fall ’19/winter ’20

pg. 2 pg. 3 As the sun set on a wooded pasture in southern Boone County, “Hang Him bringing the seriously injuring her. The John Ellis and Walter C. promise of reprieve child, witnessing her mother Maupin to determine who in pain and unsure about might have committed from the oppressive her aunt’s fate, ran toward the attempted rape. Many August heat, the nearest home for help. concerned citizens arrived at Decently Meanwhile, Hubbard, being Edward Young’s land, since 15-year-old Young claimed as property by “very stout and pluck to Nancy Hubbard the backbone successfully several black men. Following zachary traveled home resisted his assaults” with a physical examination of and in dowdle with her sister the assistance of her parasol.1 Young’s enslaved people, Amanda soon returned to the group determined that Mary Jacobs and the scene with a nearby the likely perpetrator was Amanda, Jacobs’ resident, Joseph Armstrong. a man named Hiram. The young daughter. The assailant managed investigators returned to the Order”: Order, to escape just before justices with Hiram to conduct The three had attended the Armstrong’s arrival. their impromptu trial. funeral service of Harrison Hubbard, quite shaken from Upon hearing the evidence Politics, and Jacobs and hoped to make the traumatic experience, and testimony of several it home before the waning “preserved her person from witnesses, Ellis and Maupin light disappeared. Arriving at tarnish, receiving no injury determined that there was a fence, Hubbard dismounted except on the face, throat insufficient evidence to the 1853 2 her horse to remove the bars. and eyes” from the attack. hold Hiram and let the man Jacobs and the young girl return to Young’s property. passed through the barrier While any attack of With the justices preventing Lynching this sort on a young white and waited while Hubbard further action, the collection guided her horse through woman would cause of citizens dispersed, at the gate and replaced the considerable disruption in least momentarily. of Hiram, bars. From a nearby thicket, an agrarian community, the a man, completely nude fact that Hubbard identified except for some leaves stuck her nude assailant as an a Slave in his hair, allegedly seized enslaved man intensified the teenager and dragged the anxiety. As night settled her into the woods. The on the region on August commotion startled Jacobs’ 12, 1853, a large number of horse, which threw her off, black men were taken before an informal hearing held by Justices of the Peace fall ’19/winter ’20

pg. 4 pg. 5 Based on a “proper affidavit made by a brother of the young lady,” Justice Thomas Porter of Columbia issued a warrant for Hiram’s arrest.

As Diane Miller Sommerville manner. By creating the seeming Thomas Porter of Columbia points out in her book, Rape and paradox of an orderly mob, the issued a warrant for Hiram’s Race in the Nineteenth-Century citizens of Boone County arrest. The sheriff, warrant in South, despite the outrage such enacted a compromise solution hand, proceeded to Edward a case would have inspired in that appealed to the sensibilities Young’s property south of a slaveholding community in of Democrats and Whigs—the Columbia to retrieve the suspect the days before the Civil War, former favoring popular justice that same night. Arriving at Southerners tended to allow legal and majoritarian rule with the Young’s farm late in the evening, processes to unfold. Antebellum latter appealing to law, order, and the sheriff was unable to locate lynchings of enslaved people due process—to reinforce the Hiram. Young assured the sheriff were not entirely unheard of, but racial order.6 that he would retrieve the man they were far rarer than those and deliver him to Columbia. that occurred during the late- Concerned about the well-being nineteenth and early twentieth of his investment, Young appealed centuries.3 Since the owners of to the sheriff to ensure Hiram enslaved people had a financial would have a fair trial. Young stake in the prosecution of their delivered on his promise, bringing “property,” an element of class- Hiram to the Columbia jail before based conflict sometimes arose the sun rose Wednesday morning.7 when an enslaved person stood accused of a crime. Slave owners, With the prisoner secure in in an attempt to retain the value the county jail, court officials set of their human investment, would his trial to take place just four hire attorneys to defend the days later on Saturday, August 20. accused, while non-slaveholding In the meantime, Young visited whites opted at times to the office of a Columbia lawyer 4 named James S. Rollins and circumvent formal proceedings. John Ellis lived at a farm As the sectional crisis heated southeast of Columbia, secured his services for the defense Missouri, and was Justice of the of the enslaved man. Rollins was up over the course of the 1850s, Peace from 1844 to 1878. He anxieties in slave societies, was a fairly prominent citizen a 40-year-old attorney who had, in Boone County, including like many others in the region, particularly those situated on as one of the first curators of the border of slave territory, the University of Missouri. been born and educated in the (Image: Historical Atlas of upper south state of . manifested in a marked increase Boone County, Missouri, in the number of incidents of 1875, State Historical Society Unlike the majority of lawyers in mob violence on enslaved people.5 of Missouri) the middle of the nineteenth This incident, taking place before century, Rollins had attended the eruption of violence in the Still outraged by the incident school for formal legal training Kansas Territory, at least and taking to heart the words of at Transylvania College in initially conforms more with Justice of the Peace Ellis, who Lexington, Kentucky, in addition Sommerville’s depiction of legal after freeing Hiram that night to reading law with the prominent proceedings for enslaved people stated that he “hoped the matter Missouri lawyer Abiel Leonard. in the antebellum South. Within would not stop here,” a group Rollins had practiced law in a few days, however, public traveled thirteen miles north to Columbia since 1836 when he was deference to the legal process the county’s seat, Columbia, to not serving in political office as a deteriorated into a call for mob push for a continuation of the Whig in the state capital. Rollins justice. Hiram’s story stands legal proceedings. On Tuesday, also laid claim to more than two apart from other documented August 16, the concerned citizens dozen enslaved men, women, The crime of which Hiram was accused was in the southern part of the and children who produced a county, near the Missouri River. (Image: Historical Atlas of Boone County, Missouri, case studies in the community’s got what they wanted. Based on 1875, State Historical Society of Missouri) attempt to ensure the mob a “proper affidavit made by a variety of agricultural goods on conduct itself in an orderly brother of the young lady,” Justice his property on the southern edge of town.8 fall ’19/winter ’20

