Luther B. Taylor

Other Events:

• Note: Proof argument, partial, verifying that the Luther Benton \"Bent\" Taylor who was hanged in Clay Co ARK is the same one that was the son of John Taylor and married Marcilla DeBoard: 1. 1880 census his brother Riley J. Taylor is in Clay Co ARK. Living in his home is William Mulholland who was with Bent at the time of the murder, and who testified against Bent at trial (turned state\'s evidence) to save himself). 2. The Chicago article states that Bent\'s wife was living in Howell County. 3. Riley J. and Bent are both placed in John Taylor\'s 1860 census home in Howell Co MO 4. Riley J. Taylor's Goodspeed bio for Clay Co ARK, states that he was the sone of John Taylor and Sarah Carey, that they moved from the east to Clay Co ARK around 1852 and stayed there until around 1859, when they moved to Howell Co MO. After serving in the Civil War he returned to Clay Co in 1865 and settled there. [Just a start, but convicting.]
• Census: 16 Jul 1860, Willow Springs township, Howell County, Missouri, USA; 1. Taylor, John, 46, male, farmer, real estate $500, personal $500, Tennessee 2. _____, Mary J., 26, female, \"Dom\" [domestic?], Illinois 3. _____, Alexander, 26, male, farmer, real estate $300, personal $150, Tennessee 4. _____, Riley J., 21, male, farmer, real estate $100, personal $150, Tennessee 5. _____, Nancy J., 12, female, Missouri 6. _____, Martha J., 5, female, Arkansas 7. _____, Luther B., 3, male, Arkansas 8. _____, Adina, 8 months, female, Missouri
• Census: 16 Jul 1860, Howell County, Missouri, USA; 1. Taylor, John, 46, male, farmer, real estate $500, personal $500, Tennessee 2. _____, Mary J., 26, female, \\\"Dom\\\" [domestic?], Illinois 3. _____, Alexander, 26, male, farmer, real estate $300, personal $150, Tennessee 4. _____, Riley J., 21, male, farmer, real estate $100, personal $150, Tennessee 5. _____, Nancy J., 12, female, Missouri 6. _____, Martha J., 5, female, Arkansas 7. _____, Luther B., 3, male, Arkansas 8. _____, Adina, 8 months, female, Missouri
• Census: 25 Aug 1870, Goldsberry township, Howell County, Missouri, USA; 1. Smith, James K. P., 23, male, white, farmer, real estate $500, personal $300, Missouri 2. _____, Mary J., 34, female, white, keeping house, Illinois 3. Taylor, Martha J., 15, female, white, Arkansas, attended school 4. _____, Luther B., 12, male, white, farm hand, Arkansas, attended school 5. _____, Adina, 10, female, white, at home, Missouri, attended school 6. _____, Sarah A., 9, female, white, Missouri, attended school 7. _____, Nancy [initial?], 6, female, white, Missouri 8. Smith, James [C.?], 1, male, white, Missouri 9. _____, Trissa C., 2 months, female, white, Missouri, [March?]
• Census: 17 Jun 1880, Chapel township, Howell County, Missouri, USA; 1. Crowder, M. Jane, white, female, 25, widowed, keeping house, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois 2. _____, L. Jane, white, female, 5, daughter, at home, attending school, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas 3. _____, L. Bell, white, female, 3, daughter, at home, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas 4. _____, J. Cora, white, female, 8 months, born in September, daughter, at home, Missouri, Tennessee, Arkansas 5. Taylor, S Ann, white, female, sister, single, at home, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois 6. _____, N. Susan, white, female, 16, sister, at home, Missouri, Tennessee, Illinois 7. _____, L. Benton, white, male, 22, brother, single, farm labor, Arkansas, Tennessee, Illinois
• Newspaper Article: 3 Aug 1881; From the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn): \"Turned Her Loose A Little Fracas which Transpired over in Arkansas Little Rock, August 2?Information of a serious shooting affray in this county reached here yesterday from Corning. Bent Taylor and Emery Poe are the names of the parties. They are brothers-in-law, living on adjoining farms about ten miles back from Corning. Poe\'s sister is Taylor\'s wife. Last Saturday the men got into a dispute. Strong words followed. Poe quickly lost all self-possession, and began climbing over the fence to get at Taylor. Taylor, who had his gun with him, brought it back to his shoulder, and commanded Poe to climb back. Poe perished in coming over, and his adversary \"turned her loose,\" the rifle ball entering Poe\'s shoulder and ranging down his back. Physicians were called and pronounced the wound of a very dangerous character. Taylor went to Corning and gave himself up to the authorities. The wounded man declines to prosecute him, and the shooter was released on a promise being given to be on hand at the next term of Court.\"
• Newspaper Article: 4 Aug 1881; From the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.): \"Bent Taylor shot his brother-in-law, Emory Poe, near Corning, Clay County, Arkansas, last Saturday. Wound dangerous.
