Part 21

Myrtle’s father, John W. Mercer, section foreman, aged 39, had died suddenly of a heart attack while milking his cow one morning in February, 1888. And naturally, the family—the mother and five girls—had to make preparations for the funeral. Myrtle had a badly sprained ankle — acquired while ice-skating with George Peters on the creek near her home—but she managed to hobble up town, taking her baby sister Jessie with her. I followed them into the store, told Myrtle that I would get a sleigh from the livery stable and take them home. After driving the girls three blocks directly to their home, I picked up the Old Girl and we drove for an hour or more. I knew that Frank Fisher would charge me $2.00 anyway, and I wanted to get my money’s worth. I was seen picking up the “Kid” at the store and later seen driving with the Old Girl, and someone had imagined that the two girls were one and the same — and that’s how the story got started.

When explained, Pheme could have no criticism of Myrtle, nor of me either for driving her home. But, being a woman of the old school, she was bound to have her say. She said, “It looks like you should have had more respect for Myrtle than to go joy-riding with that other girl at a time like that.” I was not sure that she didn’t have something there. I said, “Remember, not a word to my mother.”

“Ah, go on,” she laughed.

I might say here, before passing this incident, that after the family had split up a few years later, Myrtle was sister and mother too, as well as guardian, for Jessie. And speaking of pretty girls, this attractive little one had the makings of a real beauty that in later years just about topped them all.

The rich man’s sons were all fine boys—I think—but in view of their penchant for camping on my trail, the only compliment I wish to pay them now is to say: They did not play poker.

My trusted friend did not marry the girl I loaned him. She went with her parents and three brothers to Arkansas — and married down there. The trusted friend went to the Far West, made his stake, and married into a quite well-to-do family—and lived at Yakima, Washington.

The Old Girl got her man too—an out-of-town man — after she had quit fooling around with the younger fry, and went with Davey Todd to Kansas City to live. She became a helpless invalid—and then, not having prepared himself in a financial way for such eventuality, Davey literally and figuratively had his hands full. But, to the best of his ability, he was good to her—carried her around as if she were a baby. How do I know? Well, the “Kid’s” sisters, -Jennie and Kathy, neighbors while here, helped him a lot in giving her needed attention.

And now Euphema Wood speaks again. Commenting on this unfortunate affair, she said to me, “Now you can maybe appreciate all the grief I saved you.”

Many years later, I met the mother of the girl whom I designated for this writing as My Best Girl, on the train out of Kansas City going to Atchison, her home at that time. I knew the girl had married a man whom the family were pleased to call a Southern aristocrat, living at Bald Knob, Arkansas. He was a merchant who carried the sharecroppers—mostly descendants of Ham—on his books until harvest time, virtually owning them. This gave him status in his home community, particularly with the colored folk — and in traveling North this mark of distinction was greatly exaggerated. From what the girl told me, while on a visit back home, I think Mr. Walker was a worthy man—but that aristocracy appendage, I liked it even less than I liked the means that had been employed to push me out of the picture. It is a word that should never have been coined. I was pleased that the girl herself made no use of it.

In the course of our talking over old times in Wetmore, the mother said, “I never could understand why those two did not marry,” meaning her daughter and the boy who had succeeded me. I said, “If you really want to know,- I can tell you why. He just didn’t have the money to do it the way she insisted on having it done, an expensive wedding, and all that.” She, the mother, already knew why I had first gracefully tapered off, and then backed away from it all—for the girl had told me that her penitent mother had wanted to kick herself for speaking out of turn.

And the “Kid?” Well, wait and see. Might have to skip a few years, though. I had not yet made that stake. In reminiscing, one is permitted to wander about over all creation—provided, always, that he carries along for blending purposes at least one principal character already introduced: and makes sure to come back “home” before becoming hopelessly entangled in a wilderness of clearly unrelated matter.

The “Kid” figures prominently in this episode.

