be sound in body and mind. Among the lawyers engaged in the trial was John Jamison of Callaway County. He was noted as a great "jury lawyer." In the course of the trial a young doctor was introduced as a witness to testify as to the ailments of the negro. He used such technical language that neither the Court, jury nor lawyers knew any more about what was the matter with the negro than they did before he testified. Jamison, in his speech to the jury, said, "Gentlemen, you heard the testimony of the young doctor. His learning is great and his knowledge of disease surpasses anything that has ever been heard in court. You gentlemen are uneducated, ignorant farmers and know nothing of the organization of the human body. It is only the lawyers that fully understood what the doctor said. I will try to tell you in language that you can understand what was the matter with the negro and what caused his death. Gentlemen, he had the Bum Gajum of the tetotum, or the whole prosinority of the circumfradunction." Jamison won the case, and the young doctor left the neighborhood to hunt practice elsewhere.

The major part of my time was spent in listening to stories by Martin and others in the daytime and "doing society" in the evening.

V

1858-1860

The Small-pox Scare-Lynching in Lincoln County -Admitted to the Bar-The Lincoln-Douglas Debate at Quincy - Electioneering - Elected Circuit Attorney-Marriage at Louisiana.

The County Court of Pike County had in 1857 authorized the building of a new jail. The contract was made and work begun in January, 1858. The iron and steel work was carried forward by laborers from the city of St. Louis. These laborers secured quarters and board in Blain's Hotel. Shortly after they came, one of them broke out with a malignant case of smallpox. The sick man was removed to an old vacant house about a mile away, where he shortly afterwards died. Many were exposed to the disease and especially the children of Mr. Blain. Doctor Stephen J. Reynolds was the attending physician who vaccinated all of the Blains and many more.

It became at once a battle royal between smallpox and vaccination. The latter prevailed and the cases (there were several) that appeared did not get beyond the milder type. It was a complete demonstration, as I thought, of the efficacy of vaccination. The people were greatly alarmed. One morning when I woke up, I discovered that my whole body was broken

out in red splotches. This frightened me, of course, and I felt certain that I had a genuine case of smallpox. I sought Dr. Reynolds, who made a close and thorough inspection and, to my great joy, pronounced it a case of "nettle rash."

There was a man by the name of Braustetter living about eight miles from Bowling Green in Indian Creek township, who happened to be in Bowling Green when the sick man was removed from the hotel. He was no closer to the wagon that carried the patient away than a half block, but he became infected and in a few days thereafter died. He communicated the disease to others in his neighborhood who also sickened and died.

The excitement attending the appearance of this disease speedily subsided and the citizens turned their attention to matters more pleasant to contemplate.

Having spent Christmas with my mother on the farm in Lincoln County, I was at the county seat on the 1st of January, 1858. The first day of the year was the time fixed by general consent for the sale and hire of negro slaves. There was a large assemblage of individuals there, some of whom went for the purpose of settling up accounts at the stores (settlements were usually made on that day), some for selling or buying of slaves, others for hiring of slaves, and many others were idle spectators.

An incident occurred that day that would never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. On the evening before Christmas a man by the name of Thornhill was stabbed to death by a negro slave belonging to him. The facts were briefly these: The merchants (there were four or five of them) of Troy

got their goods from St. Louis via the Mississippi River to Cap-Au-Gris and thence by wagon across the country to Troy. Thornhill was engaged by the merchants to haul their goods. This he did with a wagon and four horses driven by a negro man named Giles. Giles had been to Cap-Au-Gris for a load of goods on the day before Christmas, and returning by way of his master's house, reached there late in the evening to stay overnight. Thornhill at the time was under the influence of liquor and for some trivial cause began to abuse Giles, and finally without any justification whatever, assaulted and beat him severely with a large pair of "bridle bits." The assault was vicious and unprovoked, and the negro in absolute self-defense, and to save his own life, stabbed Thornhill with a small pocket knife. Thornhill died the next day from the effects of the wound. The negro was arrested and lodged in the jail at Troy. There he remained until the first day of January.

A neighbor of Thornhill's, by the name of Calloway, was in Troy on that day. Mounted on a block in front of Parker's store, he began to harangue the crowd about the death of Thornhill. He appealed to the people to go to the jail and take the negro out and burn him. A few hot-headed, vicious and drunken men responded to this appeal, and armed with hammers and bars went to the jail and overpowered, or rather over-awed the sheriff, Peachy Shelton, broke open the door and led Giles (who was already shackled) out into the yard.

The only effort to stop the mob was feebly made by Shelton, who said, "Gentlemen, for God's sake, let the law take its course!" A great crowd of men

stood silent, without even a protest, and witnessed the mob (a half dozen men) prepare for the burning of this faithful old negro. There was an old fence around the jail, made of rails that were dry as tinder. A post made of one of these was driven into the ground and Giles fastened to it. The mob then took more rails from the fence and built a three-cornered pen around the poor defenseless negro and set it on fire. He was burned to death and his body entirely destroyed.

In a few days after this, Aylett H. Buckner, who was the Judge of the Circuit Court, called a special grand jury to inquire into the death of Giles, and to indict those who had caused it. The grand jury met but failed to return an indictment, not because the murderers were unknown, but simply because they were pro-slavery men and believed that the negro had no right to strike in self-defense. I witnessed this great outrage but was powerless to prevent it. The Grand Jury failed to indict, but justice did not sleep. Each and every one of the ring leaders, including Calloway, Segrass, and others, in a little while met violent deaths.

This great wrong and the failure of the people of the County of Lincoln to enforce the law against the murderers, cast a stain on the county from which, after more than sixty years, it has not fully recovered. This great outrage upon the life of a human being, and the utter failure of those charged with the enforcement of law to prosecute the wilful and deliberate murderers was the necessary result of the teachings of those who advocated the right of a white man to own a black one, and to deny to the latter the