Jeff Kessler & James Milligan Hung by Mob, Gentry County, Missouri

>From "History of Gentry and Worth Counties", Crimes & Incidents, 
St. Joseph, Mo.: National Historical Company, 1882.

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In the year 1858 a man named Samuel Timmons was constable of Bogle
Township, but he having committed some small offense, a complaint was
sworn out, and a warrant was issued by D. P. Gregg, who was then jus-
tice of the township, and placed in the hands of Jeff Kessler to be
served.  It so happened that between Kessler and Timmons there existed
an old grudge, and when Kessler got ready to make the arrest of Timmons
he summoned one James Milligan to go with him.  Timmons had by some
manner become informed of the coming of the two men to arrest him, and,
to avoid any trouble, he left his residence and secreted himself on the
premises.  Leaving Milligan to stand guard at the house, Kessler went 
on the search of Timmons, whom he found some distance from the house,
and shot him in the back with a shot gun, killing him instantly.  He
(Kessler) then returned to the house, and together with Milligan left
the premises, not even notifying the family of the murdered man of his
fate.  That night about 12 o'clock, however, Mrs. Timmons found her
husband cold and dead.  Timons was considered a good citizen by his
neighbors, and as an officer of the law was generally credited with 
doing his duty.  After it became known that Timmons had been killed, 
and the manner in which he lost his life, and by whom the deed had been
perpetrated, the people in that vicinity became intensely excited. 
Kessler, one of the parties implicated in murdering Timmons, was known
to be a man of bad character, a man who had done, and was capable of
doing desperate deeds.  A number of murders had occurred in Gentry and
Worth Counties, (Worth being at that time attached to Gentry County,
for civil and judicial purposes) the perpetrators either coming clear 
or having escaped the clutches of the law, a large number of the citi-
zens, residing mostly in Worth County (Timmons being killed not far 
from the line of Worth,) assembled at the town of Oxford, in said
county, for the purpose of adopting some plan whereby a cessation of
crime and bloodshed could be brought about.  At that meeting it was
determined upon that there should be no more unnecessary delays of 
meting out justice to criminals, and wherein the law failed to be prom-
ptly and vigorously executed, that they would take the matter into 
their own hands.  The men participating in this meeting, it is said,
were some of the most influential, law abiding and best citizens of
Worth County.  In a few days Kessler and Milligan were arrested under a
warrent issued by Henry Carlock, another justice of Bogle Township, and
they were brought before him on the 18th of June, 1858 for trial, when
a large crowd (the men who had organized and passed resolutions at Ox-
ford) assembled with the avowed determination of lynching the prisoners
then and there.  The defendants waived an examination, and were by Car-
lock committed to jail.  The crowd, however, was determined that the
defendants should suffer for their crime that day, and it was only by
the strong arguments of the lovers of law and order, together with an
agreement on the part of the defendants that they would stand a trail
as soon as Judge Norton, who was then judge of the district, was noti-
fied and could get here to hold a special term of court, and they would
not ask for a change of venue or a continuance.  Thus the matter was
settled for that day, the angry mob returning home and the sheriff
bringing the defendants to this place, where they were placed in the
court house, to be guarded until a special term of court could be
called, as there was no jail.  June 24 was the day set for a special
term, and the grand jury, which was impaneled on the morning of the
24th, was not long in brining in an indictment against both defendants
for murder in the first degree.  On the same day a company of about one
hundred men, from the northwest part of the county, marched into town
in double file, but peacably and in good order, passed around the 
square, and then went out to what was then a vacant block in the neigh-
borhood of the elm tree which was to take a promienet, though silent
part, in the programme to be enacted on the next day.  The court opened
on the 25th.  A motion was made after a severance had been granted for
a continuance of the case against Kessler, and after the same had been
argued, was granted by the court.  The case of Milligan was then con-
tinued without argument, on the same grounds.  The special term of 
court was adjourned, and after the judge and attorneys had retired
(through the window), the mob marched in and took hold of Kessler, the
sheriff and posse being quite powerless to prevent it.  The mob dragged
him from the court house and carried him to the elm tree previously
mentioned, and hung him until he was dead.  The first time they drew
him up the rope, which was the kind generally used for bed cords, broke,
and he fell to the ground.  The next time, however, the rope held its
victim and Kessler breathed his last.  Milligan was, in the excitement
and melee, spirited upstairs in the court house and secreted, and was 
thus saved from being lynched on that day.  On the 5th of July, 1858,
it being Monday, and the day of the regular meeting of the county court
the same crowd, numbering about one hundred, from the same section of
the county, came to town and asked the court to appropriate money for
the guarding of Milligan in the county, instead of sending him to jail
in some neighboring county.  This the court refused to do, and the mob
took Milligan out and hung him, not, however, until he had been taken
to the branch in the south part of town and baptized by the Rev. Hiram
Warner, a minister of the Christian Church.  Thus ended the only 
instances of lynch law ever enacted in Gentry County.  The tree upon
which Milligan and Kessler were executed stands now (1882) in the town
of Albany, just south of Brown's lumber yard.  The hanging of these men
upon it seems to have had an injurious effect upon the health of the 
tree, for it has not grown as fast since as it should, and the 24 years
that have left their mark upon the dial of time, have not changed the
size or form of the tree to any great extent.  The limb around which
the fatal rope was entwined still projects out in the same manner, but
stronger somewhat, and would answer for the same purpose for which it
was used in 1858.  While there are a large number of people now living
in the county who were present when Milligan and Kessler were hung,
there are a larger number who know nothing about the matter save what
they have heard here and there.  The circumstances as we have learned
them, have been narrated above.

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