While in Kansas City, I ran onto a street hawker selling fake “diamonds” for one dollar each. Just for the fun of it, I bought one of the things, brought it home and presented it to Myrtle Mercer, who was now working in my printing office, merely to see how a diamond would affect a girl.

After showing me that her heart was in the right place, she darted out the door before I could stop her, ran down the steps to the Means store, and showed it to Lizzie Means; then beat it out the back door and ran across to show it to Mamma Alma. This lady was the wife of Dr. J. W. Graham.

Mamma Alma was sharp as all getout. Lizzie Means was a shrewd business woman, but she had a less inquisitive mind. And I guess Myrtle was pretty sharp too, after the first ecstatic shock had passed.

Myrtle came bounding back up to the office, and bawled me out: “Mr. Smartie, that is going to cost you a real diamond—and a good one, too! And I want it right now!” She had reason to believe I was holding out on her.

I said, “All right, all right—but you can’t have it now.”

Cloy Weaver, my printer, who had been out on an errand, had come into the office by this time. He stood there with his mouth open, wondering what it was all about. Cloy had a girl in Stockton, California, and was aiming to leave the next day for California to marry her. As I needed him, and as he had told me he had a wife in the Philippines — he was a veteran of the Spanish American War—I tried to show him that this would be a bigamous trick. He agreed. Cloy was always agreeable. He remained with me a while longer—and married Edna Hudson.

Lizzie told me later in the day that the bogus diamond had her fooled, too. She laughed, “By golly, it did sparkle real prettily, didn’t it? But it’s going to cost you a real diamond—don’t forget that. Mamma Alma and I are not going to let Myrtle forget it either, Ough,” she shrugged, - “that was about the dirtiest trick imaginable. And Myrtle was so pleased! It was a shame!” And Mamma Alma had told Myrtle that it was high time anyway for me to be giving her a “real” diamond.

The next morning Coral Locknane—Myrtle’s best friend — came to the office, and I don’t know what all passed between the two, but it is pretty certain they didn’t discuss trifles. The three of us went to Kansas City on the noon train. I said to the girls, “Shall we go to Cady & Olmstead’s or to Jaccard’s?” I had been to both places on my last trip, and I knew they had just the right quality of sparklers to tickle a girl’s heart—now that I knew how a girl would react. But Myrtle, feeling pretty sure of herself, and in high good humor, said quite emphatically, “Neither.” She looked down the street and said, “We are going to Mercer’s on Petticoat Lane. It’s a name I believe I can trust. You don’t think I’d let you steer me to a place like where you got that other thing?”

When we went into the Mercer Store, Mr. Waddington, the diamond salesman, as it happened, pushed his portly self forward, and asked, “What will it be, please?”

I said, pretty loudly, “A diamond ring for Miss Mercer!” That claimed the attention of the whole house—the proprietor included.

Coral had several pretty good diamonds of her own. She took a seat with Myrtle at the salestable in the little black velvet-lined cubby corner, while I stood back and looked on. When Mr. Waddington told them the price of the one they had selected, Myrtle exclaimed, “Whe-e-ew!”

Then she looked to me for approval. The modest, one carat blue white stone was in good taste, plenty big enough for a girl. Coral’s largest diamond—at that time—was also an even carat, and she was a great help to Myrtle in making the selection. Coral said, “It’s not good taste to have them too big.” Later, Myrtle said earnestly and very softly, as if the thing had taken her breath away, “Do you really think you want to stand that much?” Mercer’s was the highest priced shop in Kansas City—but in a case of this kind I figured that a girl must have what she wants.

Then we separated, and I went over to the Cady & Olmstead store on the corner of 11th and Walnut, and bought for myself—or rather paid for what I had already bought — the beautiful blue white diamond, nearly twice as large, which Myrtle’s sister Jennie had helped me select only three days before. Jennie had warned me not to spring that fake diamond on Myrtle. Said it might not set just right with her. But I knew that Myrtle was too smart a girl to let anything make her mad at me for long.

