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A Eulogy for the Victims of October 1878 Revisited
Since 1990 when German born American Ilse nee Dorsch Horachek made me aware of the tragedy of 1878, my wife Peg and I have researched, spoken, written and helped produce a short movie about those events. And in our historical novel, JUDGE LYNCH!, that we published in 2008 we called for a public monument to the victims to be erected on the southeast corner of the Posey County Courthouse campus where the bones of Daniel Harrison, Sr. may still be buried. Our principal focus has always been the injustice done to the victims and the shameful failings of our legal system. Finally, thanks mainly to teenager Sophie Kloppenburg with input from numerous others a memorial marker to the victims was erected on the campus of the Posey County Circuit Courthouse October 23, 2022. Sophie also organized a one-year commemoration that was held October 21, 2023 and asked Peg and me to participate. The following is the eulogy to the victims that was published in Gavel Gamut after the monument was dedicated in 2022.
EULOGY FOR THE VICTIMS OF OCTOBER 1878
BY
JUDGE JIM REDWINE
FIRST PUBLISHED THE WEEK OF OCTOBER 23, 2022
ACCORDING TO JOSEPH CAMPBELL, TO BE UNAWARE IS THE ULTIMATE SIN. FROM THE AUTUMN OF 1878 UNTIL TODAY, OCTOBER 23, 2022, IN SPITE OF NUMEROUS EFFORTS TO BRING THE CARNAGE TO LIGHT, MOST OF POSEY COUNTY, INDIANA STAYED WILLINGLY UNAWARE OF THE MEMORY OF THE SLAUGHTER OF DANIEL HARRISON, SR., THE BURNING ALIVE OF DANIEL HARRISON, JR., THE SHOOTING OF JOHN HARRISON, THE LYNCHING ON THE COURTHOUSE CAMPUS OF JIM GOOD, WILLIAM CHAMBERS, EDWARD WARNER AND JEFF HOPKINS AND THE POGROM THAT CAUSED ONE-HALF OF THE REMAINING NEGRO RESIDENTS OF POSEY COUNTY, INDIANA TO FLEE FOR THEIR LIVES.
THIS MEMORIAL RESTS WHERE LOCUST TREES ONCE BORE THE STRANGE BLACK FRUIT WITH ELONGATED TONGUES, BULGING EYES AND NUMEROUS BULLET HOLES FROM THE GUNS OF WHITE CITIZENS WHO USED THE BODIES FOR TARGET PRACTICE.
FINALLY, WE CAN DEDICATE CONCRETE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF THE WHITE CITIZENS’ ORCHESTRATED AND DISCIPLINED CAMPAIGN OF TERROR AGAINST THE BLACK COMMUNITY AND THE SHAMEFUL COWARDICE OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND THE NEWS MEDIA TO NOT ONLY CONDONE THE TERRORISM, BUT TO ACTIVELY HELP HIDE IT FROM HISTORY.
WE DO NOT CELEBRATE TODAY AND WE CANNOT ATONE FOR YESTERDAY. WE CAN, AND DO, ACKNOWLEDGE WRONGS LONG IGNORED AS WE GATHER ABOVE WHERE THE BONES OF DANIEL HARRISON, SR., MAY STILL LIE MOLDERING, AND WE CAN AND DO SAY TO ALL THOSE VICTIMS FROM OCTOBER, 1878, WE AS A COMMUNITY, FINALLY, ARE PUBLICLY AWARE.
A Dark Pall Lifted
This past Saturday, October 21, 2023 Posey County, Indiana held a vigil to honor the memories of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr. John Harrison, Jim Good, William Chambers, Jeff Hopkins and Edward Warner, all Black men who were murdered the week of October 12, 1878. The vigil began at 10:00 am Saturday morning at the Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon and concluded at the courthouse square that evening. The commemoration was organized by Mt. Vernon teenager Sophie Kloppenburg and, much as the lynchings themselves, was a public event.
