James Ford. But those were rough, tough, and lawless, times on the as yet untamed frontier.
In more recent times, some of this same clan found Charlie Birger pleasant company. When Charlie first set up shop in our area, sometime around 1913, it was in a little "store" at Ledford, just southwest of Harrisburg. Less than a mile to the east of that establishment was the farm of Joseph Potts, my great-grandfather. It seems my great-grandfather's family and the Birgers became amicable neighbors and some lasting friendships ensued. My grandmother, Sybil Gurley, had married my grandfather (Joseph, Jr.), only a few years prior to Birger's arrival. This family friendship, and the associations it engendered, became something of an embarrassment to the Gurley side of the family. Later on, Sybil divorced Joseph Jr. and her second husband officially adopted her children in 1918, changing their surname. This partially alleviated some of the embarrassing social stigma the original name had caused.
Though details and verification are lacking, my father claims that my grandfather ran an "establishment" for Charlie for a while located somewhere on North Main Street in Harrisburg. My great aunt, Ollie Potts, of course, became Charlie's long-time housekeeper and Girl Friday — and some claim the relationship was much more than just that (both personally and professionally).
According to Ruby Brown (one of Ollie's nieces), Ollie also conducted a romantic liaison with Connie Ritter, which caused some serious friction between the Birger and Ritter. Ruby also claimed (contrary to the reasons given in the books on the subject), that when Shady Rest was burned, it was the result of jealous rage on Birger's part, and a failed attempt on Ritter's life.
Aunt Ollie was noteworthy in her own right. Both attractive and adventurous, she was once a circus motorcycle dare-devil who rode around, and upside down, inside a large barrel cage, and (according to Ruby), did a little aerial wing-walking on the side. My father says Ollie was known as Kitty La Dare during her circus days. At one point in her life (and I learned it from an impeccable non-family source), she is said to have gone by the handle of the "Queen of Sheeba." Most likely, this was a title Birger's cohorts pinned on her. Perhaps she seemed to enjoy an unduly exulted status in the gang. The same source also told me that she and one of her later boyfriends made the sojourn up to Menard penitentiary to visit Connie Ritter, who was then in residence. Apparently the meeting didn't go particularly well, since Mr. Ritter wasn't pleased to share the visit with Ollie's new beau.
One of my father's most prominent memories of his grandfather's farm was catching a glimpse of one of Charlie Birger's young daughters skinny dipping in the farm pond. My dad, James Robert Carr, was pretty small at the time (as was the young lady), but old enough to be interested.
He was prevented from fully satisfying his boyish curiosity, however. "A bunch of old ladies were standing around," he said, "and kept me from getting a good look." He also remembers his grandfather's fine watermelon patch, which probably provided Charlie with some of the watermelons he took pride in selling at his store.
My aunt Flo remembered Charlie during his early years at the Ledford establishment, where he was a favorite with the local children.
Perhaps Flo was was a chiseler, prone to bargain for favors or lower prices on candy and soda pop. "He used to call me his 'little Jew girl'," she said. "I didn't even know what a Jew was, but he always teased me that way. I thought it must be something good, and loved the special attention."
Flo grew into a assertive, but respectable, young lady—but Charlie continued to teasingly flirt with her whenever they chanced to meet. By then, Charlie had gained his notorious, and growing, reputation—and Flo, as well as the rest of her immediate family, were careful to distance themselves from any association with him, as well as all other members of his gang. Still, Flo retained fond feelings for Charlie in spite of his growing reputation. She liked to tell of one chance meeting on the Harrisburg square when she was a budding teenager. When Charlie greeted her as his little Jew girl, she retorted in mock outrage, "Don't talk to me! You're a gangster!" Charlie laughed and good-humoredly chastised his "little Jew girl" for calling him any such thing.
Flo was a pretty spunky young woman with a sense of humor to match. She told me of one exploit some years later at the Red Bird Inn, at Herod, during that settlement's more lively period. There was a certain deputy sheriff who she said would come in strutting like a rooster. On the subject occasion he came in acting like he owned the world, with an "everybody better beware" continence. His obvious superiority complex, and overly authoritative demeanor, made him a shoe-in for one of Flo's practical jokes. As he stood next to her at the bar, surveying the clientele with a jaundiced eye, she deftly lifted his pistol out of its holster and secreted it in her purse.
Some of the customers saw what she'd done and began to giggle and laugh, much to the officer's consternation and annoyance. When he discovered that he was unarmed, his discomfiture was complete. He was not at all in a good humor, perceiving himself the subject of such amusement.
Red faced, he looked at Flo, who could not contain her mirth. He demanded the return of his side-arm, threatening to arrest Flo if she didn't give it up. In turn, she refused to return his artillery unless he promised not to arrest her. She suggested that he buy her a drink instead. He wasn't that generous, but didn't arrest her when she finally relinquished his side-arm. He left in an embarrassed huff — making a somewhat lackluster attempt to maintain his cock-of-the-walk poise.
When the smooth, young, Connie Ritter breezed into Harrisburg from points north, Flo was impressed by his sharp dress and cosmopolitan flair. She was flattered when he asked her out on a date. She said he was a wonderful gentleman and they'd had a grand time on their outing to Shawneetown. But when the family found out who he was — that he was a Birger henchman — the fledging relationship was brought to an abrupt end. Mr. Ritter later conducted a romantic liaison with his boss's "housekeeper" — Flo's aunt Ollie, who never shied from her associations with Charlie and his gang.
Charlie's establishment at Shady Rest, on Route 13 half way between Harrisburg and Marion, was a popular stopping place for many who traveled between those towns. As Birger's main roadhouse and headquarters, it was more than just a road-side Bar-B-Q stand, of course. It was a drinking establishment and a house of entertainment.
It was here that another of my relatives, Willard St. John, often stopped for a little refreshment on his way home to Harrisburg from the coal mine where he worked. Willard had been present, maybe a participant, at another of Southern Illinois' more lamentable episodes — the Herrin Massacre. He knew Charlie and considered him a friend. Gary DeNeal acknowledged Willard as one of his many sources in his book A Knight of Another Sort.
Willard liked to tell of one occasion at Shady Rest when one of Birger's men decided he'd like to see Willard dance. Willard found the proposition sufficiently compelling, in the face of of a pulled revolver pointed at his lower torso, to do a vigorous little gig for the ruffian's personal entertainment. Willard said he put all he had into it, though he'd never considered himself much of a dancer before that time. Before the dance was over (and there was no indication that the audience was satisfied), Charlie came in and quickly put a stop to it, roundly rebuking his fun-loving associate. But Willard, after thanking Charlie, was advised that it might be better to leave, and he left without finishing his beer.
There was another story Willard told, similar to the one my Uncle Bill told above. Willard was at Shady Rest when Charlie and his men came in and told his customers that they'd best get out for a while. The Sheltons were supposed to be on their way. Once again, Willard didn't finish his beer, and he said he heard shooting before he was half a mile down the road.
Shady Rest became a popular place for daring young men to take their dates. Whether just to the Bar-B-Q stand, or a bold foray into the main establishment, bold young men of the day considered Shady Rest a cool place to take their lady friends.
Aunt Flo told me of one of her dates who took her to Shady Rest to impress her with his boldness. The young man drove into the parking area and the couple were still in their car when Charlie Birger drove up and emerged from his vehicle. Recognizing Flo, Charlie approached the couple's car.
"Why, there's Charlie Birger!" Flo exclaimed to her date. The young man, who had no idea that Flo and Charlie were old acquaintances, was a little surprised at the familiar manner with which his date greeted the famed gangster. The young man wondered why Charlie was headed right in their direction as if he had some special interest in them. Charlie stopped on the passenger side of the vehicle and looked across at the young driver.
Much to the young man's discomfiture, Charlie looked him straight in the eye and demanded, "What are you doing with my girl?"
He made the inquiry with a false show of anger, followed, after a calculated pause, with a friendly smile. While the smile eased the boy's apprehension somewhat, Flo said his boldness and gaiety had visibly wilted. He was at a loss for words. His waning apprehension changed to palpable alarm an instant later, however, when he saw Charlie pull his pistol out of its holster and waved it in his direction.
Still smiling, Charlie inverted his pistol and playfully tapped Flo lightly on the head with the butt. Then Birger laughed and said, "Now you can say you've been hit over the head by Charlie Birger's gun."
Charlie engaged the couple in a little small talk for a few minutes. Most of the exchange was with Flo, as her friend seemed a little withdrawn, and disinclined to say much. Then, bidding them a cheerful adieu, Charlie left them to go on about his business.
Flo said that had been her first and last date with the companion of the day. He never asked her out again.
ALBERT GOODMAN
My maternal grandfather, Albert Goodman, a long-time resident of Gaskin's City, was a well respected Harrisburg mine inspector for many years. Family tradition has it (to my grandmother's lasting chagrin), that he was one of Charlie's poker buddies at frequent friendly games. Aside from that, the extent of the relationship was that of grandpa drinking too much of Charlie's bootleg beer and liquor.
Though my grandfather had a good job, he was always broke and in debt, due to his poker playing, boozing, and other escapades. This left little cash for the necessities of life, such as groceries and heating coal. His daughters often found themselves having to go out on cold mornings and collect "gob" (coal mine tailings used for gravel), from the road to heat the house.
Since Charlie was known as a good Samaritan, my aunt Martha remembers wishing he would drop them off a little coal, as he was known to do from time to time at the households of the poor. Her wish never came true.
Albert always claimed that Charlie was a likable gentleman. That claim didn't sit well with my grandmother (Ruth [Grace] Goodman), however. She was convinced Charlie was responsible for just about all the evil in the world to date. She lived in daily fear of the gangsters and their turf war, though I don't think she was ever near the line of fire. Every automobile back-fire was a gunshot to her, and she would scramble the kids to safety. I don't believe she ever met Charlie, but she hated him so fervently that she couldn't be restrained from attending his hanging. She wanted to see him swing so she could be sure he was really gone. He was.
Yep, those were the good old days—Prohibition days, with Charlie Birger and Shelton gangs. I'm sure that Harrisburg was a much more exciting and interesting place back then than it is today. However, I don't believe I'm alone when I say that while I'd like to see a return of the "good old days," I'd just as soon they left Prohibition, and the Birgers and Sheltons, out.
One tangible relic of Charlie Birger remains in the family (aside from several old issues of the Harrisburg Daily Register which my great-grandmother saved), is one of Charlie's cartridge belts. My father, James Robert Carr, came into possession of the belt back in the late twenties. It was given to him by Bill R. Salus (Harrisburg High School, Class of 1931), who lived next door to the Birgers on West Poplar Street. Apparently Charlie had given it to Bill as a souvenir after buying a new one. The belt is made of leather with a dark natural finish and basket-weave tooling.
The bullet loops are missing, though the belt was intact when my father first received it. Another of my his friends, “Cowboy” Martin, borrowed the belt to wear it at the annual Harrisburg Halloween celebration on the square. My Dad couldn’t remember Martin’s first name, but said they always called him Cowboy because he liked to dress like a cowboy right up until high school. When Cowboy returned the belt, it was minus the bullet loops.