Mr. Cady said, “You are a day early—where’s the lady?” “Yes,” I said, “I’m early. Got pushed around a little. Never mind the lady now. Though you may still make it a Tiffany setting, but make it for this hand right here.” He gave me a sympathetic look. Mr. Cady was such a nice man that I felt duty bound to tell him, as nearly as I could, what had happened to the lady.

Sometimes even quality folk didn’t get to see Mr. Cady, in person. Well, I did—just like I said. I still have the sales ticket, dated May 12, 1903, bearing his notation, “Will exchange Tif. Belcher mounting without cost—or diamond for other goods any time without discount.” Signed, “Cady.”

All this was too much for Coral. A woman with money of her own can stand only so much. She went over to Norton’s—and bought herself another diamond, nearly twice as big as Myrtle’s. The satisfied expression on her lovely face was something to behold. My first thoughts were that this might call for me to do some swapping with Myrtle. But, no sir—she’d not part with hers. If pressed, she’d claim them both. Trust a woman!

We had to stay the night in Kansas City with Myrtle’s sisters, Jennie and Kathy. When she got the chance, Jennie asked me, “How did it work?” meaning the bogus diamond.

“Well,” I replied, “it looks like it hasn’t blown the top off anything yet.” She said, “It surely does look that way now, but I wouldn’t be so sure of it after she sees the beauty we picked out for her.”

The two country girls had talked nothing but diamonds from the time they had entered the apartment.

The next morning the three of us started out three ways to get our diamonds—only we didn’t do it just that way. We went the rounds in a group. Mr. Mercer told Miss Mercer that she had selected the best one-carat blue-white flawless diamond in his store. And he wondered if they might not be related. Myrtle came home pretty pleased for keeps that time.

I’ve always counted it my best investment.

THE VIGILANTES Published in Wetmore Spectator,

August 28, 1931

By John T. Bristow

There was, assuredly, need for the vigilantes at one time in the Far West, where the idea originated and here there were no laws and no courts other than “miner’s courts”—impromptu courts set up by the people on the spot. But, with all the machinery of organized government functioning normally and in most instances efficiently there in Nemaha County, there was, seemingly, no call here for the vigilantes when they hanged Charley Manley.

The courier-tribune

(Semi-weekly)

Geo. C. Adriance Dora Adriance

SENECA KANSAS

Aug. 28, 1931

Mr. John T. Bristow, Wetmore, Kansas.

My dear Mr. Bristow:

We have just read with a great deal of interest your article in the Wetmore Spectator dealing with the hanging of Charley Manley. This is the first time I have ever heard of this act of the vigilantes. We are going to check through our files of April 1877 and see if we can find anything relating to it. In any event, I write to ask permission to reproduce this article in a much special issue of the Tribune we are putting out next year to celebrate Seneca’s 75th anniversary.

The article is so well written and deals with so early history of our county that I consider it admirably adapted to our purpose. The next time you are in ‘Seneca I should like to have you call at The Courier-Tribune office. I have no doubt you have a fund of other stories that would be just as interesting.

Sincerely yours,

Geo. C. Adriance

It is a tragic story — the hanging of Manley by the vigilantes. It was Mar. 31, 1877. I was a small boy when I first knew Charley Manley, just about big enough to turn a grindstone, with effort. There is purpose in this reference to the grindstone.

I remember the time very distinctly. And, with all due respect to the memory of my departed elders—the vigilantes—if, after so many years, I may be permitted to express myself freely and fully, I would say God seemed to be terribly far away from the scene that night. Before going into the details of the hanging, let us have a look into the workings of the vigilantes—that organization of men who set itself up as judge and jury and executioner. There was tactful veiling of the identity of the individual members, and little is known of the inside workings of the local vigilantes.

This much is known, however. There was one little slip — a bungle—that was, in time, the means of disclosing the identity of the local operators, but that secret was also carefully guarded until practically the last one of the vigilantes has passed on to another world beyond the reach of wagging tongues and the strong arm of organized law. There is now only one—possibly two—of the originals left.