• Newspaper Article: 22 Apr 1882; From the Chicago Daily News: \"Corning, Ark., April 21.?Luther Benton Taylor was hanged here to-day for the murder of Riley Block [sic]. Last night he was confined to the court-house, strongly guarded. He denied having slain Block [sic], but admitted the murder of Judge Kilgore, who was shot down some months ago in his home while he carried one of his children. Taylor held a sort of levee from 9 a.m. till taken to the gallows. Several ministers prayed and sang with him, and nearly one hundred women of respectability thronged his room, many weeping piteously as they shook his hand. These sympathetic tears so unnerved him that he, too, broke down and wept. At 11 o\'clock he ate a hearty dinner, made a careful toilet, after which he was led to the scaffold erected on the outskirts of town. Nearly four hundred people were gathered around it. After singing and prayer Taylor declined to make any confession, but declared that he died for the crime of another. He was calm and resolute. When the cap was adjusted he raised it, saying \"Goodby, all.\" The trap was sprung, breaking his neck and killing him instantly. His last request was that he might be buried by the side of Rilly Block [sic], whom he was hung for murdering. \'I am only about 25, but feel as if I had lived sixty years,\' was the remark of Luther B. Taylor, a few hours before his death on the gallows. The expression conveyed no dread of his approaching doom, but only the remembrance of manifold and various crimes packed in the few years he had lived. He was born in Clay county, Arkansas, in 1851, of parents in comfortable circumstances, who indulged his idle inclinations. His father, mother, brother, and two sisters are still living. His education was neglected, embracing only enough knowledge of reading to devour with avidity the yellow-covered trash from which he drew ideal heroes, and to which he no doubt owes a long stride in his downward career. When he should have been at school or at work, he was scouring the woods, rifle in hand, accompanied by a brace of hounds, subsisting on game, and amusing his resting hours with dime blood-and-thunder narratives. Before he was 14 years old he had figured in such questionable transactions that Arkansas became too hot for him, and he was self-exiled to southern Missouri. That debatable ground was still the theater of a guerrilla warfare of assassination and rapine, the legacy of the passions and prejudices engendered by the rebellion. Capt. Monks, of West Plains, led a band of union partisans, and against them contended the Alsups, a gang of ex-confederates, who kept up an internecine strife against tremendous odds. Taylor fought on either side indifferently for the fun of laughter. He was a ready-made desperado when the warring neighbors laid down arms and shook hands He gloried in approving himself \"desperate\" by nerve and recklessness. He never told how many men he had slain, but admitted they were many. One of the first events after his marriage was his trial and acquittal on charge of murder. His wife, now living in Howell county, Missouri, is said to be a young woman of beauty intelligence, and refinement, who became infatuated with the dashing and handsome young ruffian, clinging to him to the last with rare devotion. The murder for which Taylor suffered was committed near [Neilville?], on the Iron Mountain railroad, on Dec 29, 1880. After a day\'s spree he had started homeward with Riley Block [sic] and William Mulholland. They stopped by the roadside and drained a bottle of whisky. A quarrel arose and Taylor, with one lunge, cut Block\'s [sic through from ear to ear The murderer and Mulholland rode away, leaving Block to die where he fell. The body was found soon afterward, and Taylor and Mulholland were arrested. The former escaped, but was recaptured. At the trial, Mulholland, to save his own neck, turned state\'s evidence, and on the witness stand described the murder graphically. His testimony could not be impeached, and Taylor was convicted and sentenced to death. After sentence Taylor was lodged in the state\'s prison at Little Rock for safekeeping. No effort was spared to secure executive clemency, but Gov. Churchill could find no reason to interfere. Shortly before his execution, Taylor said that but for his family he had as lief die by the rope as in any other way He admitted that he had killed Riley Block, but said that no one saw him do the deed. Speaking of his companion in crime, he said: \'As for Mulholland, may God have mercy upon him. When my spirit is freed from the body I only crave one thing?whether I go heavenward or to Hades?and that is to be allowed to haunt hi. I would like to be with him everywhere, an invisible demon, torturing him until life became a burden, and at length driving him to destruction and despair. When I am gone I don\'t want him to know a moment\'s peace, a happy home, or a prosperous day.\' \"
• Newspaper Article: 22 Apr 1882; From the New York Herald (New York, N.Y.). This very long article appears not to be very reliable. Was he hung for killing Emory Poe or Riley Black? Tells of his involvement with post-civil war border terrorists, mentions Howell County. Excerpts of a long article: \"This afternoon Luther B. Taylor was hanged at this place for the murder of Riley Black. . . . \" \'I was born in a humble home in Clay County, Ark., sometime in 1857?twenty-five years since. Up to my fourteenth year my life was as peaceful as the waves on the Black River, which ran almost beside my father\'s door. . . . I went to Southern Missouri. In this section of country I found myself in the midst of scenes as exciting as they were horrible. The feelings engendered by the war had not yet died out, and vendettas were raging everywhere. In Howell county Bill Monks and his noted band were making a life and death struggle\' in Douglas county the Allsups held sway, and life was held more lightly there than anything else in the country. . . . \' \" \" \'I married a fair girl, and for a time was happy and contented. . . .\"
• Newspaper Article: 28 Apr 1882; From the Fort Smith Elevator, Fort Smith, Arkansas: \"Bent Taylor was hung at Corning, Clay county, on Friday last. He was led to the scaffold protesting his innocence, and stuck to it to the last.\"