Finally, Gary DeNeal, one of my oldest and best friends, became our area's preeminent authority on Charlie Birger and the Prohibition era. He wrote several articles on Charlie for the Outdoor Illinois magazine, and finally wrote A Knight of Another Sort, Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger, a biography of Charlie which remains the definitive work on the subject.
The illustration at left (by yours truly), appeared in the Dec. 7, 1981 issue of The Prairie Post, with an article promoting Gary's book, shows Charlie in the Saline County jail with his Thompson submachine gun, on Feb., 8, 1925.
Gary DeNeal's authoritative biography of Charlie Birger, A Knight of Another Sort, Prohibition Days and Charlie Birger (304 pages, 72 black & white illustrations is available at local bookstores; or paperback $24.95 ppd., from the author at Springhouse Books, P.O. Box 8, Herod, Illinois 62947.
America's First Serial Killers The Harps
We think of serial killers as a modern day phenomenon, beginning somewhere around the time of Jack the Ripper in London. But 100 years earlier on the American frontier, in Kentucky and Tennessee, two cousins who called themselves brothers terrorized the Wilderness.
Micajah "Big" Harp was the son of John Harpe, a Scottish immigrant to Orange County, North Carolina. John's brother, William Harpe, had a son named Joshua, who became known as Wiley "Little" Harp. Together the cousins became known as The Harps, a killing team passing as brothers, who traveled the area with wives and children in tow. They are calculated to have murdered 30 people, including some of their own children.
The boys left North Carolina in 1775 for Virginia intending to be slave overseers, but the American Revolution interrupted their career. The Harps were Loyalists and with a gang of like-minded irregulars, which included Indians, went about the countryside raping and pillaging, usually with Patriots as their victims. Captain James Wood, a local Patriot, shot and wounded Little Harp in the course of one attempted rape of a local girl in North Carolina. In 1780, the British took these Tory irregulars into its troops and the Harps fought in several battles along the Carolinas border.
The following year, the Harps left the army and joined up with Cherokee confederates to raid such settlements as Station Bluff, now Nashville, Tennessee. They kidnapped Captain Wood's daughter, Susan, at this time, and another local girl named Maria Davidson. Joined later by Sally Rice, the three women served as wives to the two Harp brothers.
The Harps and their family moved into Nickjack in 1781, a Cherokee-Chickamauga town in the vicinity of what is now Chattanooga, Tennessee. Along the way there, the Harps defined the brutal relationship they would have with their wives and when Moses Doss, a member of their gang objected, he was murdered.
The Harps lived at Nickjack many years participating in British-backed Indian raids on Kentucky settlers west of the Appalachians. They fought at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, and the attack on Bledsoe's Lick in Tennessee. In those years the Harp wives, Susan Wood and Maria Davidson, gave birth to two children apiece, all of whom their fathers murdered. The Harps had early warning in 1794 that the Americans were on their way to destroy Nickjack and they escaped the night before with their wives and children. The Harps settled in a small cabin near the frontier capital of Knoxville, Tennessee. Here, in 1797 Wiley "Little" Harp took a minister's daughter, Sally Rice, as his legal wife.
In late 1798 the Harps went on the road and the real killing began. After two killings, one in Knox County and one on the Wilderness Trail, the Harps left Tennessee in December 1798 for Kentucky, where they killed two traveling men from Maryland. The Harps' signature was to disembowel their victims and fill the stomach cavities with rocks to weight them down so they'd sink in a river.
John Farris's Wayside House was an inn at the edge of the Wilderness. Here travelers stopped to rest and join up with others headed in the same direction for safety in numbers. On December 12, the Harps stopped there and were offered breakfast by a kind young man named John Langford, who was traveling from Virginia to pay a visit to a friend in Crab Orchard, Kentucky. When Langford turned up dead off Boone's Trace in the Wilderness, innkeeper Farris pointed authorities after the Harps.
They were all arrested near Crab Orchard and jailed in Danville, Kentucky, but the two men managed to escape, leaving the women behind to fend for themselves.
The Harps fled to sparsely settled Henderson County, Kentucky and eventually reached Cave-In-The-Rock on the Illinois side of the Ohio River. Their wives, once the women were released from prison, joined them there. Cave-In-The-Rock was the nest of a large gang of river pirates headed by Samuel Mason, a Revolutionary War veteran turned pirate.
Meanwhile, the Kentucky Governor had sent out a posse after the Harps and almost caught them in a cane field in Central Kentucky. One of the posse members called on Col. Daniel Trabue, a respected settler in Adair County, for advice on apprehending the Harps. As Col. Trabue and the posse member, Henry Skaggs, discussed the situation, Trabue's young son out on an errand turned up dead and mutilated, bearing the Harps' signature carving. On April 22, 1799, the Governor issued a $300 reward on each of the Harp heads.
Moving north from Adair County, the Harps killed a man named Edmonton, a settler named Stump, and, reaching the Potts Plantation near the mouth of the Saline River, three men sitting around a campfire. Meanwhile, the posse, out after the Harps on their race across the state, hanged some dozen criminals along the way, and ran a host of outlaws out of Kentucky. They stopped just short of Cave-in-The-Rock or they might have had the Harps that day.
The favorite prey of Mason and his pirates was the slow-moving flatboats laden with produce for Natchez and New Orleans. Pretending to be local pilots guiding the boats through shallow parts of the rapidly flowing and eddy-ridden Ohio, the pirate/pilot would steer the craft onto a shoal, where Mason's gang would pick it clean and take the goods to market themselves. With the arrival of the Harps and their three wives and three babies, the relatively non-violent ways of the river pirates took a murderous turn. After a few Harp games of taking travelers to the top of the bluff, stripping them naked, and throwing them off, they were asked to leave.
The final stretch of slaughter took place soon after this, in July 1798, when the Harps returned to Eastern Tennessee. A farmer named Bradbury, a man named Hardin, a boy named Coffey, William Ballard, who was cut open, filled with stones, and dumped in the Holston River, James Brassel, with his throat ripped apart on Brassel's Knob, John Tully, father of eight. On the Marrowbone Creek in south central Kentucky, John Graves and his teenaged son, out planting crops, had their heads axed. Moving toward Logan County, the Harps came upon a little girl, so they killed her, and a young slave on his way to the mill. Once in Logan County, near today's Adairville, near the Whippoorwill River, they butchered an entire migrating family asleep in their camp, but for one son who survived.
They rested near Russellville on the Mud River and this is where Big Harp took one of the crying babies and brained her against the trunk of a tree. A man named Trowbridge who'd gone for salt at Robertson's Lick, had his torso hollowed out, loaded with stones and sunk in Highland Creek. Major William Love, an overnight guest at the Stegall home in Webster County who snored; the Stegall's baby who cried; Mrs. Stegall who screamed when she saw her infant's throat was slit. The Harps, pretending to be the posse out after themselves, executed two men named Gilmore and Hudgens, whom they accused of being the Harps, just for fun.
As the Harps prepared to kill settler George Smith, near where they were living in a cave, the real posse rode in. After a chase, the posse left Big Harp's body where it lay, took his head to a crossroads, and displayed it there for the sober contemplation of passers-by. Little Harp escaped and is thought to have rejoined the river pirates. The three captive wives lived on and so did one of their daughters.
The cave in the hillside became known as Harp's House and the hill, Harp's Hill, located near the Pond River in western Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Near Dixon, the road along which Big Harp's head was displayed in 1799, was named Harp's Head Road. The crossing itself is called Harp's Head.
Today, few residents or travelers know these place names are in honor of America's first known serial killers.
Micajah "Big" Harp was the son of John Harpe, a Scottish immigrant to Orange County, North Carolina. John's brother, William Harpe, had a son named Joshua, who became known as Wiley "Little" Harp. Together the cousins became known as The Harps, a killing team passing as brothers, who traveled the area with wives and children in tow. They are calculated to have murdered 30 people, including some of their own children.
The boys left North Carolina in 1775 for Virginia intending to be slave overseers, but the American Revolution interrupted their career. The Harps were Loyalists and with a gang of like-minded irregulars, which included Indians, went about the countryside raping and pillaging, usually with Patriots as their victims. Captain James Wood, a local Patriot, shot and wounded Little Harp in the course of one attempted rape of a local girl in North Carolina. In 1780, the British took these Tory irregulars into its troops and the Harps fought in several battles along the Carolinas border.
The following year, the Harps left the army and joined up with Cherokee confederates to raid such settlements as Station Bluff, now Nashville, Tennessee. They kidnapped Captain Wood's daughter, Susan, at this time, and another local girl named Maria Davidson. Joined later by Sally Rice, the three women served as wives to the two Harp brothers.
The Harps and their family moved into Nickjack in 1781, a Cherokee-Chickamauga town in the vicinity of what is now Chattanooga, Tennessee. Along the way there, the Harps defined the brutal relationship they would have with their wives and when Moses Doss, a member of their gang objected, he was murdered.
The Harps lived at Nickjack many years participating in British-backed Indian raids on Kentucky settlers west of the Appalachians. They fought at the Battle of Blue Licks in 1782, and the attack on Bledsoe's Lick in Tennessee. In those years the Harp wives, Susan Wood and Maria Davidson, gave birth to two children apiece, all of whom their fathers murdered. The Harps had early warning in 1794 that the Americans were on their way to destroy Nickjack and they escaped the night before with their wives and children. The Harps settled in a small cabin near the frontier capital of Knoxville, Tennessee. Here, in 1797 Wiley "Little" Harp took a minister's daughter, Sally Rice, as his legal wife.
In late 1798 the Harps went on the road and the real killing began. After two killings, one in Knox County and one on the Wilderness Trail, the Harps left Tennessee in December 1798 for Kentucky, where they killed two traveling men from Maryland. The Harps' signature was to disembowel their victims and fill the stomach cavities with rocks to weight them down so they'd sink in a river.
John Farris's Wayside House was an inn at the edge of the Wilderness. Here travelers stopped to rest and join up with others headed in the same direction for safety in numbers. On December 12, the Harps stopped there and were offered breakfast by a kind young man named John Langford, who was traveling from Virginia to pay a visit to a friend in Crab Orchard, Kentucky. When Langford turned up dead off Boone's Trace in the Wilderness, innkeeper Farris pointed authorities after the Harps.
They were all arrested near Crab Orchard and jailed in Danville, Kentucky, but the two men managed to escape, leaving the women behind to fend for themselves.
The Harps fled to sparsely settled Henderson County, Kentucky and eventually reached Cave-In-The-Rock on the Illinois side of the Ohio River. Their wives, once the women were released from prison, joined them there. Cave-In-The-Rock was the nest of a large gang of river pirates headed by Samuel Mason, a Revolutionary War veteran turned pirate.