The underlying circumstances leading to the lynchings were set out on the front page of the October/November 1878 editions of Mt. Vernon’s Western Star newspaper. Owner and editor John Leffel was an eyewitness to the murders. The following account of the matter comes from editor Leffel and was first published in Gavel Gamut November 07, 2005:
“When ‘three white women living in a quiet and lonely part of Mt. Vernon’ claimed they had been raped by several African-American men on Monday, October 7, 1878, a Posey County Grand Jury quickly returned indictments against Daniel Harrison, Jr., John Harrison, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, William Chambers, and Edward Hill.
On Tuesday, October 8, 1878, three white vigilantes took Daniel Harrison, Jr., from his father’s home and lynched him or threw him into the furnace of a railroad steam engine. On October 9, 1878, these same men returned to the Harrison home looking for John Harrison. They put a revolver to Daniel Harrison, Sr.’s, head and threatened to kill him. The men did not find John Harrison at the Harrison home, but did later dispose of him by putting his body into a hollow tree just east of Mt. Vernon.
Four white lawmen went to the Harrison home at 2:00 o’clock a.m., on Thursday, October 10, 1878, to arrest Edward Hill, who was rumored to be hiding at the Harrison home. At the time the lawmen arrived, Daniel Harrison, Sr., was home in bed, fully dressed and sleeping with a loaded shotgun due to the earlier instances at his home. During a melee at the home, Deputy Sheriff Cyrus O. Thomas was shot and killed, and Harrison, Sr., was charged with the shooting. Harrison, Sr., who had been shot during the melee, turned himself in that same October 10th morning. He was lodged in the Posey County Jail which was then located on the campus of our present courthouse.
Also, Jeff Hopkins, Jim Good, Edward Warner, and William Chambers had been taken into custody and were incarcerated with Daniel Harrison, Sr., in the Posey County Jail.
On the front page of Posey County’s Western Star newspaper edition of October 10, 1878, editors, John C. Leffel and S.D. McReynolds, stated:
“‘Jeff Hopkins, Jim Good, … and … other Negroes…forced an entrance into a house of ill-fame on First Street, Monday night, and raped the inmates there. …Jim Good is not as good as his name, this being the second time he has been guilty of this crime. …The girls raped were all white. A little hanging would do Jim Good a great deal of good.’”
Editor Leffel attended the jail break-in and the summary executions that took place two days after his article appeared. Much of the information in this article came from his accounts.
In the early morning hours of October 12, 1878, a mob broke into the jail, cut Daniel Harrison, Sr., into pieces and threw his body into the jail’s privy. Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, and William Chambers were dragged out of the jail and hanged from the locust trees ringing the courthouse. The four bodies were left hanging on the square until after the funeral of Cyrus O. Thomas, which took place the afternoon of October 12, 1878.
It was not unusual, especially in the south, for Negro lynch victims to be left hanging for an extended period of time as a “warning” to others who may have, also, “deserved hanging” but who had not been caught.
….
“By leaving the young men hanging on our public square all day, it would have been practically impossible for our law enforcement and judicial communities to be unaware of the lynchings.
However, even though the Posey County Prosecuting Attorney, the Judge and, in fact, most of Southern Indiana knew the men indicted for the rapes of the women and the murder of Officer Thomas had been killed in 1878, the legal system kept up a charade that the cases were going to be tried. Every term of court from 1878 to 1881, the cases were called, then “set over to the next term.”
During these three years, no action was taken against the people involved in the deaths of Daniel Harrison, Sr., Daniel Harrison, Jr., John Harrison, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Edward Warner, and William Chambers. In 1881, the Prosecutor, without fanfare, dismissed the indictments against the dead rape defendants. I have not been able to determine the ultimate fate of Edward Hill [he may have escaped to Indian Territory].
This was not our legal system’s finest hour. Of course, injustice is not the sole province of days gone by. Today, “lynchings” are usually more procedural than literal and can involve letting the guilty go free as well as convicting the innocent. Or they may involve imposing Draconian or effete punishment instead of justice.”
As for now, the month of October has almost come and gone again and the spectres that have haunted my mind since first learning of these horrific events in 1990 are less demanding due to the erection of the memorial in 2022.
