Luther B. Taylor b. Abt 1857 Clay County, Arkansas, USA d. 21 Apr 1882 Corning, Clay County, Arkansas, USA: Our Family History

Abt 1857 - 1882 (~ 25 years)

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Name	Luther B. Taylor [1]
Born	Abt 1857	Clay County, Arkansas, USA [1, 2]
	States his birth in Clay County, Arkansas, in 1857.
Gender	Male
Census	16 Jul 1860	Willow Springs township, Howell County, Missouri, USA [3]
	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 [3]
	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 [4]
	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 [5]
	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 [6]
	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 [7]
	From the Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.): \"Bent Taylor shot his brother-in-law, Emory Poe, near Corning, Clay County, Arkansas, last Saturday. Wound dangerous.
Died	21 Apr 1882	Corning, Clay County, Arkansas, USA [2]
Newspaper Article	22 Apr 1882 [8]
	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 [9]
	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 [10]
	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.\"
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.] [11]
Person ID	I1181	Full
Last Modified	8 Aug 2021

Father	John Taylor, b. Abt 1814, Tennessee, USA , d. 1866, Howell County, Missouri, USA (Age ~ 52 years)
Mother	Mary Jane Reece, b. Abt 1834, Illinois, USA , d. Yes, date unknown
Married	Between 1850 and 1855
	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.
Family ID	F481	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

Family	Marcilla Vitura Deboard, b. Abt 1861, White County, Illinois, USA , d. After 1901 (Age ~ 41 years)
Married	14 Sep 1880	Howell County, Missouri, USA [12, 13]
	No known issue.
Last Modified	23 Jun 2018
Family ID	F412	Group Sheet \| Family Chart

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

Sources

[S165] Missouri, Howell - census 1860 (Ancestry), Missouri, Howell County, (http://www.ancestry.com: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).
[S4871] "The Halter's Haul: Three Assassins Launched into Eternity Yesterday by Statutory Process," Daily Inter Ocean (Chicago, Ill.), 22 April 1882, p. 2, col. 7; digital image, GenealogyBank (http://genealogybank.com/ : downloaded 2 August 2015).
[S5384] 1860 U.S. census, Howell County, Missouri, population schedule, Willow Springs township, p. 54 (penned), [no stamped no.], dwelling 353, family 353, IJohn Taylor household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 June 2018); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 624. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7667/4233973_00054/40283990.
[S5389] 1870 U.S. census, Howell County, Missouri, population schedule, Goldsberry township (Willow Springs post office), p. 8 (penned), p. 477b (stamped), dwelling 55, family 55, James K. P. Smith household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 23 June 2018); citing NARA microfilm publication M593, roll 780. https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/7163/4273255_00490/2213107.
[S4481] 1880 U. S. census, Howell County, Misosuri, population schedule, Chapel township, enumeration district (ED) 52, p. 23 (penned, recto), p. 468 (stamped, recto), dwelling 183, family 183, M. Jane Crowder household; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : downloaded 5 September 2014); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 691.
[S5379] \"Turned Her Loose: A Little Fracas Which Transpired over in Arkansas,\" Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), 3 August 1881, p. 2, col. 7; digital image GenealogyBank (https: www.genealogybank.com : accessed 23 June 2018).
[S5378] \"News From Our Neighbors,\" item for Bent Taylor, Commercial Appeal (Memphis, Tenn.), 4 August 1881, p. 5, col. 5; digital image GenealogyBank (https: www.genealogybank.com : accessed 23 June 2018).
[S5382] \"On the Gallows High: Luther Benton Taylor\'s Fate,\" Chicago Daily News (Chicago, Ill.), 22 April 1882, p. 1, col. 1; digital image GenealogyBank (https: www.genealogybank.com : accessed 23 June 2018).
[S5381] \"Execution of L. B. Taylor,\" New York Herald (New York, N.Y.), 22 April 1882, p. 2, col. [?]; digital image GenealogyBank (https: www.genealogybank.com : accessed 23 June 2018).
[S5380] \"State News: Gathered From our State Papers and Correspondents,\" Fort Smith Elevator (Fort Smith, Ark.), 28 April 1882, p. 2, col. 4, item for Bent Taylor; digital image GenealogyBank (https: www.genealogybank.com : accessed 23 June 2018).
[S157] Taylor, Riley J. - Bio, Clay Co Ark (book, Goodspeed), («i»Clay County, Arkansas, Genealogical Homepage«/i» (http://www.couchgenweb.com/arkansas/clay/), "Goodspeed Biography, Surnames M-Z," entry for R.I. Taylor [Riley I. Taylor], Clay County, Arkansas; citing «i»Biographical and historical memoirs of northeast Arkansas : comprising a condensed history of the state, a number of biographies of distinguished citizens of the same, a brief descriptive history of each of the counties named herein, and numerous biographical sketches of the prominent citizens of such counties«/i» (Chicago : Goodspeed Pub. Co., 1889).).
[S135] DeBoard - Misc Letters written by the DeBoard family (Roley), (Letters written by members of the DeBoard and Roush families, 1878-1915; in the possession of Roley DeBoard [address and e-mail for private use]; the letters passed from Snoden S. Deboard to his son, Louis DeBoard, then to Louis's son Roley DeBoard, grandson of Snoden S. DeBoard; Roley DeBoard sent the author color copies of the letters in the late 1990's; the copies remain in the author's possession (2007).).
[S6] Missouri, Howell - Marriage Book 1, 1866-1889 (book, Gen Soc'y), Audrey Teeter Caplinger, Irene McDaniel Kimberlin, Idell Vest Vaughan, transcribers, (West Plains, Missouri: South Central Missouri Genealogical Society, n.d.), entry for L.B. Taylor [groom] and M. DeBoard, Howell County, Missouri (14 Sept 1880) (Reliability: 3).
by W.H. Casteel MG