Meanwhile, the Kentucky Governor had sent out a posse after the Harps and almost caught them in a cane field in Central Kentucky. One of the posse members called on Col. Daniel Trabue, a respected settler in Adair County, for advice on apprehending the Harps. As Col. Trabue and the posse member, Henry Skaggs, discussed the situation, Trabue's young son out on an errand turned up dead and mutilated, bearing the Harps' signature carving. On April 22, 1799, the Governor issued a $300 reward on each of the Harp heads.
Moving north from Adair County, the Harps killed a man named Edmonton, a settler named Stump, and, reaching the Potts Plantation near the mouth of the Saline River, three men sitting around a campfire. Meanwhile, the posse, out after the Harps on their race across the state, hanged some dozen criminals along the way, and ran a host of outlaws out of Kentucky. They stopped just short of Cave-in-The-Rock or they might have had the Harps that day.
The favorite prey of Mason and his pirates was the slow-moving flatboats laden with produce for Natchez and New Orleans. Pretending to be local pilots guiding the boats through shallow parts of the rapidly flowing and eddy-ridden Ohio, the pirate/pilot would steer the craft onto a shoal, where Mason's gang would pick it clean and take the goods to market themselves. With the arrival of the Harps and their three wives and three babies, the relatively non-violent ways of the river pirates took a murderous turn. After a few Harp games of taking travelers to the top of the bluff, stripping them naked, and throwing them off, they were asked to leave.
The final stretch of slaughter took place soon after this, in July 1798, when the Harps returned to Eastern Tennessee. A farmer named Bradbury, a man named Hardin, a boy named Coffey, William Ballard, who was cut open, filled with stones, and dumped in the Holston River, James Brassel, with his throat ripped apart on Brassel's Knob, John Tully, father of eight. On the Marrowbone Creek in south central Kentucky, John Graves and his teenaged son, out planting crops, had their heads axed. Moving toward Logan County, the Harps came upon a little girl, so they killed her, and a young slave on his way to the mill. Once in Logan County, near today's Adairville, near the Whippoorwill River, they butchered an entire migrating family asleep in their camp, but for one son who survived.
They rested near Russellville on the Mud River and this is where Big Harp took one of the crying babies and brained her against the trunk of a tree. A man named Trowbridge who'd gone for salt at Robertson's Lick, had his torso hollowed out, loaded with stones and sunk in Highland Creek. Major William Love, an overnight guest at the Stegall home in Webster County who snored; the Stegall's baby who cried; Mrs. Stegall who screamed when she saw her infant's throat was slit. The Harps, pretending to be the posse out after themselves, executed two men named Gilmore and Hudgens, whom they accused of being the Harps, just for fun.
As the Harps prepared to kill settler George Smith, near where they were living in a cave, the real posse rode in. After a chase, the posse left Big Harp's body where it lay, took his head to a crossroads, and displayed it there for the sober contemplation of passers-by. Little Harp escaped and is thought to have rejoined the river pirates. The three captive wives lived on and so did one of their daughters.
The cave in the hillside became known as Harp's House and the hill, Harp's Hill, located near the Pond River in western Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. Near Dixon, the road along which Big Harp's head was displayed in 1799, was named Harp's Head Road. The crossing itself is called Harp's Head.
Today, few residents or travelers know these place names are in honor of America's first known serial killers.
Mystery of the Sarcophagus
One of the most intriguing objects in Woodlawn Cemetery is the stone coffin, or the sarcophagus, which sits above ground near the center of the cemetery. According to an article by Frank Weller, published in 1950 in the Southern Illinoisian, a headstone next to the sarcophagus reads, “JW Landrum, Died July 4, 187.., Aged 47 years.” There are a couple of different versions of who is buried there and the story behind it. The first story is that a young woman from Vicksburg, Mississippi, the wife of JW Landrum, was buried in the above ground coffin. She was placed there because she did not want to be buried in Yankee soil. Her husband was a Carbondale native and was said to have sprinkled soil from Vicksburg inside her coffin before the lid was closed. The second story is that Lt. Colonel John Mills of the Union Army was supposedly buried there. His family found out that a Confederate soldier was to be buried at Woodlawn, and they had his body removed so that the two soldiers would not occupy the same land.
One of the most intriguing objects in Woodlawn Cemetery is the stone coffin, or the sarcophagus, which sits above ground near the center of the cemetery. According to an article by Frank Weller, published in 1950 in the Southern Illinoisian, a headstone next to the sarcophagus reads, “JW Landrum, Died July 4, 187.., Aged 47 years.” There are a couple of different versions of who is buried there and the story behind it. The first story is that a young woman from Vicksburg, Mississippi, the wife of JW Landrum, was buried in the above ground coffin. She was placed there because she did not want to be buried in Yankee soil. Her husband was a Carbondale native and was said to have sprinkled soil from Vicksburg inside her coffin before the lid was closed. The second story is that Lt. Colonel John Mills of the Union Army was supposedly buried there. His family found out that a Confederate soldier was to be buried at Woodlawn, and they had his body removed so that the two soldiers would not occupy the same land.
Great Article on Wikipedia about Herrin Massarce
Herrin massacreFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011) Herrin massacrePart of the Coal WarsDate1922LocationHerrin, Illinois, United StatesParties to the civil conflictStriking coal miners United Mine WorkersSouthern Illinois Coal Company;
StrikebreakersLead figuresJohn L. Lewis;C.K. McDowellCasualtiesDeaths: 2 killed
Arrests:Deaths: 19[show]
Coal Wars
The Herrin Massacre took place in June 1922 in Herrin, Illinois. Following an early morning gunfire attack on non-union miners going to work on June 21, three union miners (Jordie Henderson, Joseph Pitkewicius and one other) were killed in a confrontation after the striking union members marched on the mine. The next day, union miners killed 19 of fifty strikebreakers and union guards, many of them in brutal ways. A twentieth victim from the non-union group would later be murdered, bringing the death total to twenty-three.[1][2]
Contents [hide]
By June, Lester's miners had dug out nearly 60,000 tons of coal. Strike-driven shortages had raised coal prices, and Lester would make a $250,000 profit if he sold his coal. He decided to violate the agreement he had made. When the UMWA members working for him objected, he fired all of his union workers.[4] Lester brought in mine guards and 50 strikebreakers, vilified as "scabs", recruited by employment agencies in Chicago. On June 16, 1922, he shipped out sixteen railroad cars filled with coal. Testimony later revealed that his mine guards possessed machine guns. They aggressively searched passers-by, and "they frighten women, they boast and are hard-boiled."[5]
Escalation[edit]Lester, responding to a reporter's questions, said his steam shovel operators and the railroad workers were members of their respective unions.
John L. Lewis, president of the UMWA, responded in a telegram on June 20. He called the Steam Shovelmen's Union an "outlaw organization" which also provided strikebreakers elsewhere. UMWA members, he said, "are justified in treating this crowd as an outlaw organization and in viewing its members in the same light as they do any other common strikebreakers."
There was confusion and disagreement between Lewis and William J. Tracy, representative of District No. 1, International Brotherhood of Steam Shovel and Dredgemen (IBSSD). Lewis in his widely publicized statement said that two representatives of the UMWA had contacted the IBSSD, but "have failed to secure any satisfaction."[6] He did note that the Steam Shovel union had been suspended from the American Federation of Labor, which the United Mine Workers also belonged to. Lewis claimed that the IBSSD was likewise strikebreaking in Ohio. Tracy responded that though he had sent four individuals to the site when requested, they turned away when they saw the guards. He stated that no one from his organization was working in Herrin.[7] Tracy also criticized the UMWA for not communicating adequately about the situation.[8] It is unclear if Lester was telling the truth, or if he had contacted the IBSSD to disguise the use of non-union workers. To Lewis, it didn't matter. Lester's workers were not UMWA members, and the UMWA claimed sole jurisdiction over all coal miners.
Lewis' message was printed in newspapers, and miners throughout the region decided to take action. Early in the morning on June 21, a truck carrying Lester's guards and strikebreakers was ambushed near Carbondale, Illinois on its way to his mine. Three men were wounded and six others jumped into the river.[9][10] Later in the day several hundred miners rallied in the Herrin cemetery. Lewis' message was read to the crowd, enraging them further. The union miners marched into Herrin and looted the hardware store of its firearms and ammunition. At about 3:30 p.m., they surrounded Lester's mine. Lester's guards opened fire, killing two of the UMWA members and mortally wounding a third.[11][12]
The Siege[edit]The mine superintendent, C.K. McDowell, called National Guard Col. Hunter to tell him the mine was surrounded and being fired upon. McDowell said he could not reach Sheriff Thaxton, and pleaded for troops. Col. Hunter called Thaxton's deputy and told him to ask the Illinois National Guard Adjutant General for troops and to move out to the mine with as many men as possible to stop the attack and break up the mob action.
Thaxton's men did nothing. Hunter contacted the Adjutant General himself and convinced him to mobilize troops. Lester, who had left the area several days earlier, was reached by phone in Chicago. Realizing the gravity of the situation, he agreed to close the mine for the remainder of the nationwide UMWA strike. Hunter and a citizen's group laid out a plan to get a truce in place — telephoning McDowell to tell him raise a white flag, and asking the UMWA sub-district vice president, Fox Hughes, to go to the mine and do the same. The method of getting the strikebreakers safely out of the mine would be worked out later.
McDowell later reported by phone that the shooting had died down, and Hunter and the citizen's group were optimistic that a disaster would be avoided. They decided the National Guard troops were not needed after all.
Hughes went to the mine with a white flag, but he never took it out or raised it. He later said he had not seen McDowell raise a white flag, so he decided Lester's men had not lived up to the bargain. He went home and did nothing, later claiming he learned his boss in the UMWA leadership, Hugh Willis, was now involved and decided his role was finished.
During the evening, more union supporters stole guns and ammunition, and made their way to the strip mine. McDowell was to have called Hunter when the truce took effect. When he, Col. Hunter tried to telephone the mine, only to find the phone lines had been cut. No law enforcement officers went to the mine, no government officials accompanied Hughes to ensure the white flags were raised, and no troops were activated by the National Guard despite repeated signs that Thaxton could not be counted on to act. No action was taken to enforce a truce.
Late in the evening of June 21, Sheriff Thaxton reluctantly agreed to go to the mine to ensure the truce was carried out and the strikebreakers were given safe passage. Despite being urged to go immediately, he claimed he needed to rest. Thaxton promised to meet Hunter and Major Davis of the Carbondale National Guard company at the sheriff's office at 6 a.m. the following morning. That evening, Hugh Willis, the local UMWA leader, spoke to union supporters in Herrin. Willis said of the strikebreakers: "God damn them, they ought to have known better than to come down here; but now that they're here, let them take what's coming to them."
Gunfire continued throughout the night, and the mob began destroying equipment to prevent the mine from reopening. They used hammers, shovels, and dynamite to wreck the draglines and bulldozers, while keeping the strikebreakers pinned down inside coal cars and behind barricades.
Surrender[edit]The besieged strikebreakers finally sent out a mine guard, Bernard Jones, with an apron tied to a broomstick. Jones told the mob the men would surrender if their safety would be guaranteed. He was told, "Come on out and we'll get you out of the county." The strikebreakers did as they were told, and the union miners began marching them to Herrin, five miles away.
