I decided to do some research for “The Lynching at Paris” and “Chasing Ashes”, again starting with the lynching at Versailles, Indiana.
Hoosier hospitality, of a different sort.
Ripley County, Indiana, LYNCHED FIVE (Genealogy Trails, 2025)
One hundred and thirty years later, the concept of mob law has largely faded into obscurity. The phenomenon, however uncommon, was once a prevalent reality. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, vigilante justice consumed the United States, claiming the lives of an unknown number of victims, many—if not most—of whom were innocent of the crimes of which they were accused. Indiana was no exception to these events; in fact, it became so infamous for mob violence that, at one point, it was used as justification by a southern governor for lynchings in his own state.3 With several dozen documented cases of lynchings, beatings, and tortures in the postbellum era, Indiana became well known for its mob law. The crucial matter lay in the isolation of swaths of southern Indiana, generated by the lack of rail lines, functional roadways, and telegram communication. This isolation created a fragmented state that, when 3 combined with economic hardships and struggles for modernization, fostered an environment where vigilante justice was seen as a tolerated and, at times, necessary evil.
Juicy stuff in that one, which looks like a paper from an IU student.
Versailles Lynching; The National Horse Thief Detective Association. (Alan E. Hunter, 2020)
In September of 1897, newspapers reported on the “Versailles lynching,” or the “Ripley lynching” in which 400 men on horseback came to the Ripley County jail demanding that five men there, all facing charges for burglary and theft, be turned over to them. County residents were being victimized by thieves that were becoming bolder and more aggressive – sometimes conducting their crimes in broad daylight. One of the most egregious of these, which was reported to have led to the lynching, was the alleged torture of an elderly couple who had hot coals put to their feet by men demanding money. The deputy in charge of the jail refused to turn over the keys, but was quickly overpowered.
“The mob surged into the jail, and, unable to restrain their murderous feeling, fired on the prisoners. Then they placed ropes around their necks, dragged them (behind horses) to some trees a square away and swung them up,” according to an account in the Sept. 15, 1897, issue of The Madison Courier. The men killed were Lyle Levi, Bert Andrews, Clifford Gordon, William Jenkins and Hiney Shuler.
When I wrote “A Lynching in Paris”, I put it in line with Indiana's Ku Klux Klan; it looks like I guessed right.
By 1926 there were still as many as 300 active companies of the National Horse Thief Detective Association in Indiana and neighboring states. The western states version was known as the National Anti-Horse Thief Association and out east, the Horsethief Detection Society (founded in Medford, Massachusetts around 1807). And while by this time, horses were few, crime had not diminished much. By the Roaring Twenties, most of the NHTDA agencies had formed alliances with the Ku Klux Klan. It is this late association with the KKK that hastened the end of the organization and forever tarnished its history.
D.C. Stephenson, Grand Dragon of the Indiana KKK, wanted to take advantage of the broad legal powers afforded to Indiana’s horse thief detective associations. Stephenson utilized the Hoosier NHTDA chapters, still on the books but mostly forgotten, as his “hidden” enforcement arm of the KKK. He succeeded in having KKK members infiltrate the group. The post-World War I atmosphere fomented fears of political radicals, outsiders, foreigners, seditionists and minorities which played right into Stephenson’s klan plan. Stephenson’s klan latched onto fears of racism and, particularly in Irvington, anti-Catholic sentiment at the time.
A true report from The Ripley County Historical Society (1969).
The Hanging Tree Historical Marker
Lynching at Versailles, Indiana (Newspapers.com™) and 17 Sep 1897 - LYNCHING IN INDIANA. (Trove, Australia), show this not some obscure event, but rather notorious. The New York Times has coverage behind a paywall.
I first heard of the lynching and the gang from my mother's mother, Estella Downes, who was born in Ripley County one year after the lynching.
But Indiana had a reputation for banditry and lynchings, if the first link above is correct there may have been a connection with the Reno Gang mentioned below.
A Terror to the People: The Evolution of an Outlaw Gang in the Lower Midwest (Midwest Social Sciences Journal, 2020)
The Reeves Gang never received the recognition of groups like the Jesse James or Dalton Gangs in the border region of the country, but they did manage to escape the wholesale lynching that fell upon the Reno and Archer Gangs, who also terrorized the same general area of Southern Indiana. And though the Reeves Gang never achieved the level of a “social bandit” group supported by local citizens, they did evolve beyond petty crimes in Indiana. Moving on to Kentucky, they become a sophisticated and far-reaching group of safe robbers. Over the years, newspaper stories about George and John Reeves were of great interest to the public, especially as the turn of the 19th century approached, and their surprise arrest in 1901 brought back the memories of the so-called Jesse James types of desperadoes to a nation just beginning to idealize the days of the American frontier. Thanks to the abundance of newspaper reports, the Reeves Gang’s story, lost to time until this study, adds rich narrative to the literature of criminal activity in the Lower Midwest in the post-Civil War era.
Midwest Social Sciences Journal has more than one Indiana connection - Valparaiso University and:
The Midwest Social Sciences Journal (previously Journal of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences) is committed to interdisciplinary social sciences scholarship. Its mission is to facilitate and advance the social sciences scholarship by publishing high-quality research. The Journal recognizes and supports the many diverse perspectives and methods in social sciences that directly address social issues and policies, including research that makes contributions to social science methodology.
