Charleston, Missouri Klan, 1869
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May 14, 1869 - The Charleston Courier - “Capture of the Captain of the Gang of Robbers” A gang of “robbers” robbed a Jewish peddler. The men were wearing black robes with broad white stripes of some material around the cuffs, gown, and caps. The material of the robe itself was black calico. “They found the prisoner at Charleston, Mississippi county, where he went immediately after the robbery. He is a young, good looking man by the name Sanders, and has been employed about Morley for some time. He confessed to all and told the names of his three accomplices, for each of whom our sheriff offers twenty-five dollars reward.”
-”Whether the designs of this organization was for robbery alone, or not, we cannot say, but think that men that would wear the uniform we have described, would stop at no crimes.” |
Photo of night riders wearing the same or similar clothing as mentioned in the Charleston Courier.
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Klan Activity In Southeast Missouri in 1871
On October 10, 1871, Governor B Gratz Brown ordered a miltia to be formed in Dunklin and Stoddard Counties for the purpose of ending the surge of Ku Klux Klan violence in the area. Colonel William L. Jeffers (formerly of the 8th Missouri Confederate Cavalry) was appointed by Adjutant General Albert Sigel to lead the Dunklin County posse, while Captain William Ringer of Stoddard County was the enrolling officer of that county. Each company would not exceed 100 men.
Colonel William Jeffers
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Col. Jeffers, town marshall of Clarkton, fled Clarkton (Dunklin County) after he ordered a party of the Klan to make peace while they were Clarkton. Enough threats were made against his life he fled north to Cape Girardeau.
Jeffers was no stranger to violence and leading men into battle. During the Civil War he raised the 8th Missouri Cavalry (CSA). His regiment fought well and had more success in Southeast Missouri during 1862, than any other Confederate unit that ever operated within the region during the Civil War.
Captain William Ringer enlisted one of the first units formed up in Stoddard County for the pro-Southern Missouri State Guard. Ringer is listed as a private in the Stoddard County Rangers, a mounted company that became Company C, 2nd Missouri Cavalry, MSG (McGee & Mayo).
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Several instances of violence throughout the region led to formation of the militia. A man in New Madrid County was threatened and has his window busted out, Don Scarlett was murdered, and Davis S. Beath of Bloomfield was forced to leave town when he denounced the whipping of Charles Long, a former union soldier. An African-American citizen in Allenville (Cape County) was visited by the masked men and warned not to attempt to build schools or churches for blacks in the area.
Governor Grats Brown was member of the Liberal Republican Party and an outspoken opponent of slavery. After the Civil War he supported Radical Republican legislation that created civil rights for African-Americans.
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Governor Brown enlisted the State Militia law after he read the report of Captain Edmund S. Woog, chief clerk in the Adjutant General's office. Woog recommended that prominent members, especially from surrounding counties, be enlisted into a militia force. His report found that while there were several prominent citizens from Stoddard and Dunklin Counties that had at first joined the Klan when they believed it was primarily a political organization, quit when they realized the group had other ideas. Many of those same men now believed that the Klan was, "only a band of horse theives, robbers, and murderers...fugitives from justice from Illinois, Arkansas, and Kentucky.
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Woog's report put most of the blame in Stoddard County on its sheriff, R. M. Fraker. According to Woog, Fraker had failed to fully investigate witnesses and perform his official duties. Woog condemned the counties leaders who signed a petition that begged for Klan to stop terrorizing the region instead of picking up arms to hunt them down (Bloomfield Vindicator, November 28, 1941). Woog later complimented Jeffers (acting as deputy sheriff) and Ringer on their work in expelling the Klan, at least temporarily, from the region (Bloomfield Vindicator).
Charleston Klan, 1871
September 30, 1871 - The Charleston Courier - “Ku Klux murderers are permitted to practice their crimes unmolested, fully illustrates the amicable relations existing between the Klan and the democratic officials in most of the lower counties. A Klansman in Tennessee attacked and whipped a tenant farmer near Union City, Tennessee. The klansman’s name was Dan Lacewell. He then before running off to Mississippi County, Missouri attacked the landowner, a Mr. Snow, by firing a shotgun at him and missing. Snow traveled to Missouri to eliminate him and did. Snow was caught in Tennessee and brought back to Mississippi County then to the St. Francis County jail for safe keeping. “He will have little hope of mercy, as his trial will take place in a community where his victim has the public sympathy simply because he was a Ku-Klux. Arrests for crimes committed in the lower counties are so rare as to cause surprise, and the one we now record may prove to be due to the fact that the man killed was Ku-Klux while Snow was an opponent of that good democratic organization.” -Ironton Enterprise