After about a half mile, the strikebreakers encountered more men waiting for them at Crenshaw Crossing. One of them shouted, "The only way to free the county of strikebreakers is to kill them all off and stop the breed!" The mob grew more agitated and violent as they continued on. Some struck the strikebreakers with the butts of their rifles and shotguns.
The Chase and Massacre[edit]By about half mile past Crenshaw Crossing at Moake Crossing, McDowell was already bloodied and limping, unable to walk any further. A union man told him, "I'm going to kill you and use you for bait to catch the other men." He and another man grabbed McDowell and led him down a side road. Gun shots were heard, and the rest continued towards Herrin. A farmer later discovered McDowell's body. He'd been shot four times - twice in the stomach, and once each in the chest and head.
A car drove up to the procession, and a man came out whom some said they overheard being called "Hugh Willis" and "the president." According to the accounts of surviving captives, Willis said, "Listen, don't you go killing these fellows on a public highway. There are too many women and children and witnesses around to do that. Take them over in the woods and give it to them. Kill all you can."
The breakers were taken into the woods, where they reached a barbed wire fence. They were then told to run for their lives. A union man shouted, "Let's see how fast you can run between here and Chicago, you damned gutter-bums!" The mob opened fire as they ran. Many were caught in the fence and shot dead. Others, making it over the fence but not knowing where they were, ran through Harrison's Woods toward Herrin, a mile further north. One strikebreaker was caught and hanged and three more were shot to death at his feet. The assistant superintendent of the mine, was still alive but unconscious. A union man noticed and shot him in the head. The chase continued into the morning of the 22nd.
Six breakers were recaptured and ordered to remove their shirts and shoes. They were then told to crawl to Herrin Cemetery. By noon a crowd of about 1,000 spectators had gathered at the cemetery. They watched as the strikebreakers were roped together and men took turns beating and shooting them. They urinated upon. Those still alive at the end had their throats cut by a union man with a pocketknife. Townspeople came to watch and taunt the dead and dying along the route to the cemetery. A reporter tried to give a dying men some water and was told that if he did, "he wouldn't live to see the next day."
Aftermath[edit]Sheriff Thaxton had failed to meet Col. Hunter and Major Davis at his office at 6 a.m. as promised; he finally showed up at 8 a.m. By then Hunter and Davis had already heard rumors of the violence against the strikebreakers. When the three finally arrived at the mine, what remained of the operation was in flames, and they learned the mob had left three hours earlier.
When they retraced the steps of the mob, they found the grisly evidence of the dead, dying, and wounded. Those that weren't dead were taken to Dr. J. Taylor Black's Herrin Hospital. But 19 of the 50 strikebreakers died during the massacre. Two union miners had been shot and killed during the siege of the strip mine, bringing the total number of victims to 21.
The dead strikebreakers were laid out in the Dillard Building in downtown Herrin, and most of the town turned out to look at them. Some gazed quietly, others cursed and spat on the bodies. 16 of the 19 strikebreakers killed in the action were later buried in the potter's field area of Herrin Cemetery.
Thousands attended the funerals of the two union miners who died during the siege.
The nation reacted to the massacre with disgust. One newspaper editorial said "Herrin, Illinois should be ostracized. Shut off from all communication with the outside world and the people there left to soak in the blood they have spilled." President Warren Harding called it a "shocking crime, barbarity, butchery, rot and madness." Others also compared the people of Herrin to the alleged behavior of German troops during World War I
Lester, whose double-dealing set the tragic events into motion, made a significant profit when the union bought his mine at "a handsome price" in order to avoid lawsuits.[13]
The Trials[edit]At first, the inquest held by the coroner concluded that all the strikebreakers were killed by unknown individuals, and stated that "the deaths of the decedents were due to the acts direct and indirect of the officials of the Southern Illinois Coal Company." They recommended that the company and its officers be investigated in order to affix appropriate responsibility on them. It was obvious the victims could not gain justice in Herrin.
Two trials were held, the first on November 7, 1922, and the second in the winter of 1923. Only six men were ever indicted for the massacre, and both trials ended in acquittals for all the defendants. The prosecution gave up and dismissed the remaining indictments. Otis Clark was the first man to be tried on a total of 214 charges. Two years later, Clark would be shot and killed. Another of the accused would die in a mine accident.
A Williamson County Grand Jury investigating the incident faulted the Southern Illinois Coal Company for introducing strike breakers and armed guards, and for committing illegal activities such as closing public highways. It criticized the state administration for refusing to take necessary measures once the trouble had begun.[14] Herbert David Croly of the New Republic criticized the state of Illinois for allowing the Illinois Chamber of Commerce to fund the investigation.[15] Croly described the retaliation for the deaths of two strikers (the third had been mortally wounded) "atrocious", but noted that while the perpetrators were likely to escape punishment, those who harmed strikers—such as Hamrock after Ludlow, or Wheeler after Bisbee—likewise frequently escaped justice.[16] Croly noted that the local government was sympathetic to the union, as was public sentiment, and under such circumstances, the union had a responsibility to police its own members.[17]
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2011) Herrin massacrePart of the Coal WarsDate1922LocationHerrin, Illinois, United StatesParties to the civil conflictStriking coal miners United Mine WorkersSouthern Illinois Coal Company;
StrikebreakersLead figuresJohn L. Lewis;C.K. McDowellCasualtiesDeaths: 2 killed
Arrests:Deaths: 19[show]
Coal Wars
- Coal Creek War
- Bituminous Coal Miners' Strike
- Lattimer Massacre
- Illinois Coal Wars
- Battle of Virden
- Pana Massacre
- Anthracite Coal Strike
- Westmoreland Coal Miners' Strike
- Paint Creek-Cabin Creek Strike
- Colorado Coalfield War
- Ludlow Massacre
- Hartford Coal Mine Riot
- West Virginia Coal Wars
- Battle of Matewan
- Battle of Blair Mountain
- Alabama Miners' Strike
- Herrin Massacre
- Columbine Massacre
- Harlan County War
- Battle of Evarts
The Herrin Massacre took place in June 1922 in Herrin, Illinois. Following an early morning gunfire attack on non-union miners going to work on June 21, three union miners (Jordie Henderson, Joseph Pitkewicius and one other) were killed in a confrontation after the striking union members marched on the mine. The next day, union miners killed 19 of fifty strikebreakers and union guards, many of them in brutal ways. A twentieth victim from the non-union group would later be murdered, bringing the death total to twenty-three.[1][2]
Contents [hide]
- 1 Historical background
- 2 Escalation
- 3 The Siege
- 4 Surrender
- 5 The Chase and Massacre
- 6 Aftermath
- 7 The Trials
- 8 See also
- 9 Sources
- 10 External links
- 11 References
By June, Lester's miners had dug out nearly 60,000 tons of coal. Strike-driven shortages had raised coal prices, and Lester would make a $250,000 profit if he sold his coal. He decided to violate the agreement he had made. When the UMWA members working for him objected, he fired all of his union workers.[4] Lester brought in mine guards and 50 strikebreakers, vilified as "scabs", recruited by employment agencies in Chicago. On June 16, 1922, he shipped out sixteen railroad cars filled with coal. Testimony later revealed that his mine guards possessed machine guns. They aggressively searched passers-by, and "they frighten women, they boast and are hard-boiled."[5]
Escalation[edit]Lester, responding to a reporter's questions, said his steam shovel operators and the railroad workers were members of their respective unions.
John L. Lewis, president of the UMWA, responded in a telegram on June 20. He called the Steam Shovelmen's Union an "outlaw organization" which also provided strikebreakers elsewhere. UMWA members, he said, "are justified in treating this crowd as an outlaw organization and in viewing its members in the same light as they do any other common strikebreakers."
There was confusion and disagreement between Lewis and William J. Tracy, representative of District No. 1, International Brotherhood of Steam Shovel and Dredgemen (IBSSD). Lewis in his widely publicized statement said that two representatives of the UMWA had contacted the IBSSD, but "have failed to secure any satisfaction."[6] He did note that the Steam Shovel union had been suspended from the American Federation of Labor, which the United Mine Workers also belonged to. Lewis claimed that the IBSSD was likewise strikebreaking in Ohio. Tracy responded that though he had sent four individuals to the site when requested, they turned away when they saw the guards. He stated that no one from his organization was working in Herrin.[7] Tracy also criticized the UMWA for not communicating adequately about the situation.[8] It is unclear if Lester was telling the truth, or if he had contacted the IBSSD to disguise the use of non-union workers. To Lewis, it didn't matter. Lester's workers were not UMWA members, and the UMWA claimed sole jurisdiction over all coal miners.
Lewis' message was printed in newspapers, and miners throughout the region decided to take action. Early in the morning on June 21, a truck carrying Lester's guards and strikebreakers was ambushed near Carbondale, Illinois on its way to his mine. Three men were wounded and six others jumped into the river.[9][10] Later in the day several hundred miners rallied in the Herrin cemetery. Lewis' message was read to the crowd, enraging them further. The union miners marched into Herrin and looted the hardware store of its firearms and ammunition. At about 3:30 p.m., they surrounded Lester's mine. Lester's guards opened fire, killing two of the UMWA members and mortally wounding a third.[11][12]
The Siege[edit]The mine superintendent, C.K. McDowell, called National Guard Col. Hunter to tell him the mine was surrounded and being fired upon. McDowell said he could not reach Sheriff Thaxton, and pleaded for troops. Col. Hunter called Thaxton's deputy and told him to ask the Illinois National Guard Adjutant General for troops and to move out to the mine with as many men as possible to stop the attack and break up the mob action.
Thaxton's men did nothing. Hunter contacted the Adjutant General himself and convinced him to mobilize troops. Lester, who had left the area several days earlier, was reached by phone in Chicago. Realizing the gravity of the situation, he agreed to close the mine for the remainder of the nationwide UMWA strike. Hunter and a citizen's group laid out a plan to get a truce in place — telephoning McDowell to tell him raise a white flag, and asking the UMWA sub-district vice president, Fox Hughes, to go to the mine and do the same. The method of getting the strikebreakers safely out of the mine would be worked out later.
McDowell later reported by phone that the shooting had died down, and Hunter and the citizen's group were optimistic that a disaster would be avoided. They decided the National Guard troops were not needed after all.
Hughes went to the mine with a white flag, but he never took it out or raised it. He later said he had not seen McDowell raise a white flag, so he decided Lester's men had not lived up to the bargain. He went home and did nothing, later claiming he learned his boss in the UMWA leadership, Hugh Willis, was now involved and decided his role was finished.
During the evening, more union supporters stole guns and ammunition, and made their way to the strip mine. McDowell was to have called Hunter when the truce took effect. When he, Col. Hunter tried to telephone the mine, only to find the phone lines had been cut. No law enforcement officers went to the mine, no government officials accompanied Hughes to ensure the white flags were raised, and no troops were activated by the National Guard despite repeated signs that Thaxton could not be counted on to act. No action was taken to enforce a truce.