The vigilante organization or “Committee,” as it was called, had its birth in the Far West, for the specific purpose of dealing with “road agents”—banded highwaymen and murderers. The idea traveled East and the farther it got away from the home of its origin the farther it seems to have gotten away from its original purpose.

In the sixties and seventies vigilante committees were in evidence the full length of the old Overland Trail, from California to Kansas, and the fact that Wetmore and Granada had as residents a half dozen or so of the old stage-drivers, express messengers, and pony express riders, may account, in some measure, for the local organization of vigilantes. And, if so, by the irony of fate, it was in the home of a former express messenger that the vigilantes claimed their first and only victim. It is known that at least two of the old stage employees were vigilantes.

Without question, the idea filtered in from the West. The almost constant stream of returning gold-seekers passing through Granada over the Old Trail at a time when the vigilantes were very active in the West — particularly in Montana—may have scattered the seed.

While I was out in the western mining district, a quarter of a century ago, chasing fickle fortune—which was always just a few jumps ahead of me—I heard much about the exploits of road agents, and the work of the vigilantes.

In the Old West, at Bannack, Virginia City, and Nevada, in the Alder Gulch section of Montana, where a hundred million dollars in placer gold was recovered in the early sixties, road agents plundered and killed, without mercy.

Placer gold, as many know, is free gold that has been eroded from exposed gold-bearing ledges and deposited in the sands and gravel along the water courses. It was the first form of gold-mining in the West—the lure that caused the great stampede to California in 1849. It has rightfully been called “the poor man’s gold,” because of the comparative ease in which it is recovered.

The flush times in the Alder Gulch section, which contained about twenty thousand eager gold diggers, made rich pickings for the road agents. They preyed upon individual miners, on express companies, on anyone, anywhere they could grab gold-dust, or minted gold, the money of the times. And they were killers, every one of them.

The Montana vigilantes, sworn to secrecy and loyalty, with a by-law boldly asserting, “The only punishment that shall be inflicted by this committee is Death,” undertook the job of exterminating the road agents. And in one month’s time twenty-one of the notorious Henry Plummer gang were hung. The job was pepped up a bit when the first victims squealed on the others. This is history of the Montana vigilantes. They patterned after the California vigilantes. And it is to be assumed that vigilantes everywhere were organized along the same lines.

There was a vigilante committee in Nemaha County at least nine years prior to the hanging of Manley. In September, 1868, Melvin Baughn, a horse-thief, was legally hanged at Seneca for killing Jesse Dennis, one of the deputized men who helped capture him. In writing of that hanging George Adriance said there was a vigilante committee at the time, and it wanted the officers to turn Baughn over to the committee.

Charley Manley and Joe Brown were charged with being implicated in stealing John O’Brien’s horse. O’Brien lived on the Dave Ralston place west of Granada and Brown lived on a quarter section of land west of the Charley Green farm in the Granada neighborhood, about two miles from the O’Brien farm. Charley Manley lived with the family of W. W. Letson at Netawaka. He had lived with the Letsons at Granada and at Wetmore before they moved to Netawaka. Letson and Spencer kept a general store here in the old corner building now owned by Cawood Brothers, originally built by Rising and Son.

At one of their meetings, it appears, the vigilantes decided to hang Manley and Brown. One member who lived close to Brown pleaded for the life of his neighbor. Brown had a family of small children. The discussion waxed hot — and there was a great rift in the personnel of the organization. They did not agree in the matter. The determined ones, however, went ahead with their plans for the hanging. And on the night of the execution some of the vigilantes, not in accord with the plan, spent the night at the homes of their neighbors so as to clear themselves of suspected participation in the hanging.

Charley Manley was arrested at Netawaka and was to have been given a preliminary trial in Justice H. J. Crist’s court at Granada. He was brought to Wetmore early the day of his execution and held under guard in the office of the old Wetmore House until evening. The delay supposedly was occasioned in order to bring Joe Brown to the bar of “justice” at the same time. Later it appeared the proceedings had been delayed, waiting for nightfall.