Passion vs. Purpose
In October 2022 Posey County, Indiana finally erected a memorial to the murders of five Black men on the courthouse campus the evening of October 12, 1878 and two more Black men earlier that week. For years numerous persons called for such a monument but it took the hard work and dedication of a Mt. Vernon, Indiana teenager, Sophie Kloppenburg, to get it erected. A one-year commemoration ceremony has been organized by Ms. Kloppenburg for 21 October 2023. The public is invited.
Of the thousands of lynchings that have occurred in America over the years most have been the result of mob violence. A group of men, it was almost always white men fueled by prejudice and often alcohol, would rather spontaneously agree to “exact revenge” or “solve a problem” or some other ill-conceived motivation and proceed to use Judge Lynch instead of asking the legal system to address the situation with due process of law.
However, occasionally some of a community’s citizens would organize and carefully plan the murders and a coverup. That truly frightening situation is what occurred in Posey County, Indiana the autumn of 1878. As reported in the October 17, 1878 edition of the Western Star newspaper by owner and editor John Leffel who was an eyewitness to the events:
“Your reporter and one or two others privileged to enter the jail ran out into the beautiful Court House yard, shaded with heavy locusts. The night was clear, and a bright moon pouring its light down, made the scene ghostlike and impressive.
The crowd, consisting of two or three hundred, fell back across the street. For ten minutes it appeared to be a false alarm. But then was heard the steady tramp of two hundred feet, and a few minutes later fifty men entered the east gate and fifty men entered the north gate. The miserable guilty wretches on the inside began to pray and call on God to save them. But the one hundred men, the best of the county physically and probably in reputation, marched into the yard in files of two. Every man had on a long black mask, falling from forehead to chin, like the inquisition of old. All had changed their coats, some were turned inside out. Not a word was spoken until the leader demanded the keys to the jail.”
After the murders, Posey Circuit Court Judge William F. Parrett, Jr. convened a Grand Jury that returned a verdict that the seven Black men had been murdered by “a person or persons unknown.” Such a denial of justice defied credibility but was given lip service and silence by Posey County’s entire legal system as well as much of the populace.
While the actions of a disorganized mob would have certainly been awful, the well planned and disciplined murders and cover up bring to mind the terrifying evils of governmental power corrupted. When editor Leffel printed that JUDGE LYNCH had held court, the irony remains poignant. To judge in a court of law is everything a lynching is not. It is an oxymoron that the events of October 1878 and judging were juxtaposed.
However, thanks to the memorial marker that now stands where the locust trees upon which four of the seven murdered Black men were lynched, at least the great injustice is now publicly recognized.
How Truth Comes Out
It is October, my favorite month. The air is cool but one can work and play outside without a heavy jacket. When we walk through the still yet green grass the heavy dew leaves interesting evidence of our intrusion. While October has always brought a sense of contemplation to me, ever since I was made aware of the tragic events of that fateful October of 1878 in Mt. Vernon, Posey County, Indiana, my reverie for the month of October is haunted by the murders of Daniel Harrison, Sr., John Harrison, Daniel Harrison, Jr., Jim Good, William Chambers, Jeff Hopkins and Ed Warner.
Until March of 1990 I had no reason to be concerned about any spectres arising from my courthouse campus as I arrived for my work as the Circuit Court Judge. But on March 14, 1990 at the invitation of my friend, Ilse nee Dorsch Horachek, I spoke to the Posey County Coterie Library Society in my courtroom about the history of the courthouse. As a thank you, the Society presented me with a copy of William P. Leonard’s History and Directory of Posey County first published in 1882. That evening I read the history and at page 101 found the following passage:
“Annie McCool, a white prostitute, was murdered at Mt. Vernon, by some unknown person, in September 1878. Her murderer was supposed to have been a negro paramour.
Daniel Harris (a.k.a. Harrison), a negro, on October 11, 1878, shot and killed Cyrus Oscar Thomas, a son of Gen. W. Thomas, Esq. of Mt. Vernon, while the latter was in discharge of his duty as Deputy Sheriff. Harris was indicted by the grand jury at the October term of the Circuit Court in 1878, and at the August term of that court in 1881, the prosecutor, William H. Gudgel, entered a nolle prosequi. It is supposed by some and denied by others that Harris was murdered by the friends of his victim who disposed of his body by means which will forever leave its whereabouts a mystery.