Late in the evening of June 21, Sheriff Thaxton reluctantly agreed to go to the mine to ensure the truce was carried out and the strikebreakers were given safe passage. Despite being urged to go immediately, he claimed he needed to rest. Thaxton promised to meet Hunter and Major Davis of the Carbondale National Guard company at the sheriff's office at 6 a.m. the following morning. That evening, Hugh Willis, the local UMWA leader, spoke to union supporters in Herrin. Willis said of the strikebreakers: "God damn them, they ought to have known better than to come down here; but now that they're here, let them take what's coming to them."
Gunfire continued throughout the night, and the mob began destroying equipment to prevent the mine from reopening. They used hammers, shovels, and dynamite to wreck the draglines and bulldozers, while keeping the strikebreakers pinned down inside coal cars and behind barricades.
Surrender[edit]The besieged strikebreakers finally sent out a mine guard, Bernard Jones, with an apron tied to a broomstick. Jones told the mob the men would surrender if their safety would be guaranteed. He was told, "Come on out and we'll get you out of the county." The strikebreakers did as they were told, and the union miners began marching them to Herrin, five miles away.
After about a half mile, the strikebreakers encountered more men waiting for them at Crenshaw Crossing. One of them shouted, "The only way to free the county of strikebreakers is to kill them all off and stop the breed!" The mob grew more agitated and violent as they continued on. Some struck the strikebreakers with the butts of their rifles and shotguns.
The Chase and Massacre[edit]By about half mile past Crenshaw Crossing at Moake Crossing, McDowell was already bloodied and limping, unable to walk any further. A union man told him, "I'm going to kill you and use you for bait to catch the other men." He and another man grabbed McDowell and led him down a side road. Gun shots were heard, and the rest continued towards Herrin. A farmer later discovered McDowell's body. He'd been shot four times - twice in the stomach, and once each in the chest and head.
A car drove up to the procession, and a man came out whom some said they overheard being called "Hugh Willis" and "the president." According to the accounts of surviving captives, Willis said, "Listen, don't you go killing these fellows on a public highway. There are too many women and children and witnesses around to do that. Take them over in the woods and give it to them. Kill all you can."
The breakers were taken into the woods, where they reached a barbed wire fence. They were then told to run for their lives. A union man shouted, "Let's see how fast you can run between here and Chicago, you damned gutter-bums!" The mob opened fire as they ran. Many were caught in the fence and shot dead. Others, making it over the fence but not knowing where they were, ran through Harrison's Woods toward Herrin, a mile further north. One strikebreaker was caught and hanged and three more were shot to death at his feet. The assistant superintendent of the mine, was still alive but unconscious. A union man noticed and shot him in the head. The chase continued into the morning of the 22nd.
Six breakers were recaptured and ordered to remove their shirts and shoes. They were then told to crawl to Herrin Cemetery. By noon a crowd of about 1,000 spectators had gathered at the cemetery. They watched as the strikebreakers were roped together and men took turns beating and shooting them. They urinated upon. Those still alive at the end had their throats cut by a union man with a pocketknife. Townspeople came to watch and taunt the dead and dying along the route to the cemetery. A reporter tried to give a dying men some water and was told that if he did, "he wouldn't live to see the next day."
Aftermath[edit]Sheriff Thaxton had failed to meet Col. Hunter and Major Davis at his office at 6 a.m. as promised; he finally showed up at 8 a.m. By then Hunter and Davis had already heard rumors of the violence against the strikebreakers. When the three finally arrived at the mine, what remained of the operation was in flames, and they learned the mob had left three hours earlier.
When they retraced the steps of the mob, they found the grisly evidence of the dead, dying, and wounded. Those that weren't dead were taken to Dr. J. Taylor Black's Herrin Hospital. But 19 of the 50 strikebreakers died during the massacre. Two union miners had been shot and killed during the siege of the strip mine, bringing the total number of victims to 21.
The dead strikebreakers were laid out in the Dillard Building in downtown Herrin, and most of the town turned out to look at them. Some gazed quietly, others cursed and spat on the bodies. 16 of the 19 strikebreakers killed in the action were later buried in the potter's field area of Herrin Cemetery.
Thousands attended the funerals of the two union miners who died during the siege.
The nation reacted to the massacre with disgust. One newspaper editorial said "Herrin, Illinois should be ostracized. Shut off from all communication with the outside world and the people there left to soak in the blood they have spilled." President Warren Harding called it a "shocking crime, barbarity, butchery, rot and madness." Others also compared the people of Herrin to the alleged behavior of German troops during World War I
Lester, whose double-dealing set the tragic events into motion, made a significant profit when the union bought his mine at "a handsome price" in order to avoid lawsuits.[13]
The Trials[edit]At first, the inquest held by the coroner concluded that all the strikebreakers were killed by unknown individuals, and stated that "the deaths of the decedents were due to the acts direct and indirect of the officials of the Southern Illinois Coal Company." They recommended that the company and its officers be investigated in order to affix appropriate responsibility on them. It was obvious the victims could not gain justice in Herrin.
Two trials were held, the first on November 7, 1922, and the second in the winter of 1923. Only six men were ever indicted for the massacre, and both trials ended in acquittals for all the defendants. The prosecution gave up and dismissed the remaining indictments. Otis Clark was the first man to be tried on a total of 214 charges. Two years later, Clark would be shot and killed. Another of the accused would die in a mine accident.
A Williamson County Grand Jury investigating the incident faulted the Southern Illinois Coal Company for introducing strike breakers and armed guards, and for committing illegal activities such as closing public highways. It criticized the state administration for refusing to take necessary measures once the trouble had begun.[14] Herbert David Croly of the New Republic criticized the state of Illinois for allowing the Illinois Chamber of Commerce to fund the investigation.[15] Croly described the retaliation for the deaths of two strikers (the third had been mortally wounded) "atrocious", but noted that while the perpetrators were likely to escape punishment, those who harmed strikers—such as Hamrock after Ludlow, or Wheeler after Bisbee—likewise frequently escaped justice.[16] Croly noted that the local government was sympathetic to the union, as was public sentiment, and under such circumstances, the union had a responsibility to police its own members.[17]
Haunted Franklin County Jail
BENTON — An otherworldly attraction is drawing droves of visitors to the Historic Jail Museum in Benton.
The museum, housed in what was formerly the Franklin County Jail, is featured in a new video uploaded by a Mount Vernon-based paranormal investigations group.
Bill DeBoer of Extremum Spiritum Paranormal shot the video when he visited the museum, built in 1905 and on the National Register of Historic Places, last month.
Since his upload in mid-July, the video has received more than 3,000 views and shared hundreds of times on social media.
The old jail is teeming with paranormal activity, DeBoer said.
“I walked through on a sunny afternoon with my camcorder and uploaded the video when I got home.
I was absolutely amazed with everything on there,” he said. “There is an insane level of activity in that place.”
The activity is of two types, he said, a residual type involving snippets of conversation “engrained” in the cellblocks and a second type involving “A lot of live spirits in there that are actually interacting with you and are interested in you.”
Photographs and the video, titled “The Most Haunted Jail in America,” revealed faces in “ghost mists,” DeBoer said, and even a likeness of Charlie Birger, the notorious bootlegger who was the last man publicly hanged in the state and the subject of one of the museum’s exhibits.
Others too have witnessed the activity at the old jail.
“I caught my best stuff here. In the past, we’ve caught very clear voices. It’s definitely one of my favorite spots,” Curtis Galloway of Southern Illinois Ghost Hunting Society said.
The interest in the video has translated to new visitors at the museum, which receives about 8,500 visits a year from tourists and school groups and also serves as home to the Franklin County Tourism Bureau.
Employee Ruth Ann Owens usually greets 35 visitors a day during the summer season but since the video was posted online “that number has doubled,” she said.
In fact, Franklin County Historic Preservation Society President Robert S. Rea said, “I stopped by one afternoon a couple of days after the video was posted and there were about 30 people waiting to get in. All but three or four of them said they were here because of the video. It just amazes me the interest in ghost hunting and the power of social media.”
In addition to drawing visitors interested in its ghostly charms, the museum’s newfound notoriety will help with its mission to promote Franklin County’s rich history, Rea said.
“People will get a history lesson in our heritage when they come to visit,” he said.
The museum, housed in what was formerly the Franklin County Jail, is featured in a new video uploaded by a Mount Vernon-based paranormal investigations group.
Bill DeBoer of Extremum Spiritum Paranormal shot the video when he visited the museum, built in 1905 and on the National Register of Historic Places, last month.
Since his upload in mid-July, the video has received more than 3,000 views and shared hundreds of times on social media.
The old jail is teeming with paranormal activity, DeBoer said.
“I walked through on a sunny afternoon with my camcorder and uploaded the video when I got home.
I was absolutely amazed with everything on there,” he said. “There is an insane level of activity in that place.”
The activity is of two types, he said, a residual type involving snippets of conversation “engrained” in the cellblocks and a second type involving “A lot of live spirits in there that are actually interacting with you and are interested in you.”
Photographs and the video, titled “The Most Haunted Jail in America,” revealed faces in “ghost mists,” DeBoer said, and even a likeness of Charlie Birger, the notorious bootlegger who was the last man publicly hanged in the state and the subject of one of the museum’s exhibits.
Others too have witnessed the activity at the old jail.
“I caught my best stuff here. In the past, we’ve caught very clear voices. It’s definitely one of my favorite spots,” Curtis Galloway of Southern Illinois Ghost Hunting Society said.
The interest in the video has translated to new visitors at the museum, which receives about 8,500 visits a year from tourists and school groups and also serves as home to the Franklin County Tourism Bureau.
Employee Ruth Ann Owens usually greets 35 visitors a day during the summer season but since the video was posted online “that number has doubled,” she said.
In fact, Franklin County Historic Preservation Society President Robert S. Rea said, “I stopped by one afternoon a couple of days after the video was posted and there were about 30 people waiting to get in. All but three or four of them said they were here because of the video. It just amazes me the interest in ghost hunting and the power of social media.”
In addition to drawing visitors interested in its ghostly charms, the museum’s newfound notoriety will help with its mission to promote Franklin County’s rich history, Rea said.
“People will get a history lesson in our heritage when they come to visit,” he said.
Mystery Healer of Southern Illinois
ANNA BIXBY
The Mysterious Southern Illinois Healer & Her Lost Treasure Cave
One of the greatest mysteries of southern Illinois involves a woman named Anna Bixby (or Bigsby, according to some accounts). There are so many stories and legends, and various versions of the legends, about this woman that it is impossible to know what to believe. According to the census records of southern Illinois, she was a real person though and it has been generally accepted that she discovered a cure for what was then called “milk sickness”. Amazingly, she did so almost 70 years before the medical establishment acknowledged that the source of the sickness was the plant that Anna had discovered long before.
Among the myriad of legends that still exist about Dr. Anna in southern Illinois is that of a cave in Hardin County, a lost treasure -- and of course, a ghost.