Notes:

Taken from republished articles in the Clay County
Courier, Corning, Clay County, Arkansas.[1882]

Bent TAYLOR and Wm. MULLHOLLEN were brought from jail
at Boydsville by Sheriff J.A. McNEIL to face the grand
jury investigating the murder of Riley BLACK on
December 29, 1881. Each accused the other of the crime,
but evidence showed that TAYLOR was the guilty one.
Jacob BROBST, foreman of the grand jury, is to be
commended for the indictment. The Klan vowed death to
any juror who found TAYLOR guilty.

The trial of Bent TAYLOR found him guilty and he has
been sentenced to hang on April 21 at 1 p.m. The Klan
were in town to free him but so many deputies were on
hand they were afraid to make an attempt. the prisoner
was sent to the penitentiary of Little Rock for safe
keeping until execution. His partner, Wm. MULLHOLLEN
turned states evidence and received a sentence of five
years.

Judge J.Buck KILGORE is the citizen honored by the name
of our township. Pioneer citizens recall his
assassination in 1877. It is the opinion that Bent
TAYLOR, hanged last April for the murder of Riley BLACK
was the perpetrator of the KILGORE murder.

New Year's 1882 begins with a fresh chapter in the wave
of crime that has been sweeping this side of the county
since the removal of the county seat to Boydsville in
1877. This chapter is titled Murder. On December 29th,
Riley BLACK, Bent TAYLOR and Wm. MULHOLLEN of the
Vidette Community, after spending the day at
Neelyville saloons, were returning home and the body of
RILEY was discovered the next morning on the road out
of Missouri with his throat sliced from ear to ear. A
coroner's jury was convened and RILEY's companions have
been lodged at Boydsville on the charge of murder.
The three principals are thought to belong to the gang
of outlaws that has disturbed the peace of the Western
District since the 1877 bushwacking of Judge KILGORE.
The grand jury that meets in February should give this
outrage a full and completer examination.

------------------------------------------------ END

Birth:
States his birth in Clay County, Arkansas, in 1857.

Luther married Marcilla Vitura Deboard on 14 Sep 1880 in Howell County, Missouri, USA. Marcilla (daughter of Joel Franklin "Franklin" Deboard and Margaret Ann "Ann" McKenzie) was born about 1861 in White County, Illinois, USA; died after 1901. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Married:
No known issue.

Other Events:

• Census: 29 Aug 1850, Castor township, Stoddard County, Missouri, USA; 1. Taylor, John, 36, male, farmer, Tennessee 2. _____, Alexander, 16, male, farmer, Tennessee, attended school 3. _____, Riley [J.? T.?], 13, male, Tennessee, attended school 4. _____, Nancy, 2, female, Missouri
• Census: 16 Jul 1860, Willow Springs township, Howell County, Missouri, USA; 1. Taylor, John, 46, male, farmer, real estate $500, personal $500, Tennessee 2. _____, Mary J., 26, female, \"Dom\" [domestic?], Illinois 3. _____, Alexander, 26, male, farmer, real estate $300, personal $150, Tennessee 4. _____, Riley J., 21, male, farmer, real estate $100, personal $150, Tennessee 5. _____, Nancy J., 12, female, Missouri 6. _____, Martha J., 5, female, Arkansas 7. _____, Luther B., 3, male, Arkansas 8. _____, Adina, 8 months, female, Missouri

Notes:

Died:
Based on his daughter Nancy's birth ca 1864, and his wife's remarriage ca 1868 (first child to new marriage b 1869).

John married Mary Jane Reece between 1850 and 1855. Mary was born about 1834 in Illinois, USA; and died. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

In exchanging e-mail with a descendant of Martha's sister, Sarah A. TAYLOR; Sheryl Karlowski-Brown. Sheryl was in possession of the death certificate of Sarah A. TAYLOR, which listed her parents as John TAYLOR and Jane REECE.

I have been told that the name was REECE, but there are so many REESES in Howell Co that I think it is possibly an alternate spelling.

Notes:

Married:
Marriage date is a guess based on: It would appear from the 1860 census that Mary J. was the mother of the youngest three children, Martha J., Luther B. and Adena. There is a 7-yr gap up to the next child, Nancy J., who would have been born when Mary J. was only 14. It would seem reasonable to assume that John Taylor was previously married and had at least three children by the first marriage. There is a 20-year age gap between Mary J. and John Taylor.