pg. 6 pg. 7

Defense attorney James S. Rollins (1812-1888) was, like the lawyer across from him in Hiram’s trial, a Kentucky product and strong Unionist. By three o’clock that afternoon, Guitar had only worked his way through around half of his declared witnesses—meaning Hiram’s defense had not yet begun—when a mob “entered the courtroom...”

Rollins was living in this house sketched by the same year as the trial, and a year from serving another term in the Missouri legislature. He served two terms in the U.S. House of Representatives during the Civil War. (Images: State Historical Society of Missouri)

On the appointed day, law way through around half of his a group of men pulled the loose enforcement officials brought declared witnesses—meaning end of the rope until Hiram’s Hiram to the courtroom, where a Hiram’s defense had not yet feet left the ground. Within third Justice of the Peace, David begun—when a mob “entered just a matter of moments, the Gordon, would hear the case. the courtroom, in a tumultuous, rope snapped, providing a brief Over the course of the week since menacing manner” and reprieve for the enslaved man. As the incident had occurred, “overcoming the importunities members of the mob worked to excitement in the town and and efforts of the court, sheriff, retie the murderous knot, a party surrounding area had grown to counsel, [etcetera] put a rope of individuals, including Hiram’s a fever pitch. Spectators quickly around the prisoner’s neck and attorney, Rollins, and the filled the courtroom to capacity, forced him into the street.” 10 editors of both of Columbia’s with many more remaining Whig newspapers, William outside the building in Once the mob successfully Switzler and E. Curtis Davis, anticipation of the trial. As one in removed Hiram from the shelter arrived and appealed to the crowd attendance observed, “a portion of the law, they stripped him of his to let the legal processes run their of [the crowd] were much excited clothing and forced him through course. After considerable oratory by the daring atrocity of the the center of town toward a grove effort by Rollins and others crime charged and [had] a firm of trees beyond the bridge that who opposed the lynching, order conviction of the negro’s guilt.” 9 crossed the Flat Branch Creek on prevailed and Hiram was the western edge of Columbia. 11 The county prosecutor, Odon returned to the jail. Kentucky-born Odon Guitar (1825-1908) left Boone County twice Guitar, who had earned a degree In the excitement, a number of in the decade or so before prosecuting the case against bloodthirsty citizens tied Hiram Traumatized by his recent Hiram, once to serve in the Mexican War (so that his degree from from the University of Missouri the University of Missouri was granted in absentia, the first and then studied law under the to the trunk of a tree with the idea brush with a violent mob that first one granted) and again to try to strike a fortune in the California of burning him alive. Some in the wanted to brutally burn him but Gold Rush. In the Civil War, he served in the despite presiding judge, began to present being a slaveholder. His home, pictured here from the 1875 the state’s case by calling crowd protested to this gruesome changed course and decided to try Historical Atlas of Boone County, Missouri, speaks to his financial success. (Images: Missouri State Historical Society) numerous witnesses to the stand. mode of punishment, opting to hang him instead, Hiram spent By three o’clock that afternoon, instead to hang the accused man. Sunday in jail, ruminating on the Guitar had only worked his Throwing the rope over a past week’s events and waiting to conveniently located tree branch, fall ’19/winter ’20

pg. 8 pg. 9 Hiram had confessed. However, the confession came only after a religious authority figure explained...his death was just a matter of time.