Anna Bixby was a doctor who lived years ago in southeastern Illinois. She was a talented midwife and healer who visited the sick, tended the wounded and traveled around the area to help those who were sick. She likely had no real medical education and even more likely was unable to read or write, as would have been common at this time. Because of the work that she did and the discovery of the root that was causing milk sickness, some historians refused to believe that she would have done all of this with no formal education. Perhaps for this reason, an alternate version of the story of Anna Bixby came to be. According to this version, Anna was the daughter of a wealthy pioneer named Norman Pierce, who came west to Illinois from Philadelphia in the early 1800’s. Thanks to her family’s wealth, she was able to train as a doctor in Pennsylvania (which would have been fairly unheard of at the time) and also as a school teacher.
This is unlikely though. Most recent historians believe that Anna was a midwife from Tennessee who came to Illinois with her husband, Isaac Hobbs. According to the census records, they were already married when they came to Illinois, which disputes the version of the story that says they were married after she went to medical school. Anna’s medical training came from her study of herbs and healing techniques and she traveled widely to assist those in what would have been a wilderness at that time. When a strange disease began to break out in the region, which was killing both people and cattle, Anna was baffled. She watched, treated as best she could, observed the illness and studied the habits of those who were stricken. As hard as she worked though, she was unable to stop the scourge.
The number of deaths increased alarmingly and whole herds of cattle were wiped out. The superstitious came to believe that the illness was caused by a poison that was being scattered by a witch. There was even talk of retaliation against various persons who were suspected. Anna did not believe the witch theory though and felt that the cause of the illness was likely a plant that the cattle were eating and then passing on through their milk. The milk cows themselves did not fall ill but the other cattle, and the people, who drank their milk fell victim to the malady. Anna spread the word to the surrounding communities that they should refrain from drinking milk until after the frost in the autumn. Her warning saved many lives but did not save the young cattle, which the settlers depended on. Greater tragedy had been avoided for the time being, but the sickness was sure to return in the spring. Anna was determined to solve the mystery of the disease and became even more so after her husband fell ill and died from the milk sickness.
Anna puzzled over the illness through the winter and when spring came, she set off into the woods and fields to look for the plant that had caused so much misery. The solution to the problem came almost by accident when she chanced to meet in the woods an elderly Native American woman that the local people called “Aunt Shawnee”. She was also a herbalist and healer and showed Anna a plant that we now call “milkweed”, which had caused the same symptoms as the milk sickness did in her own tribe. The plant had killed many of the Shawnee cattle and she told Anna that it was probably what she was looking for.
Anna again spread the word and according to tradition, troops of men and boys prowled the woods, destroying the plant, for many years afterward. The plague was finally wiped out and in 1928, more than 60 years later, medical scholars acknowledged Anna’s find as the cause of the ailment. For this reason, she has long been considered something of a legend in southern Illinois as a healer and medical worker --- but this was not the end of her story.
While the story of Anna Hobbs Bixby’s solution for the milk sickness mystery has been accepted as truth, there are elements to the story (such as how much medical education she actually had) that remain open to question. The same can be said for the next great incident in Anna’s life, which took place during her second marriage to Eson Bixby, who it is believed was involved in a number of criminal enterprises. The legend does have some elements of truth but unfortunately, much of it turned out to more fancy than fact. The legend originated in the book The Ballads of the Bluff by Judge W.M. Hall, who allegedly had a diary that belonged to Anna Bixby. Historians have since disputed much of the story, although it was believed that Hall was simply passing along stories that he had heard. Here is the basic version of the story:
Legend holds that John Murrell and his gang, along with James Ford and other disreputable characters, distilled whiskey and made counterfeit money in a headquarters in Hardin County that has since become known as Bixby’s Cave. Enos Bixby, Anna’s husband, took over after these men were driven out or killed and continued their operations, along with committing robberies and stealing timber. Bixby married Anna when she was an old woman because he hoped to steal her money from her. Finally, he attempted to kill her by tying her up with ropes and heavy chain and pushing her off a bluff. As it happened though, she fell into a tree and managed to escape. Not long after, Anna died suddenly and she was buried with the rope and chain that her husband tried to kill her with. Her ghost has haunted her burial site ever since, often appearing as a shimmering light.
But, despite the popularity of the tale, it only contains elements of the truth. The time period when all of this allegedly occurred seems to be the biggest problem with the story. Bixby’s Cave did (and does still) exist, however after 1811 it is unlikely that it would have been big enough to house a moonshine distillery and certainly not a counterfeiting operation. The cave was heavily damaged in the earthquake that rocked the New Madrid Fault at that time and afterward was much less accessible than it had been before. Several of the men who were involved in the criminal aspects of the story were dead long before Anna married Eson Bixby and others who allegedly worked together were children during the time of the opposite criminal’s heyday. If the story had involved these men, then it would have had to have taken place in the 1820’s. This seems odd since Anna’s first husband died in 1845 and Anna survived into the 1870’s.
On the other hand, recent historians believe that the story may have occurred in some fashion but it was told and re-told using well-known outlaws as the key players in the tale, when the real culprits may have been much lesser known. There were counterfeiters operating in Hardin County at the time and it has been learned that Anna’s second husband was involved with criminals.
In 1935, the Hardin County Independent newspaper published what was likely a more accurate account of Anna’s escape from her murderous husband. The writer of the account, Charles L. Foster, had left Hardin County in the 1880’s but had grown up in the Rock Creek area, a few homes away from Anna Bixby. He had been born in 1863 and vaguely remembered Eson Bixby when he was alive, which seems to date the escape to the late 1860’s, in the years following the Civil War.
According to the account, a rider came to the Bixby household late one night during a terrible thunderstorm. He called out to the house that someone needed Anna’s medical skills and of course, she immediately came out. She mounted the rider’s second horse and they rode into the woods. The trail was shrouded in darkness, thanks to the heavy storm clouds overhead, and Anna soon became disoriented and unsure of their route. However, at one point during the ride, she looked over and when a flash of lighting illuminated the night, Anna saw the identity of the mysterious rider -- it was her husband Eson.
When he realized that she had discovered his identity, Bixby brought the horses to a halt and he quickly bound her hands and gagged her. It was obvious that he intended to do away with her and Anna began to panic. When she heard the jingle of chains being removed from his saddlebags, Anna became so frightened that she began to run, dashing into the dark woods. As she plunged into the forest, her fear became even stronger as she realized that she had no idea where she was. The storm continued to rage, sending rain lashing down on her and causing the wind to whip through the trees in a wild fury. Anna ran for some distance and then suddenly, the ground beneath her vanished and she tumbled over a large bluff and crashed to the ground far below. The fall broke the ropes that bound her hands but also broke some of her bones, seriously injuring her. Nevertheless, she managed to crawl a short distance to a fallen tree and slithered in behind it.
A few moments later, a light appeared in the darkness at the top of the bluff and Eson Bixby came into view carrying a burning torch. He climbed down from the top of the rocks and searched around for Anna, but he did not find her. After a few minutes, he returned to his horse and rode away.
Once he was gone, Anna began crawling and stumbling out of the forest. It took her until sunrise to find a nearby farmhouse but when she reached it, she found herself at the doorstep of friends -- only a few houses away from her own. They quickly took her in and she told them the story of what had happened.
Bixby was soon arrested and taken to the jail in Elizabethtown. He escaped though and vanished for a time. He was later captured again in Missouri, but once again, he escaped. This time, he disappeared for good and was never seen again.
Anna lived on in the Rock Creek community of Hardin County until the 1870’s and when she died, she was buried next to her first husband and only a simple “A” was inscribed on her tombstone. But there are those who believe that Anna, or at least her spirit, lives on.
The legend of Anna Bixby states that her husband wanted to do away with her because of a fortune that she had managed to collect over the years. What may have amounted to a “fortune” in that day and time may have been much smaller than what we would consider to be one today but most believe that it was a large amount of money. The legend further states that when Anna learned of Eson’s greed, she hid the money away somewhere, just before he attempted to do away with her. It is believed that the hiding place for the treasure was the cave beside Rock Creek in Hooven Hollow, which was also said to have been the hiding place of the outlaw gang.
The cave is still known as Anna Bixby Cave today and it is along the bluff, in the vicinity of the cave, where people have reported seeing a strange light appear over the years. The large, glowing light moves in and out of the trees and among the rocks, vanishing and then re-appearing without explanation. It is believed that the light may be that of Anna Bixby, still watching over the treasure that she hid away her years ago.
One of the most detailed accounts of the Bixby ghost light was collected by folklorist Charles Neely in his 1938 book Tales & Songs of Southern Illinois. The story of the spooklight was told by Reverend E.N. Hall, a minister who once served the Rock Creek Church and who had a number of the brushes with the uncanny in this part of Hardin County. One evening in his younger days, Hall and a friend of his named Hobbs, walked over to a nearby farm to escort two of the girls who lived there to church. When they got to the house, they found there were no lights on. It appeared that the girls left without them and the two young men stood around for a few moments, wondering what to do.
They stood at the edge of the yard as they talked and looked toward the darkened house. The house itself stood on a short knoll with a hollow that ran away from the gate to the left for about 100 yards and then joined with another hollow that came back to the right side of the gate. Hobbs was looking eastward along the bluff when he saw what appeared to be a “ball of fire about the size of a washtub” going very fast along the east hollow.
At first, the young men thought that it might be someone on a horse carrying a lantern, then realized that it was moving much too fast for that. The light followed the hollow to the left of the gate and along a small curve where one hollow met the other. It followed the opposite hollow and came right up the bank where the two men were standing. It paused, motionless, about 30 feet away from them and began to burn down smaller and smaller and then turned red as it went out. Finally, it simply vanished.
The two young men decided not to go to church. They went directly to the farm where they had been working and went to bed. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they told Mr. Patten, the farmer they had been working for, what they had both seen the night before. He laughed at them and said that it had just been a “mineral light” carried by the wind. He had no explanation though for how fast the light had moved or for the fact that there had been no wind the previous evening. He could also not explain why the light seemed to follow the two hollows and then stop in place and burn out.
Later, Hall had the chance to speak with the woman who owned the farm, a Mrs. Walton, and to ask her what the light might have been. She then told him the story of Anna Bixby, who had owned the property before she had, and explained that to protect her money from her criminal husband, she had hidden her fortune in a cave that was located on the property. Mrs. Walton always believed that the spooklight was the ghost of Anna Bixby checking to see that her money was still hidden away. She had seen the light herself on many occasions, always disappearing into the cave.
Hall asked her, if she knew so well where Anna’s money was hidden, why she had never bothered to go and get it. “I would,” Mrs. Walton answered, “if I thought that Granny Bixby wanted me to have it.”
Anna Bixby’s Cave is located near the former Rock Creek Community, a short distance from Cave-in-Rock. It is located on private property, so permission must be obtained before visiting. It is also not recommended to go to the cave during the summer months because the hollow is infested with rattlesnakes.