James Good, Jeff Hopkins, Wm. Chambers and Edward Warner, all colored were hanged October 12, 1878, by a body of unknown men, from trees in the Public Square, at Mt. Vernon for murders and other heinous acts committed by them during that year.”
My family and I had lived in Mt. Vernon since 1976. I was deeply involved in the Posey County legal system as the Chief Deputy Prosecuting Attorney from 1976 to 1979 and had been serving as a Posey County Judge since 1981 at the time I read this brief passage. I had never had anyone ever mention these events. I telephoned my friend Ilse and asked her if she was aware of them. Ilse came to my chambers that day and brought me a copy of a microfilmed newspaper article from the Western Star newspaper; a portion of the front page of that article is set out below:
John C. Leffel who was the editor of the newspaper and who had personally interviewed the five men who were murdered and was an eye witness to the event set the tone for how the community should react when he editorialized that Posey County should just “[L]et the appropriately dark pall of oblivion cover the whole transaction.” And that is what occurred for over 100 years until Ilse brought me the article. It is one of this dark event’s great ironies that Ilse nee Dorsch Horachek was born in Germany and married American soldier Corporal Gene Horachek who was from Mt. Vernon, Indiana. Gene’s ancestor was the Deputy Sheriff O.C. Thomas who was killed in the line of duty. Officer Thomas’ name is enshrined on the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial for officers killed in the line of duty. His memory is appropriately still honored by the Horachek family and is one of the reasons Ilse was familiar with the lynchings. Another reason is because Ilse was personally familiar with the evil we humans are capable of visiting upon one another as she observed the atrocities of Hitler’s Third Reich. Ilse’s extraordinary life includes having met Hitler when she was four years of age in 1934 and then later being horrified by his actions. See her interesting book Flowers for Hitler.
Another irony in the exposé of the long forgotten collective violence of October 1878 is the involvement of a remarkable teenager named Sophie Kloppenburg whose mother is German and whose father was Black. Sophie’s mother works in Mt. Vernon, Indiana where Sophie just graduated from high school. She is now attending college at Columbia University on scholarship. Sophie has worked tirelessly and successfully to have a memorial to the victims of 1878 erected on the courthouse campus. She has also organized a one-year anniversary memorial ceremony that will include a panel discussion at 10 am at the Alexandrian Public Library in Mt. Vernon and a vigil at each of the four corners of the courthouse campus beginning at 6 pm. The events will take place Saturday, October 21, 2023; the public is invited to both.
Mr. Leffel’s scheme of allowing these collective atrocities to be left in the dustbin of history has been frustrated. Ilse’s eyewitness to Hitler’s crimes along with her coincidental connection to Officer Thomas, my childhood of growing up in segregated Osage County, Oklahoma, and Sophie’s German and Black heritage have all come together along with the involvement and contributions of many other current Posey County residents have finally come together to lift that dark pall of oblivion.
Taken from The Police Gazette (1878).
Edited by Gene Smith and Jayne Barry Smith
An Armadillo Ranch?
On Sunday, September 18, 2023 some person or persons cut through the wire cages of a mink farm in Pennsylvania and released six to eight thousand minks that were bred for their fur. It is assumed animal rights activists freed the mink and released them upon the surrounding human populace who are being cautioned to not approach any escaped mink they may encounter as the animals are definitely not cuddly and they have no edible value.
This event has exacerbated the ongoing debate between friends of the animal world, who probably cannot afford mink coats, and entrepreneurs and rich people. One objection from the Free Mink Now crowd is the mink are slaughtered just for their pelts; their flesh does not appear on the dinner plates of people sporting the fur. Unlike cattle that provide food and whose hides are put to innumerable uses or hogs that provide bacon and whose hides provide footballs, mink are raised solely to be skinned. Perhaps if mink farmers could switch to some animal whose value did not lie in its outer covering alone, the environmentalists might not be so militant.
