Anna Ezell-Doyel - A Murderer? - Leflore County, Oklahoma Submitted by: Paula Doyle-Bicket 18 Jun 2006 Return to Leflore County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/leflore/leflore.htm ========================================================================== USGENWEB NOTICE Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ========================================================================== Anna Ezell Doyel was my gg grandmother. Paula Prior to the Civil War, Hiram Lafayette Ezell had married Jincy Jane Seaton in either Tennessee or in Franklin County, Missouri. In 1854, after selling one hundred twenty acres of Jincy’s inheritance from her father, James Seaton, they moved to Maries County, Missouri where they remained during the Civil War. Jincy’s mother Jincy Hise Seaton and her sister, North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia believed in their cause. There was a Lafayette Ezell with the Twentieth Infantry of Tennessee Confederates from Knox County, Tennessee to the southwest of Green County where the Seaton’s lived. This could have been a relative of Hiram Lafayette Ezell. Hiram Ezell was pro-confederate. His activities during the war proved that. Although he did not join the Confederate Army, he acted as a guerilla during the war. He stole horses from the Union and sold them to the Confederacy. During one such raid, he was shot by soldiers of the Union Army and managed to get home where he later died. His wife and children buried him on the land near their home after dark for fear that the Union soldiers would discover them. Death ended the dreams of a promising future in the west. Jincy Jane, Annie, Angeline, Jacob, Lafe, Rhoda, Stephen and George were left to fend for themselves. Other family members were influenced by his activities. His son, Henry, and daughter Angeline committed acts against the Union Army prior to the time Henry joined the Confederate Army, August 20, 1862. Their favorite activities involved stealing ammunition, horses, and generally creating havoc in the Union camp nearby. They dumped the ammunition into the Gasconade River, which flowed through Maries County where they lived. The stolen horses were either set free, sold or given to someone who took them to the Confederate Army nearby. Their main purpose was in harassing the Union soldiers. Later Angeline told these stories to her granddaughters and laughed at having gotten by with so much mischief. Once Union soldiers came to their farm scavenging for food and supplies. There were no men present except for the boys under the age of fourteen. The soldiers ordered them to bring everything outside which they had in the house, including food, clothes, and furniture. Their intention was to take what then wanted and then set the house on fire. Henry and Angeline noticed a beehive in the trees where the men had hitched their horses. While the soldiers were preoccupied with going through the belongings of the family, they took a long stick and knocked the beehive down upon the horses’ backs. The horses reared and broke loose in a trot. The soldiers, seeing what had happened, ran to regain their horses, leaving the family to carry their possessions back into the house. They had overlooked the family’s main food supply, which was hidden in a cellar beneath the kitchen floor. A door in the floor had been covered with a braided rug. A chair was sitting on the rug. From the opening, stairs led into the cellar where their food supply was located. In their haste, tanks to Angeline and Henry, the soldiers had not discovered it. Angeline loved to tell this story of how she and her brother saved their family from perhaps starvation. Another story Angeline told the girls of grave danger. After Henry joined the Confederacy, Annie, age eighteen, Angeline, age fourteen, Jacob, age ten, Hiram age eight, Rhoda, age five, Stephen, age two and George, an infant, along with their mother, Jincy, age thirty-six were at home when an intoxicated Union soldier pushed his way into the house. He sat down in a chair near the fireplace and refused to leave. He became offensive to the girls and they feared the worst. After pleading with him to leave, Annie took matters into her own hands. She picked up the poker near the fireplace and hit him over the head with it. The blow killed him. They did not know what to do with the body because they knew that fellow soldiers would come looking for him soon. So, Annie and Angeline dragged his body out of the house and dumped him down the well. They spooked his horse, which returned to camp without him. They went back inside and cleaned the house, scrubbing the blood out of the wooden floor. They waited to see what would happen. Soon, a couple of soldiers pulled up at their door, knocked, and when Jincy opened the door, they asked her if she had seen a soldier. Fearfully, Angeline spoke up and said, “He was here, but he left, going that way.” She pointed to the road in the opposite direction from where the soldiers had come. They glanced around the room, looking at the faces of them all to determine if they were telling the truth; then mounted their horses and rode in the direction Angeline had pointed. The family breathed a sigh of relief and after much praying, asked God to forgive them for lying and killing the soldier. Angeline told this incident to the girls saying, “It is a sin to murder and lie, but we had to defend ourselves. If we had told the truth, we would have been taken away and the family could not make without our help.” Mary never blamed her grandmother since it was Annie who actually killed the soldier. She defended her when relatives in the family blamed her for the incident. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Return to LeFlore County Archives: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ok/leflore/leflore.htm