We neither espouse nor champion any specific theoretical, methodological, ideological or political commitments. The Journal is committed to intellectual integrity, rigorous standards of scholarship, and rational and civil discourse. Papers are accepted for editorial review and publication in the journal at any time of the year from members and non-members of the Indiana Academy of the Social Sciences
Outlaw gangs of the 1870s and '80s (Hoosier History Live Podcast, 2021)
Billy the Kid and Indiana?
The Archer Gang – Terrorizing Indiana (Legends of America)
Much like the Reno Brothers had operated two decades earlier, the Archer brothers — Thomas, Mort, John, and Sam, raided Orange and Marion Counties in Indiana for several decades. Though these four were the primary members, the gang was estimated to have some 16 members, almost all of which were blood kin.
Though to the outside community, they were seen as respectable farmers and whetstone makers and millers, when their funds ran low, they turned “bandits.” They regularly robbed stagecoaches, trains, road travelers, and rusted horses and cattle. During these years, strangers, peddlers, and even regular citizens went missing, never to be seen again, and no trace of their bodies was ever found.
The Archer Gang, Indiana Outlaws on JSTOR (1947)
The Desperate Long & Phipps Outlaw Gang in 1845 (Phipps Genealogy)
Various earlier posts have discussed the Long and Phipps outlaw gang. The article below, which appeared in an Indianapolis paper in 1892, detailed events which had occurred far earlier, in 1845, but which were still fresh in the memory of some of the old-timers. The “Shack Phipps” discussed in the article was John Meshack Phipps, the same individual referred to as “Shack Phips” by Edward Bonney in his 1840s account The Banditti of the Prairies.
As mentioned before, John Meshack Phipps was the twin brother of Eli Shadrack Phipps, and both were sons of Jesse Phipps or Phips who had come to Owen County, Indiana about 1833 or 1834 from Ashe County, North Carolina. Jesse Phipps or Phips was a son of Samuel Phips (as most often spelled), who died in 1854 in Ashe County (now Alleghany County).
John Meshack Phipps married into the Long family and embarked on a life of crime with his Long relatives. The Bowling Green in Clay County which is mentioned in the article as a refuge for the outlaws is where John Meshack Phipps’s brother Mathew owned a store. Mathew operated that store until he suddenly supposedly “died,” being pronounced dead a few days after his close relatives robbed a competitor’s store.
The “Old Mother Long” discussed in the article was the mother in law of John Meshack Phipps. John married Mary Elizabeth Long in 1842 in Owen County, Indiana. Mary was a daughter of Jesse Long and his wife Levisa Stamper, who had also ventured out to Owen County, Indiana from Ashe County, North Carolina.
What Western features an outlaw gang in Seymour, Indiana. (True West Magazine). I've seen the movie; the scenery doesn't look much like Indiana (when does an Indiana movie look like Indiana -Breaking Away.), but added this to remind me that our history is obscure.
“But their biggest job came on May 22, 1868, when they hit the northbound Jefferson, Madison and Indianapolis train at Marshfield, south of Seymour. They broke into the Adams Express safes and grabbed approximately $96,000 in government bonds.
“That was just about the end of the gang. Within eight months, vigilantes lynched 10 of the outlaws, including three Reno brothers.
“The Renos were a remarkable outfit, far more sophisticated than most of their Wild West counterparts—and likely very influential. They received a lot of media attention at the time. Sam Bass was growing up only about 20 miles away; Billy the Kid was in Indianapolis at the time, and he must have been aware of what was happening 50 miles away. And it’s likely that the James-Younger Gang knew of the Renos’ exploits (Jesse and the boys hit the bank at Gallatin, Missouri, in 1869—the same town where John Reno robbed the county treasury in 1867). They may well have gotten the train robbery idea from the Renos.”
Train robbing as a profession began in Indiana with the Reno Gang (Indy Star, 2019) - maybe we should not have allowed people from Kentucky?
The Reno family, originally from Kentucky, made their way to Jackson County, Ind., around the 1820s.
Led by older brother Frank, who was joined by Simeon, John, and William (brother Clint did not participate) and other like-minded thugs, the Reno Gang cut a villainous path through Indiana as robbers, murderers and horse thieves. The Renos have the dubious distinction of carrying out the first robbery of a moving train in the United States. History credits the first train robbery in U.S. history to North Bend, Ohio in 1865. Bandits derailed the train before robbing it and its passengers.
***
William and Simeon Reno were later arrested by Pinkerton's detectives in Indianapolis and moved to a jail in New Albany. Charles Anderson and Frank Reno then were arrested in Windsor, Canada, and taken to New Albany to join the other gang members. On the night of Dec. 11, 1868, more than 65 members of the Scarlet Mask Society got off the train in New Albany, marched four abreast from the station to the jail and overtook the sheriff.
One by one the outlaws, beginning with Frank Reno, were dragged from their cell and hung from the top of the iron stairway on the second floor of the jail. By daybreak, the mob boarded the train back home.
Hoosier hospitality, again.
Out of Our Past: Notorious Old West outlaw Johnny Ringo (Pal-Item, 2021) - better known as Doc Holliday's huckleberry; see Tombstone.
No, I am not omitting Dillinger: The Outlaw (American Heritage; April 1995, Volume 46, Issue 2) n:58707
sch 10/25
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