see what kind of horror the next a more lethal resolution. Local Hiram. Sheriff Douglass warned day in court would bring. While planter Eli Bass, considered by the group of men that they were he sat in his cell, a “minister of contemporaries to be one of breaking the law and called for William Switzler (1819-1906) originally the Gospel” visited Hiram and Boone County’s “most respectable assistance from the crowd in the studied law under fellow Whig James Rollins before becoming a explained to the prisoner that the men,” addressed the crowd and street. No one answered, and journalist, including his stint with the angry people of Columbia “would announced, “I have been a week Douglass, fearing for his life, left Weekly Missourian. Later in life he was appointed Chief of the Bureau of not permit him to live but a few about this thing and I now want the jail so the committee could Statistics. (Image: Missouri State 15 Historical Society) hours.” With the extreme anxiety to bring it to a close.” Bass called do its work. The dozen men of the past day’s events combined for the assembled group to form forced open the two prison doors with the minister’s stark prediction, an orderly line so they could that protected the prisoner and Hiram made a full confession conduct their business. After dragged Hiram into the street. to the attempted rape and even settling in, the crowd appointed Placing the accused in the cart named other enslaved men whom Bass the chairman of the mob. along with his coffin, the committee, he suggested had plans to commit “followed by a large number of similar acts on young white women Odon Guitar, the prosecuting persons, quietly proceeded” to a in the area. In return for the attorney, along with Samuel grove of trees northwest of town information, Hiram pleaded with Young, who had been assisting to hang and bury Hiram.18 the man of the cloth to ensure he Rollins with Hiram’s defense, would have a few days to make presented to the mob the alleged Two factors contributed to the preparations before his execution. victim’s father’s desire that the circumstances that allowed for a News of the confession reached enslaved man be hanged rather successful mob action the second Sheriff Douglass warned the court Monday morning, than burned. Guitar added, “if it time, both of which supported and Judge Gordon decided to was their determination to hang a narrative that the lynching was move forward with the trial with him, to go about it coolly and do “orderly” and “just.” First, in the the group of men that they the prisoner secured in jail for it decently and in order, and not time between the failed attempt 16 his well-being.12 as demons.” With both sides and the successful murder, were breaking the law and expressing a unified call for Hiram had confessed. However, For the second time in just hanging, Bass initiated a vote. The the confession came only after called for assistance from three days, a “crowd of several majority of those voting agreed a religious authority figure hundred persons” gathered to hanging, with around a half explained to Hiram that his death the crowd in the street. outside of the Boone County a dozen opting for incineration. was just a matter of time. Sensing Courthouse. Understanding that With the method of lynching the urgency of his impending No one answered... Hiram had made a full confession, decided upon, the mob, under demise, the prisoner believed Hiram was taken from imprisonment at albeit under severe duress, a the direction of Bass, established that a confession would produce the Boone County Courthouse, pictured number of people began to call a committee to carry out the enough public sympathy to here, for his “orderly” hanging. (Image: 17 Missouri State Historical Society) for another attempt at summary “orderly” execution. A man allow him sufficient time to say justice. They believed, as did named George N. King, assigned goodbye to his family and friends. many white Americans in the to head the committee, selected Unfortunately for Hiram, the antebellum South, that legal nine other men to assist in the confession only motivated the punishments available to committee’s tasks. First, they set mob. William Switzler, editor enslaved men like Hiram were out to procure the requisite tools of the Weekly Missourian, one of not sufficient.13 Missouri criminal for the grisly job—a cart to Columbia’s Whig newspapers, code indicated that any white transport the accused, a coffin expressed relief that Hiram’s full man who attempted to rape a to bury him, and of course a rope confession of guilt “reliev[ed] woman would serve up to seven to hang him. At the assigned all doubts on that subject.” He years in prison; however, if an time—the mob had agreed to further editorialized that “all enslaved man attempted the same proceed with the lynching at noon now concede” that the men who crime, he would face castration.14 that day—the committee of ten, protected the prisoner during the For the enraged crowd, castration along with Bass and Jefferson first attempt “were most wise and was not enough. They needed Garth, entered the jail to retrieve salutary, and all appear gratified fall ’19/winter ’20

