Caldwell County MO Archives History .....HANGING OF JIMMY SILKWOOD 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Karen Walker khw4@yahoo.com September 3, 2008, 6:10 pm

THE HANGING OF JIMMY SILKWOOD
	Narrator:  Mrs. Kelley Brown of Far West

     Mrs. Brown was reared in Davis Township and often heard her father tell 
the Jimmy Silkwood story, which is another one of the tales showing the rough 
treatment given the War prisoners on both sides in the county during the Civil 
War.
     John T. Davis of Black Oak her grandfather, was hauling supplies for Col. 
Mulligan at Lexington and the Thraillkill (Confederate) raiders came into the 
Black Oak Grove vicinity.  Knowing John T. Davis' work they started out 
to "get" him and stop the supplies.  Davis hid out.  Jimmy Silkwood who was 
working for Davis was caught and questioned.  While he knew where Davis was, 
he refused to tell.  They threatened to hang him yet he would not tell.  They 
tied him hand and foot and hanged him to a tree and left him.  They had thrown 
the rope over a limb and tied the end around the trunk.  He struggled, the 
knot slipped and he dropped to the ground.  He wormed his way down to the 
Davis house and Grandma Davis cut the rope loose.  To his death, Jimmy had a 
knot on the side of his neck and carried his head on one side as a result of 
being hanged.  He is buried in Black Oak cemetery, his grave being marked with 
a field stone.
     Interviewed  July 1934.


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