© Copyright 2004 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
The Mysterious Southern Illinois Healer & Her Lost Treasure Cave
One of the greatest mysteries of southern Illinois involves a woman named Anna Bixby (or Bigsby, according to some accounts). There are so many stories and legends, and various versions of the legends, about this woman that it is impossible to know what to believe. According to the census records of southern Illinois, she was a real person though and it has been generally accepted that she discovered a cure for what was then called “milk sickness”. Amazingly, she did so almost 70 years before the medical establishment acknowledged that the source of the sickness was the plant that Anna had discovered long before.
Among the myriad of legends that still exist about Dr. Anna in southern Illinois is that of a cave in Hardin County, a lost treasure -- and of course, a ghost.
Anna Bixby was a doctor who lived years ago in southeastern Illinois. She was a talented midwife and healer who visited the sick, tended the wounded and traveled around the area to help those who were sick. She likely had no real medical education and even more likely was unable to read or write, as would have been common at this time. Because of the work that she did and the discovery of the root that was causing milk sickness, some historians refused to believe that she would have done all of this with no formal education. Perhaps for this reason, an alternate version of the story of Anna Bixby came to be. According to this version, Anna was the daughter of a wealthy pioneer named Norman Pierce, who came west to Illinois from Philadelphia in the early 1800’s. Thanks to her family’s wealth, she was able to train as a doctor in Pennsylvania (which would have been fairly unheard of at the time) and also as a school teacher.
This is unlikely though. Most recent historians believe that Anna was a midwife from Tennessee who came to Illinois with her husband, Isaac Hobbs. According to the census records, they were already married when they came to Illinois, which disputes the version of the story that says they were married after she went to medical school. Anna’s medical training came from her study of herbs and healing techniques and she traveled widely to assist those in what would have been a wilderness at that time. When a strange disease began to break out in the region, which was killing both people and cattle, Anna was baffled. She watched, treated as best she could, observed the illness and studied the habits of those who were stricken. As hard as she worked though, she was unable to stop the scourge.
The number of deaths increased alarmingly and whole herds of cattle were wiped out. The superstitious came to believe that the illness was caused by a poison that was being scattered by a witch. There was even talk of retaliation against various persons who were suspected. Anna did not believe the witch theory though and felt that the cause of the illness was likely a plant that the cattle were eating and then passing on through their milk. The milk cows themselves did not fall ill but the other cattle, and the people, who drank their milk fell victim to the malady. Anna spread the word to the surrounding communities that they should refrain from drinking milk until after the frost in the autumn. Her warning saved many lives but did not save the young cattle, which the settlers depended on. Greater tragedy had been avoided for the time being, but the sickness was sure to return in the spring. Anna was determined to solve the mystery of the disease and became even more so after her husband fell ill and died from the milk sickness.
Anna puzzled over the illness through the winter and when spring came, she set off into the woods and fields to look for the plant that had caused so much misery. The solution to the problem came almost by accident when she chanced to meet in the woods an elderly Native American woman that the local people called “Aunt Shawnee”. She was also a herbalist and healer and showed Anna a plant that we now call “milkweed”, which had caused the same symptoms as the milk sickness did in her own tribe. The plant had killed many of the Shawnee cattle and she told Anna that it was probably what she was looking for.
Anna again spread the word and according to tradition, troops of men and boys prowled the woods, destroying the plant, for many years afterward. The plague was finally wiped out and in 1928, more than 60 years later, medical scholars acknowledged Anna’s find as the cause of the ailment. For this reason, she has long been considered something of a legend in southern Illinois as a healer and medical worker --- but this was not the end of her story.
While the story of Anna Hobbs Bixby’s solution for the milk sickness mystery has been accepted as truth, there are elements to the story (such as how much medical education she actually had) that remain open to question. The same can be said for the next great incident in Anna’s life, which took place during her second marriage to Eson Bixby, who it is believed was involved in a number of criminal enterprises. The legend does have some elements of truth but unfortunately, much of it turned out to more fancy than fact. The legend originated in the book The Ballads of the Bluff by Judge W.M. Hall, who allegedly had a diary that belonged to Anna Bixby. Historians have since disputed much of the story, although it was believed that Hall was simply passing along stories that he had heard. Here is the basic version of the story:
Legend holds that John Murrell and his gang, along with James Ford and other disreputable characters, distilled whiskey and made counterfeit money in a headquarters in Hardin County that has since become known as Bixby’s Cave. Enos Bixby, Anna’s husband, took over after these men were driven out or killed and continued their operations, along with committing robberies and stealing timber. Bixby married Anna when she was an old woman because he hoped to steal her money from her. Finally, he attempted to kill her by tying her up with ropes and heavy chain and pushing her off a bluff. As it happened though, she fell into a tree and managed to escape. Not long after, Anna died suddenly and she was buried with the rope and chain that her husband tried to kill her with. Her ghost has haunted her burial site ever since, often appearing as a shimmering light.
But, despite the popularity of the tale, it only contains elements of the truth. The time period when all of this allegedly occurred seems to be the biggest problem with the story. Bixby’s Cave did (and does still) exist, however after 1811 it is unlikely that it would have been big enough to house a moonshine distillery and certainly not a counterfeiting operation. The cave was heavily damaged in the earthquake that rocked the New Madrid Fault at that time and afterward was much less accessible than it had been before. Several of the men who were involved in the criminal aspects of the story were dead long before Anna married Eson Bixby and others who allegedly worked together were children during the time of the opposite criminal’s heyday. If the story had involved these men, then it would have had to have taken place in the 1820’s. This seems odd since Anna’s first husband died in 1845 and Anna survived into the 1870’s.
On the other hand, recent historians believe that the story may have occurred in some fashion but it was told and re-told using well-known outlaws as the key players in the tale, when the real culprits may have been much lesser known. There were counterfeiters operating in Hardin County at the time and it has been learned that Anna’s second husband was involved with criminals.
In 1935, the Hardin County Independent newspaper published what was likely a more accurate account of Anna’s escape from her murderous husband. The writer of the account, Charles L. Foster, had left Hardin County in the 1880’s but had grown up in the Rock Creek area, a few homes away from Anna Bixby. He had been born in 1863 and vaguely remembered Eson Bixby when he was alive, which seems to date the escape to the late 1860’s, in the years following the Civil War.
According to the account, a rider came to the Bixby household late one night during a terrible thunderstorm. He called out to the house that someone needed Anna’s medical skills and of course, she immediately came out. She mounted the rider’s second horse and they rode into the woods. The trail was shrouded in darkness, thanks to the heavy storm clouds overhead, and Anna soon became disoriented and unsure of their route. However, at one point during the ride, she looked over and when a flash of lighting illuminated the night, Anna saw the identity of the mysterious rider -- it was her husband Eson.
When he realized that she had discovered his identity, Bixby brought the horses to a halt and he quickly bound her hands and gagged her. It was obvious that he intended to do away with her and Anna began to panic. When she heard the jingle of chains being removed from his saddlebags, Anna became so frightened that she began to run, dashing into the dark woods. As she plunged into the forest, her fear became even stronger as she realized that she had no idea where she was. The storm continued to rage, sending rain lashing down on her and causing the wind to whip through the trees in a wild fury. Anna ran for some distance and then suddenly, the ground beneath her vanished and she tumbled over a large bluff and crashed to the ground far below. The fall broke the ropes that bound her hands but also broke some of her bones, seriously injuring her. Nevertheless, she managed to crawl a short distance to a fallen tree and slithered in behind it.
A few moments later, a light appeared in the darkness at the top of the bluff and Eson Bixby came into view carrying a burning torch. He climbed down from the top of the rocks and searched around for Anna, but he did not find her. After a few minutes, he returned to his horse and rode away.
Once he was gone, Anna began crawling and stumbling out of the forest. It took her until sunrise to find a nearby farmhouse but when she reached it, she found herself at the doorstep of friends -- only a few houses away from her own. They quickly took her in and she told them the story of what had happened.
Bixby was soon arrested and taken to the jail in Elizabethtown. He escaped though and vanished for a time. He was later captured again in Missouri, but once again, he escaped. This time, he disappeared for good and was never seen again.
Anna lived on in the Rock Creek community of Hardin County until the 1870’s and when she died, she was buried next to her first husband and only a simple “A” was inscribed on her tombstone. But there are those who believe that Anna, or at least her spirit, lives on.
The legend of Anna Bixby states that her husband wanted to do away with her because of a fortune that she had managed to collect over the years. What may have amounted to a “fortune” in that day and time may have been much smaller than what we would consider to be one today but most believe that it was a large amount of money. The legend further states that when Anna learned of Eson’s greed, she hid the money away somewhere, just before he attempted to do away with her. It is believed that the hiding place for the treasure was the cave beside Rock Creek in Hooven Hollow, which was also said to have been the hiding place of the outlaw gang.
The cave is still known as Anna Bixby Cave today and it is along the bluff, in the vicinity of the cave, where people have reported seeing a strange light appear over the years. The large, glowing light moves in and out of the trees and among the rocks, vanishing and then re-appearing without explanation. It is believed that the light may be that of Anna Bixby, still watching over the treasure that she hid away her years ago.
One of the most detailed accounts of the Bixby ghost light was collected by folklorist Charles Neely in his 1938 book Tales & Songs of Southern Illinois. The story of the spooklight was told by Reverend E.N. Hall, a minister who once served the Rock Creek Church and who had a number of the brushes with the uncanny in this part of Hardin County. One evening in his younger days, Hall and a friend of his named Hobbs, walked over to a nearby farm to escort two of the girls who lived there to church. When they got to the house, they found there were no lights on. It appeared that the girls left without them and the two young men stood around for a few moments, wondering what to do.
They stood at the edge of the yard as they talked and looked toward the darkened house. The house itself stood on a short knoll with a hollow that ran away from the gate to the left for about 100 yards and then joined with another hollow that came back to the right side of the gate. Hobbs was looking eastward along the bluff when he saw what appeared to be a “ball of fire about the size of a washtub” going very fast along the east hollow.
At first, the young men thought that it might be someone on a horse carrying a lantern, then realized that it was moving much too fast for that. The light followed the hollow to the left of the gate and along a small curve where one hollow met the other. It followed the opposite hollow and came right up the bank where the two men were standing. It paused, motionless, about 30 feet away from them and began to burn down smaller and smaller and then turned red as it went out. Finally, it simply vanished.
The two young men decided not to go to church. They went directly to the farm where they had been working and went to bed. The next morning, at the breakfast table, they told Mr. Patten, the farmer they had been working for, what they had both seen the night before. He laughed at them and said that it had just been a “mineral light” carried by the wind. He had no explanation though for how fast the light had moved or for the fact that there had been no wind the previous evening. He could also not explain why the light seemed to follow the two hollows and then stop in place and burn out.
Later, Hall had the chance to speak with the woman who owned the farm, a Mrs. Walton, and to ask her what the light might have been. She then told him the story of Anna Bixby, who had owned the property before she had, and explained that to protect her money from her criminal husband, she had hidden her fortune in a cave that was located on the property. Mrs. Walton always believed that the spooklight was the ghost of Anna Bixby checking to see that her money was still hidden away. She had seen the light herself on many occasions, always disappearing into the cave.
