The January 8, 1879 issue of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat carried a fascinating story which was originally published in the Fredericktown [Missouri] Plaindealer.
The story involves a former slave named Adam Bollinger who murdered another slave named “Jack” (no last name was provided in the report) in 1862.
According to the paper both men had wives and “Jack” had become a little too familiar with Adam’s wife. One day as they were leaving the field at the end of the day Adam Bollinger chased “Jack” who fell trying to escape at which time Adam stabbed “Jack” to death with a butcher knife.
The paper reported that Adam Bollinger had been living in St. Louis, Missouri for nearly 16 years under the name of John Allen and that it was the son of the late “Jack” who had vowed to find Adam and see that he paid for his crime.
In an ironic twist Adam Bollinger brought up the fact that the murder had happened when both he and “Jack” were slaves and since they were both considered “property” at the time asked the question, “Could being property, like a horse, be any more guilty of killing a slave likewise property, than one horse in killing another horse?”
The paper stated that the Supreme Court had never tried such a case. I will be on the “lookout” for what fate befell Adam Bollinger.
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I posted an article on January 28, 2020 in which I talked about gold discovered in Dallas (present day Marble Hill) Bollinger County, Missouri in 1866. Recently I discovered that gold has been found elsewhere in Southeast Missouri in 1862. The February 4, 1862 issue of The Daily Missouri Democrat contains information about the discovery of gold in neighboring Madison County, Missouri.
I don’t know if the evidence of gold in the area ever resulted in any additional prospecting but I am confident that further research of the archives of the time will result in more information of the subject.
This week I sat down for an interview with Dr. Edward DeVries for TBR History Hour.
Dr. Ed and I talked for an hour about my latest book “The Rape of Delaware County”
We also discussed my relationship with Edwin Turlington, who was facing 10 years in prison for defending himself from a violent attack against a convicted felon, how the collaboration fell apart and how all of these circumstances inspired me to write about not only Turlington’s five-year legal battle but the greater corruption and violent crimes that are a common occurrence in Delaware County, Oklahoma. Note: I have to correct myself, I mistakenly referred to Darrell Philpott as “Jerry” Philpott. I apologize for the error.
“The Rape of Delaware County” is available in paperback for $10 (b/w 145 pages) and Kindle for $.99 (Free with Kindle Unlimited. Order by clicking this link.
Listen to the interview by clicking on the video below:
BONUS INTERVIEW!
In addition to my appearance on the TBR History Hour, I appeared on Dr Ed’s OTHER program TBR’s Dixie Heritage Hour where we discussed the effects the recent Corona virus has had on Southeast Missouri. Listen to this interview by clicking the video link below.
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The December 31, 1862 edition of the New York Daily Herald contained much information about the situation in Missouri. Among the reports of guerrilla warfare activities and false reports that the Confederates had retaken Columbus, Kentucky is a report of a minister at a St. Louis Church who was expelled for claiming he was “neutral” on the issue of the war. Also in the report in which the New York Daily Herald calls abolitionists in Missouri “nigger worshipers”.
There has been much condemnation in the press regarding Confederate General Robert E. Lee, who called for reconciliation in the country after the war was over and Confederate symbols in general, “racism” is always the excuse but the December 31, 1862 issue of the Daily Herald serves as an example of Northern views on religion (placing the government above the church) as well as race.
Northern hands are not clean on the subject of race, yet symbolism of the United States government is never called into question.
Most “official” sources claim that 110,000 Missouri men fought for the Union and some 30,000 fought for the Confederacy.
I’ve always questioned these figures for several reason:
1: Does this number include Union soldiers from neighboring states whose units were designated as “Missouri” units?
2: Does this number include the number of Missouri men who fought for the South in “irregular” or “partisan” units?
3. Does this number include Missouri men who were forced to join Enrolled Missouri Militia units or face jail time for “desertion”?
I’m guessing this number does not include the number of Southern men forced to join Union militia units and then fled with their newly furnished weapons.
I have stumbled across an example from the latter group in the September 21, 1865 issue of The Weekly Free Press (Atchison, Ks). An article in the paper reports that an election was held in Salem, Dent County, Missouri for the purpose of electing officers of a unit of Missouri Militia (Union) and that after the election the new company of Union militia celebrated by getting drunk, riding out of town and shouting for the Southern Confederacy.