pg. 10 pg. 11

at the result.” 19 For Switzler, man. In two circumstances, Bibliography ENDNOTES Hiram’s confession provided according to Woodson, the 1 9 15 sufficient justification to proceed lynching could have taken place Primary Sources Columbia Weekly Statesman, August Columbia Weekly Statesman, August Switzler, History of Boone County, 373; 19, 1853; Columbia Weekly Missouri 26, 1853; Columbia Weekly Missouri Allen to Gano, August 11, 1853; Woodson, with the extralegal action. without being an affront to the James Sidney Rollins papers, State Sentinel, August 25, 1853; Switzler, Sentinel, August 25, 1853. “To the Public.” legal system. First, the offended Historical Society of Missouri History of Boone County, 371; Thomas 10 16 The second factor that made family could have sought out the (SHSM). M. Allen to John Gano, August 11, 1853. Woodward, “To the Public”; Columbia Columbia Weekly Missourian, The letter written by Allen to Gano is Weekly Statesman, August 26, 1853. August 26, 1853. mob violence more palatable for perpetrator and killed him John Gano papers, SHSM. dated before the incident took place. One of the three contemporary accounts adherents of both political parties immediately without involving Allen worked as a traveling minister, includes as a part of the story that 17 Ibid. was the manner in which it was the law. Because they went to the with the bulk of this letter describing his Rollins cut the rope in the courtroom. Newspapers 18 conducted. Switzler’s tone shifted Justice of the Peace seeking a experiences in the countryside. Based Two were written by close friends of the Switzler, History of Boone County, Columbia Weekly Statesman on the dates included in his account, attorney. Warren Woodson’s account, 373–74; Columbia Weekly Missourian, significantly when discussing legal remedy, the victim’s family the actual date that he wrote this letter which includes the rope-cutting, is by August 26, 1853; Woodson, “To the two incidents. With the first, and the community needed to Columbia Weekly Missouri Sentinel to Gano was likely September 11, 1853. far more emotionally charged than the Public”; Switzler’s history identifies he emphasized the chaos and allow that process to proceed Allen’s account of the incident came the account printed in the newspaper the location of the lynching as the lawlessness of the attempted Secondary Sources secondhand since he was not home by William Switzler, which claims to pasture of Mrs. Dr. Arnold, which was without interruption. The second when it took place, but as a resident “publish the facts attending the whole immediately west of R. H. Clinkscales’s killing. In fact, Switzler worked circumstance was to let the Berg, Manfred. Popular Justice: A of the neighborhood he knew Nancy proceeding.” Interestingly, Switzler, property. Looking at a contemporary with Rollins (who was also a Whig trial run its course, but after its History of Lynching in America (New Hubbard and the others involved. in his History of Boone County, (to the writing of Switzler’s history) plat politician) to prevent the mob York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2015). reproduced nearly verbatim the original map of Columbia (from 1875), Arnold’s conclusion and the distribution 2 Warren Woodson, “To the Public,” newspaper account but included property corresponds to a four-block from lynching Hiram on Saturday. of legally administered justice, Bowman, Frank. “Stories of Crimes, August 1853, Rollins Papers, SHSMO. Woodson’s assertion about the area in modern Columbia bounded by In writing about the successful the family and community could Trials, and Appeals in Civil War Era rope-cutting. The third account, Sexton to the north, Worley to the killing, Switzler stressed the 3 Summerville, Rape and Race in the published in the Columbia Weekly south, Mary Street to the west, and take up the matter. Woodson’s Missouri.” Marquette Law Review 93, “order” and “decency” of the Nineteenth-Century South, 4–5. Missouri Sentinel, also omits the Providence to the east. position did not appear to be no. 2 (January 1, 2009): 349–77. rope-cutting detail. crowd. Prosecutor Odon Guitar’s popular. Only one man signed on 4 Ibid, 5–6; Bowman, “Appeals in Civil 19 Columbia Weekly Missourian, August Dyer, Thomas G. “A Most 11 (Whig politician as well) language in support to his public letter— War Missouri,” 351. Woodson, “To the Public”; Columbia 26, 1853. It is important to note that started the plea for order, and Unexampled Exhibition of Madness Weekly Statesman, August 26, 1853. Switzler stood next to James Rollins the defense attorney Rollins— 5 and Brutality: Judge Lynch in Saline Thomas G. Dyer argues that a series to prevent the hanging of Hiram on Switzler repeated the phrase again and the letter was never published of four lynchings within a week’s time 12 Woodson, “To the Public”; Columbia Saturday night. There is no indication in County, Missouri, 1859.” In Under as well as stressing the “order” in the