Hall asked her, if she knew so well where Anna’s money was hidden, why she had never bothered to go and get it. “I would,” Mrs. Walton answered, “if I thought that Granny Bixby wanted me to have it.”
Anna Bixby’s Cave is located near the former Rock Creek Community, a short distance from Cave-in-Rock. It is located on private property, so permission must be obtained before visiting. It is also not recommended to go to the cave during the summer months because the hollow is infested with rattlesnakes.
© Copyright 2004 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved.
A Ghost Story For Halloween
The Bell Witch is a ghost story from the state of Tennessee. The legend of the Bell Witch revolved around a series of strange events experienced by the John Bell family of Adams, Tennessee between 1817 and 1821.
It is said that these events were witnessed and documented by hundreds of people. Among those who it was said witnessed these strange goings on was the future President of the United States Andrew Jackson, and because of that it is one of the most famous and documented paranormal events in history.
Some believed that the Bell Witch was a woman by the name of Kate Batts, a rather strange neighbor of Bell's, who had sued him for cheating her in a land deal. There is documentation of the land sale conflict involving John Bell, but there is never any mention of any connection to Kate Batts.
Many investigators over the years have come to believe that the "witch" was actually a poltergeist, and that the Bell home was built on a Native American burial ground. According to the legend, the hauntings began in 1817, when John Bell encountered a very strange animal in a cornfield on his property. The animal was described as having the body of a dog and a head of a rabbit, and it vanished when John Bell shot at it.
The incident was very quickly followed by a series of strange manifestations. Beating, thumping, and gnawing, chewing like noises started around outside the house, but eventually they made their way inside the Bell home. Then the Bell children reported to their parents that their bedclothes were being regularly pulled off and tossed onto the floor by an invisible force. The family then reported a choking voice that also made low, guttural noises. In spite of all of this, John Bell did not believe that any supernatural entity was causing these mysterious happenings, and said so. Then Betsy Bell, the family's younger daughter and the only child still living at home, was violently assaulted. Her hair was pulled and an invisible force slapped her face. But, John Bell was a proud and stubborn man and admonished his family to never tell anyone what was happening lest they be thought crazy.
These events continued for well over a year before John Bell finally broke and reported them to his neighbors, James Johnston and his wife. They both reported that they had witnessed many of the strange and frightening events. It was at this point the bizarre events that were being experienced by the Bell family became very well known in the Red River community. Especially the reports of a voice talking loudly and clearly, singing, and even quoting from the Bible and accurately describing events happening in places that were miles away.
At some point the involvement of the future U.S. President Andrew Jackson heard of the bizarre haunting and decided to observe them in person. This was in 1819.
As Jackson and his entourage neared the Bell farm, they encountered an invisible presence that stopped his wagon in its tracks, until he acknowledged that the witch was responsible. The wagon was then able to proceed.
One of the men in Jackson’s group claimed to be a "witch tamer" who intended to kill the spirit. The man suddenly began screaming and twisting his body immediately after making this statement. Jackson and his entourage left the Bell farm by around noon the next day. He is quoted as saying "I'd rather fight the entire British Army than to deal with the Bell Witch."
Betsy Bell became engaged to a neighbor named Joshua Gardner. This apparent displeased the entity, and so it followed and taunted, teased, and assaulted them whenever they were alone together. Betsy broke off the relationship on Easter Monday in 1821.
This disembodied voice also continued to very clearly state its dislike of John Bell, and of its intentions to kill him. Bell was by then suffering frequent facial seizures, often rendering him speechless. The Bell family blamed John's affliction on the witch.
John Bell died on December 20, 1820. A strange small vial contained an unidentified liquid that he had apparently ingested by accident was found near the body. And when the remaining liquid was given to the family cat, the animal died immediately. The family said they heard a voice say "I gave Ol' John a big ol' dose o' that last night, and that fixed him." Later, at John Bell's burial, funeral guests reported hearing a voice laughing and singing.
John Bell's death signaled the end of the strange events, but Lucy Bell said a voice told her that it would return in 1828. During visit that year, John Bell Jr. said that a voice talked with him, predicting such events as the American Civil War, the Great Depression and both of the World Wars.
According to the legend, after the entity appeared in 1828, it said it would return after 107 years sometime in 1935.
Many people believe that the spirit returned in 1935, and took up residence on the old Bell property, and remains there till this day. It is reported that the faint sounds of people talking and children playing can sometimes be heard in the area and it is reported that it is very hard to take a good picture there.
The Bell Witch is a ghost story from the state of Tennessee. The legend of the Bell Witch revolved around a series of strange events experienced by the John Bell family of Adams, Tennessee between 1817 and 1821.
It is said that these events were witnessed and documented by hundreds of people. Among those who it was said witnessed these strange goings on was the future President of the United States Andrew Jackson, and because of that it is one of the most famous and documented paranormal events in history.
Some believed that the Bell Witch was a woman by the name of Kate Batts, a rather strange neighbor of Bell's, who had sued him for cheating her in a land deal. There is documentation of the land sale conflict involving John Bell, but there is never any mention of any connection to Kate Batts.
Many investigators over the years have come to believe that the "witch" was actually a poltergeist, and that the Bell home was built on a Native American burial ground. According to the legend, the hauntings began in 1817, when John Bell encountered a very strange animal in a cornfield on his property. The animal was described as having the body of a dog and a head of a rabbit, and it vanished when John Bell shot at it.
The incident was very quickly followed by a series of strange manifestations. Beating, thumping, and gnawing, chewing like noises started around outside the house, but eventually they made their way inside the Bell home. Then the Bell children reported to their parents that their bedclothes were being regularly pulled off and tossed onto the floor by an invisible force. The family then reported a choking voice that also made low, guttural noises. In spite of all of this, John Bell did not believe that any supernatural entity was causing these mysterious happenings, and said so. Then Betsy Bell, the family's younger daughter and the only child still living at home, was violently assaulted. Her hair was pulled and an invisible force slapped her face. But, John Bell was a proud and stubborn man and admonished his family to never tell anyone what was happening lest they be thought crazy.
These events continued for well over a year before John Bell finally broke and reported them to his neighbors, James Johnston and his wife. They both reported that they had witnessed many of the strange and frightening events. It was at this point the bizarre events that were being experienced by the Bell family became very well known in the Red River community. Especially the reports of a voice talking loudly and clearly, singing, and even quoting from the Bible and accurately describing events happening in places that were miles away.
At some point the involvement of the future U.S. President Andrew Jackson heard of the bizarre haunting and decided to observe them in person. This was in 1819.
As Jackson and his entourage neared the Bell farm, they encountered an invisible presence that stopped his wagon in its tracks, until he acknowledged that the witch was responsible. The wagon was then able to proceed.
One of the men in Jackson’s group claimed to be a "witch tamer" who intended to kill the spirit. The man suddenly began screaming and twisting his body immediately after making this statement. Jackson and his entourage left the Bell farm by around noon the next day. He is quoted as saying "I'd rather fight the entire British Army than to deal with the Bell Witch."
Betsy Bell became engaged to a neighbor named Joshua Gardner. This apparent displeased the entity, and so it followed and taunted, teased, and assaulted them whenever they were alone together. Betsy broke off the relationship on Easter Monday in 1821.
This disembodied voice also continued to very clearly state its dislike of John Bell, and of its intentions to kill him. Bell was by then suffering frequent facial seizures, often rendering him speechless. The Bell family blamed John's affliction on the witch.
John Bell died on December 20, 1820. A strange small vial contained an unidentified liquid that he had apparently ingested by accident was found near the body. And when the remaining liquid was given to the family cat, the animal died immediately. The family said they heard a voice say "I gave Ol' John a big ol' dose o' that last night, and that fixed him." Later, at John Bell's burial, funeral guests reported hearing a voice laughing and singing.
John Bell's death signaled the end of the strange events, but Lucy Bell said a voice told her that it would return in 1828. During visit that year, John Bell Jr. said that a voice talked with him, predicting such events as the American Civil War, the Great Depression and both of the World Wars.
According to the legend, after the entity appeared in 1828, it said it would return after 107 years sometime in 1935.
Many people believe that the spirit returned in 1935, and took up residence on the old Bell property, and remains there till this day. It is reported that the faint sounds of people talking and children playing can sometimes be heard in the area and it is reported that it is very hard to take a good picture there.
Judge Potter Murders Marion IL
Murder suspect: Judge W.O. Potter. Victims: Myrtle Spiller Potter /wife/ Age 52, Eloise Potter /daughter/ Age 16, Mrs. Lucille Potter White/daughter/age 28, Phyllis White/granddaughter/age 4, Cynthia White/grand daughter/age/3 weeks old.
The bodies of the family members were found at the Potter’s residence at 807 N Market St. Marion by Judge Potter’s surviving son Maurice as he returned home from a business trip around the time of 2:00 AM on the date of October 24th, 1926. All members of the family were dressed in night clothes and were all believed to have been killed sometime around 1:00 AM, the weapon is believed to have been a 20 lb furnace shaker which was secured from within the basement of the house itself. Judge Potter himself was found in a cistern in the rear of the house where he had entered head first into 3 feet of water.
It is believed due to blood patterns and footprints found that Eloise (daughter) was killed first. The killer then surprised Lucille (daughter) in the bathroom and she was then killed by means of crushing her skull. Blood stains then lead across the hall to the room in which Lucille and the 2 young children were staying, Mrs. Potter is believed to have heard the children screaming, ran to help them and in doing so was also struck down by the killer.
Eloise is thought to have not been killed immediately and was able to make her way to the bedroom where she died along side her mother and the children. Bloody footprints were then followed down the back stairs. In the hours before the murders there was nothing out of the ordinary about Judge Potter, his conduct was normal at the evening meal, and after dinner he read quietly while his granddaughters played around him. His son and daughter were dancing while a little granddaughter played a phonograph. As the surviving son was heading out for the night Judge Potter reportedly asked him to “come home early tonight”.
To those close to Judge Potter his deep depression was no secret, two of his brothers in law reported that he had relayed his despair unto them on the very morning that the family was found dead. Judge Potter had met Judge D.T. Hartwell in the lobby of the First National Bank and offered to help out, he spoke about how he had had a very bad night and that he had been about to harm his little girl, “wouldn’t that be awful” Potter had said of the incident, and mentioned that he did in fact feel better. Conversations Potter had had with friends at the time led them to believe that he judge was going through great financial troubles. In his last weeks of life Judge Potter was known to have lost close to 30 lbs and he would frequently break down crying.
The controversy is that Judge Potter was convicted of the murder of his family members and of having taken his own life by means of drowning before the evidence in the case was even examined and the autopsy on Judge Potter revealed no water in the lungs and deep lacerations in his head. Although the location is now a vacant lot, I can personally verify that the house itself was very haunted, I used to work in the Funeral Home across the street and would hear people talk about the “weird stuff” that would happen there.