THE CISTERN TRAGEDY.

The .early history of this neighborhood is blackened with crime and stained red with blood. For years it has been believed by the public at large that but little of the dark deeds perpetrated in this place had come to light. One murder only can be substantiated in its details. This is known as the cistern tragedy, receiving this name from the fact that the body was thrown into a cistern after the murder had been committed.

In the month of August, 1863, a, well-dressed man entered the State Bank at Burlington, and there had a large moneyed transaction. In the afternoon he crossed the river on the ferry boat, on which was a man who had witnessed the transaction at the bank. After landing on the Illinois side the stranger pursued his way on foot. The day was hot and sultry. Overcome by the heat, he stopped at the home of Mr. White and there asked for a drink of water. Mrs. White, who was favorably impressed with the genteel appearance of the man, asked him to sit down and rest himself. During the conversation which followed, the stranger made known the fact that he was from a war state, and, on account of the interference of the war with his business, he had determined to purchase a home in Henderson county, where he would be free from all molestation. Rising to go, he asked where he could stop all night, and Mrs. White referred him to a wayside inn near by.

What occurred after this up to the time when the murder was discovered can only be known from the partial confessions of some of the parties implicated. For the greater portion of the following the reader is indebted to Mr. A. L. Porter, to whom one of the murderers made a confession. After leaving Mr. White's, the stranger passed on to the public house and there engaged lodging for the night. The man who had passed on ahead of the southerner had reported the man's wealth. The after facts show that this plot was formed. The proprietor of the hotel was to put the man out of his house, so that he would have to go on to another lodging place. A horse was then to be brought from some lot near by and the pretense set up that the stranger was a horse thief.

The plan was then to hang him and obtain his money, giving out to the public the story that he was a horse thief. In accordance with this plot, the landlord, in great pretended indignation that the stranger was a southerner, drove him from his house, first charging him five dollars for his supper, and then sent him on to the other house, by whom he was received as if to spend the night. One of the parties implicated, who died about a year afterward, and who made a full confession to a young lady on his death-bed, stated that about ten o'clock one of them went to a pasture and took therefrom a horse, and placing upon its back some sort of a pack, tied it in the brush About eleven o'clock a party of men surrounded the house, and having dragged the man from his bed, carried him to a point between the two stopping places. It seems that he was then whipped brutally to elicit a confession as .to the theft of the horse and then hung until it was thought he was dead. His hands were then cut off and the body thrown into the little creek near by.

One of the murderers afterward stated that the next morning the man was found on the side of the bank, where he had crawled, and here he was shot to death by one of the party. Some time elapsed, when one day a young fellow went to an old cistern about three-quarters of a mile west from Warren , to get brick with which to fill out a chimney. Having gone down into the cistern he found there the body of a man, and greatly frightened hurried back to the little town. At the news of a dead man found in the cistern, a load of nearly twenty men at once repaired to that point. Mr. William Kemp went down into the cistern and from the rubbish and dry sand unearthed the body of a man. His clothes were nearly rotten; his boots were examined and found to be No. 7; his hair and. whiskers were of a reddish brown mixed with gray; his weight about 140 pounds. One of his hands was gone. An examination showed that both hands were gone, and that they were cut and not rotted off. The cistern was carefully examined but no trace of the hands could be found. Before taking the body from the cistern the justice of the peace, Warren Park, was sent for. An inquest was held. Dr. Daniel M. Marshall was made foreman of the jurors, among whom were William Kemp, Mr. Cook, Wesley Hopper, R. R. Ward and Joseph Gibson.

The jury brought in a verdict that the man came to his death at the hand of some unknown person or persons. Some of the parties suspected were afterward tried for this murder. One of them turned state's evidence, but when brought on. the stand told nothing. On account of the lack of proof to establish the fact that this was the body of the man murdered by them, they escaped the stern justice that the public desired them to receive.

Many of the details of this ghastly crime will never be known until that great day when every secret thing shall be unraveled, unless the iron fingers of conscience shall wring a full confession from some one of the participants.

History of Mercer and Henderson Counties.

 

 

 

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