newspaper.22 in Saline County, Missouri, resulted from Weekly Statesman, August 26, 1853; any of the sources that any resistance of the proceedings and the mob’s Sentence of Death: Lynching in residents’ anxiety and insecurity in the Bowman points out that even in took place on Monday. the South, edited by W. Fitzhugh region based in part on their proximity to antebellum Missouri a forced confession quiet procession. Thomas M. Boone was one of the few 20 Brundage (Chapel Hill: University the violent Kansas border. See Dyer, “A made by an enslaved person was not Columbia Weekly Missourian, August Allen, another Whig partisan counties in Missouri to have a Most Unexampled Exhibition of Madness admissible in court. One wonders, 26, 1853; Allen to Gano, August 11, 1853. and minister, suggested that “all majority of Whig citizens. The of North Carolina Press, 1997). and Brutality: Judge Lynch in Saline however, if the psychological pressure of County, Missouri, 1859.” the attempted lynching and words of the 21 Columbia Weekly Missouri Sentinel, was peace and tranquility” with county’s Whig partisans took no Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath minister would be construed as forced August 25, 1853, emphasis in the original. the lynching, and though he was issue with the institution of slavery. God Wrought: The Transformation of 6 For the use of mob violence in in the nineteenth century. See Bowman, “opposed to mobocracy,” this case They saw Hiram as any other America, 1815–1848 (Oxford: Oxford antebellum America see Daniel Walker “Appeals in Civil War Missouri.” 22 Woodson, “To the Public.” suited him sufficiently.20 E. Curtis white citizen in a slaveholding University Press, 2009). Howe, What Hath God Wrought, 430–39; Adam I. P. Smith’s chapter on the Astor 13 Dyer, in “Judge Lynch in Saline County,” Davis, editor of Columbia’s society, as the property of another Smith, Adam I. P. The Stormy Present: Place Riot delineates the difference points out that one of the public defend- other Whig newspaper, the man. Many Whigs, however, in partisan perspectives on mob ers of the mob action in his case study Conservatism and the Problem of , regretted did look to the institutions of violence; see Smith, The Stormy argued that the criminal law for enslaved Missouri Weekly Sentinel Slavery in Northern Politics, 1846– that the “supremacy of the law” government to impart order on Present: Conservatives and the Problem people was weak and not based on 1865 (Chapel Hill: University of of Slavery in Northern Politics, white public sentiment. See pp. 93–94. had not prevailed but remarked society. At the core of this admiration North Carolina Press, 2017). 1846–1865, 23–42. that lynching had taken place of institutional order was the 14 Laws of the State of Missouri: Revised 7 “with nearly as much order legal system. In a situation Sommerville, Diane Miller. Rape and Woodson, “To the Public”; Switzler, and Digested by Authority of the General Race in the Nineteenth-Century South History of Boone County, 372; Columbia Assembly Volume 1 (St. Louis: E. Charless, as usually attend[ed] legalized where questions of law and order Weekly Statesman, August 19, 1853; 1825), 283, 313. Summerville argues that executions of criminals.”21 came into conflict with the (Chapel Hill: University of North Columbia Weekly Missouri Sentinel, castration of enslaved offenders, either perpetuation of racial control Carolina Press, 2005). August 25, 1853. for rape or attempted rape, allowed state Not everyone in Columbia and colonial governments to deter slave within a slave society, the illusion Switzler, William. History of Boone 8 James Madison Woods, Jr., “James crime while also saving the state money supported the “orderly” and “decent” of the former could help secure County, Missouri: Written and Comp. Sidney Rollins of Missouri: A Political since in many jurisdictions the slave’s mob violence. Judge Warren the latter. By creating a form from the Most Authentic Official and Biography” (Ph.D. diss., Stanford owner would be compensated for University, 1951), 5–13; John Vollmer his financial loss. Missouri never adopted Woodson penned a scathing letter of “mobocracy” that seemed to Private Sources; Including a History expressing his opposition to the Mering, “Political Transition of James S. compensation legislation, however, adhere to the tenets of order and of Its Townships, Towns, and Villages Rollins,” Missouri Historical Review 53, making it more important for slave events surrounding Hiram’s death. peacefulness, all of the citizens (St. Louis: Western Historical no. 3 (1959): 217; 1860 Boone County, owners to provide the best legal defense Woodson could not see past the of Boone County got what they Company, 1882). Missouri, Slave Schedule, 47; Bowman, they could to prevent losses. mob’s blatant disregard for legal “Appeals in Civil War Missouri,” 351. truly wanted, a confirmation processes. That said, he took no of white supremacy. issue with murdering the enslaved