Such a prospect came to mind when I discovered multiple armadillo holes in Peg’s flower beds. What if instead of running over them on our roads or seeing them lying on their backs with their four paws sticking up in the air surrounding an empty beer can, we started ranching armadillos for sale? There would be many advantages over raising cattle or hogs. First of all, they are everywhere and they are free. They appear wherever insects and grubs appear and they feed and water themselves. It is true that the fences would need to be extended down about five feet and barbed wire will not hold them. But with a few solid pine slats they could be penned in. After all, they are as nearsighted as Mr. Magoo and only move about five miles per hour. They should be easy to recapture even if they escape.
And in some countries people hunt armadillos for food. One of my friends from Mexico got upset with me when I told him I had shot an armadillo that was digging up one of Peg’s flower beds. My friend told me his family like the meat and that those old wives tales about leprosy were greatly exaggerated. His stance reminded me of my dear departed father who grew up so poor his family ate practically anything, squirrels, opossums, raccoons you name it. If it moved, they ate it. If it didn’t, they used it for fertilizer.
So, I suggest we start a new agricultural industry based on armadillo scales. Forget mink. We could even call upon fancy French clothes designers to dress those stick-like models on the red carpet with armadillo “fur”. It could be the new rayon or plastic type covering. They could sell it as “Putting on one’s armor of righteousness” or whatever the patrons of Hobby Lobby are comfortable with.
Not That Long Ago
My childhood friend and neighbor Gary Malone was killed in combat in Viet Nam July 28, 1966. On Sunday, September 10, 2023 President Biden stood in front of United States and Vietnamese flags and announced a strategic partnership with Viet Nam, more honestly identified as a pseudonym for military assistance. It is generally understood that this military realignment is to counter balance Viet Nam’s reliance on its neighbor China. China was North Viet Nam’s main supporter when the United States was fighting a 20-year war against it (1955-1975).
Gary cannot express his feelings about his country’s rapprochement with the people our government sent him to fight. But I may soon get to see his brother, Bud Malone, who along with Gary’s twin, Jerry, also saw combat in Viet Nam. Maybe Bud and I will discuss the war and Gary and Jerry or more likely, since Bud is Osage and we have been friends for almost 80 years, not much will need to be said. Perhaps a song from the musical Les Misérables can help fill the void:
♪….
Oh my friends, my friends forgive me
That I live and you are gone
There’s a grief that can’t be spoken
There’s a pain goes on and on
…
Oh my friends, my friends don’t ask me
What your sacrifice was for
Empty chairs at empty tables
Where my friends will meet no more ♪
When American young people were both fighting and protesting the Viet Nam War our government was issuing vague exhortations about the need to stop the advance of Communism in China and the U.S.S.R. (today’s Russia). In fact, as Gary and 58,000 more members of our generation were serving and being killed in Viet Nam, our government’s pronouncements then sound much like our government’s rationales for war today. We must fight China, Russia, Iran and a myriad of other perceived enemies there now so we will not have to fight them here later. The one constant we can rely on is that old people will do now what old people did then when 22-year-old Gary gave his life for what he believed in. That is, our government will send young people to pay the price.
My guess is Gary would support peace and even friendship now with Viet Nam and even China, Russia, Iran, etc., so other people on all sides might avoid an early death from armed conflict. Of course, I cannot ask Gary today what he would think as if he were an 80-year-old. We all struggle to understand how that puzzling young person we used to be would react today. I do remember I started out believing the government and supporting the war then slowly realized we had been misled by our leaders who were themselves misled by false intelligence and bad judgment. Gentle Reader, does that remind you of our recent wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and even, perhaps, Ukraine?
Peace and friendship with Viet Nam do not denigrate the honorable service of Gary and his fallen comrades. Rather they validate the ideals they stood for. The issue is not was their sacrifice in vain? It was not, as long as we do not forget it and as long as we learn from it. Rest in peace my young friend. Your former adversary and your beloved country have finally come full circle building upon your service. We must now guard against our new alliance helping to lead us into a new conflict with another old enemy. Your memory deserves better.