Robert Sewell, constable, liveryman, ex-stage driver and Indian fighter, was the arresting officer. On the plains, and here, he was known as “Bob Ridley.” George G. Gill was deputized as assistant constable. Dr. J. W. Graham, a Justice of the Peace in Wetmore at the time, was appointed special prosecutor by County Attorney Simon Conwell. Sewell, Gill, and Graham, with Manley, drove to Granada in a spring wagon.

On the way to Granada, all unconscious of what was in the air, Dr. Graham, seeing a tree by the roadside with a large overhanging limb, jokingly said, “Whoa, stop the team, Bob—-we might just as well hang Charley right here.” Manley laughed and said, “Oh, no—let’s all have a drink.” He passed his bottle.

Court was to have been held in the Hudson hotel at Granada. But before proceedings had started, the vigilantes, in black-face, with coats turned insideout, appeared upon the scene and began shooting up the place — with blanks. They seized Manley and rushed him away—to his doom. Pandemonium reigned, and in the excitement the president of the vigilante committee, it is said, raised a window and told Brown to “beat it.” So, it would seem, the neighbor’s plea for Brown’s life, while very costly to himself, as you shall see later, had made its impression.

Earlier in the evening, one high up in vigilantic officialdom, had taken the precaution to relieve the three constables and the prosecuting attorney of their revolvers—borrowed them “for a few minutes.” Dr. Graham says he never did get his back.

Charley Manley was taken to a big tree down on the creek west of Granada, and strung up. The tree was on the old Terrill place, now owned by the Achtens. Monoah H. Terrill, a store-keeper at Granada, was a brother-in-law of Manley. Terrill had died a long time before the Manley hanging.

Manley was buried on the Terrill place—or rather what afterwards proved to be the roadside—by the grave of his brother-in-law. Later the bodies were removed. Terrill was placed in the Letson lot in the Netawaka cemetery. Some say the body of Manley was also taken there. The Letson lot has no such marker. Others say he was re-buried in the northeast corner of the Granada cemetery. There is no marker or other visible evidence of his grave there. His grave now seems to be as irredeemably lost as was his life on that fatal March night fifty-four years ago.

It is said by those who were in a position to speak at the time, that Manley made no protest, spoke not a word when the mob took him from the room. Whether it was sheer shock that robbed him of all power to speak, to think, to feel, no one knows. Dr. Graham says that after they started away with the prisoner someone fired a gun, and he heard Manley say, “Don’t do that boys, it’s not fair.” Just what happened after that was never made public. The knowing ones didn’t seem to want to talk. There were, however, many conflicting rumors afloat—sub rosa reports, you understand. One rumor was that Manley was dead before they left the main street with him—died from fright and rough handling.

On the way out one of the vigilantes lost his cap. Someone picked it up. The same man who had “borrowed” the officers guns, acting as rear guard, rode back and took the cap. He said to the people who had followed from the court room, “We don’t want to hurt anyone—but keep back.”

Some of the men in that mob were recognized, but, as one old timer aptly puts it, no one at that time seemed to care a “helluva” lot about knowing who they were. However, as the veiling gradually lifted, it became known that the major portion of the respectable adult male citizens — and a few bad eggs—were numbered among the vigilantes. They were, mostly, fair-minded and just men. But, even fair-minded men, under stress, can sometimes be auto-hypnotized into doing strange things—and it would seem some of the vigilantes got terribly out of hand that night. From all accounts the performance was a rather disgusting exhibition of mob passion. Later criticism of the vigilantes was based very largely on the inexcusable savage demonstration attending the Manley hanging. And mistake not, there was criticism—criticism that stirred the whole countryside.

Vigilantes did not tell their wives everything. It might have been better if they had. And if the Manley demonstration had met with the approval of the good wives and mothers of the participating vigilantes, the women might have taken a hand in the general clean-up and scrubbed the burnt-cork, or whatever it was that blackened their faces, from back of the men’s ears and thus obliterated the telltale marks that lingered, like the itch, with some of the boys for several days. The women generally deprecated the hanging.