Protected snitches, dirty cops and a defense lawyer who made international headlines in a murder for hire plot. This is the stranger than fiction, real life story of Delaware County, Oklahoma.
On Jan. 31’st, 2020 I published a story asking “Who Murdered the Patterson Family?”. It was an attempt to find out who could have murdered Confederate Officer William Patterson and his entire family outside of Dallas (current day Marble Hill, Missouri).
As I stated in the previous article I had found information in a clipping from the June 28, 1866 Daily Union and American newspaper reporting Bollinger County Sheriff James Rogers was appointed by Missouri Governor Fletcher and that he was being charged with murder for acts he committed during the Civil War. The paper reported:
“General J.R. McCormack, who is a candidate for the Conservative nomination for Congress in the third district, delivered a speech in Dallas, Webster County [Editors note: mistake by newspaper, Dallas present day Marble Hill, Missouri is in Bollinger County] on the 14th inst. , and he was attentively listened to. Shortly afterward a squad of five or six ruffians surrounded him, when one of them, named James Rogers, without provocation, knocked the Doctor down, the blow for a time rendering him speechless.
On recovering , he found the ruffians had left. Rogers is Sheriff of Bollinger county, an officer of the peace, appointed by Governor Fletcher. He is also charged with committing murder during the troubles in Southeast Missouri, and to have been guilty of swindling the Government in some lead and beef contracts down there.”
Governor Thomas Fletcher served as from the later part of Civil War-Reconstruction.
I wondered how James Rogers was “appointed” the Sheriff of Bollinger County, Missouri or how Erich Pape was “appointed” sheriff after Rogers. These questions were answered when I stumbled upon a March 18, 1865 issue of the Chicago Tribune which reported:
“The State Convention passed an ordinance today, vacating all offices of Circuit Judges, Circuit Attorneys, Criminal Judges, Sheriffs, Probate Judges, and clerks, and All Courts of Record, from and after May 1’st, by a vote of forty-three to five. The offices are all to be filled by the Governor. By this ordinance, eight-hundred offices eight hundred offices are made vacant at one blow. Governor Fletcher promises to reappoint all the loyal men, elected by the people, the object being to get rid of the disloyal.”
I get the distinct feeling that disloyalty was a very weak excuse and that the main object was to get rid of all forms of Civil Government in order to insulate and protect themselves from being prosecuted for war crimes.
On the September 13, 1929 the Republic Tribune (Union, Missouri) carried a lengthy article about the Will Mayfield College stating that:
“Due to hard times in the Mississippi Valley the Will Mayfield College of Marble Hill, Missouri had some hard struggles this last year and there was some doubt in the minds of many as to the future of Will Mayfield.”
Despite the doubt of many about the forthcoming year the headline of the paper read “Will Mayfield College Opened With Fine Attendance.”
On July 17, 1885 Grainfield, Kansas’s newspaper, the Grainfield Cap Sheaf, reported the capture of a Bollinger County, Missouri murderer.
According to the paper, a man by the last name of Salisbury had went to another farmer’s residence and “cooly called him out”, informing him that he was going to kill him. Salisbury shot the farmer in the leg, demanded he stand back up and delivered a second fatal shot. The paper reported that the murder had taken place seven years prior and was said to be over a dispute of stock.
Salisbury then traveled to Kansas and was ultimately tracked down when he sold his property in Missouri. He was also suspected of taking part in another murder in Kansas.
The July 13, 1878 St. Louis Globe-Democrat published an article entitled “The Last of the Moonshiners” about John Bollinger, a moonshiner who was over 70 years of age. Bollinger might have been in “advanced age” as the paper describes him, but he still had plenty of fight left in him. The paper stated , “When captured Bollinger was very violent in his language toward the officers and swore that if he had been at the distillery when they came they never would have taken it; he would have shot them down like dogs.”
In post-war Bollinger County, Missouri lawlessness prevailed. It seems with little opportunity many turned to distilling corn liquor or “moonshine”. Before the war it was not illegal to do so but after the war it was considered to be against the law due to the fact that the government did not get “its share” through taxation.
There are several accounts in newspaper archives from throughout the United States about the crackdown on illegal distilleries in the county. It was not uncommon for federal authorities to make appearances and arrests.
It was also not uncommon for the citizens to intervene in the apprehension of moonshiners. Sometimes they were successful, other times not so much. The May 22, 1871 issue of the Chicago Tribune carries the story of an unsuccessful attempt to free prisoners from Federal authorities.
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