The Hanging of Hiram the Hoss

By Georgia Lucas

Hiram and Rachel, a nave young couple, married at sixteen and now with four kids, see their world ending as Hiram is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. The way they handle the situation is uniquely their own. Yet their lives twist and turn as they are caught up in legal entanglements, enmeshed with polished lawyers engrossed in furthering their own careers and a sheriff torn between his official duty and his familial ties to the accused.

The book is a work of fiction based on actual events of the middle 1800s, a time when small towns in newly formed states were athirst for broader recognition. One way to achieve that recognition was to have a legal public hanging. The executions were celebrated as huge social events as well as demonstrations of law and order and the triumph of good over evil.

The setting is a quiet, little Indiana town which finally got its chance to have a legal hanging. The event was advertised far and wide. And hordes of people came to witness the execution. Hordes of people came twice to witness the hanging of one man a young man now known as Hiram the Hoss.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 23, 2008
• ISBN: 9781467863322

Georgia Lucas

As a child, Georgia Lucas was always fascinated by stories about Indians and liked to play school, but it was not until she married and had three children that she became a certified bilingual teacher and headed west from Indiana to teach Indians. Her unique experiences emerge from teaching first grade, junior high, high school, and college level Indian students. While employed at a high school, Lucas also became writer and coordinator of Title I projects for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. During her 22 years of teaching, Lucas was the recipient of several teaching awards and was featured in Who's Who Among America's Teachers in 1996. In White Woman in a Red Man's World, Lucas expounds her philosophy of teaching with the belief that teachers' accurate assessments of students' needs, well devised lesson plans, and skillful presentations add to the legitimacy of the teaching profession just as well conceived diagnoses, prescriptions, and treatments give legitimacy to the medical profession. Her latest books include The Hanging of Hiram the Hoss, a historical novel, and In Spite of Cancer, an inspirational book for cancer victims and their families.

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© 2012 Georgia Lucas. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 4/26/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4389-0293-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-6332-2 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Chapter One:

The Preparations

Chapter Two:

The Escape

Chapter Three:

The Widow’s Story

Chapter Four:

Harbinger to Doom

Chapter Five:

The Indictment

Chapter Six:

The State Witnesses

Chapter Seven:

The Defense Witnesses

Chapter Eight:

Closing Arguments and Advice to the Jury

Chapter Nine:

The Verdict and Appeal

Chapter Ten:

The Hideout

Chapter Eleven:

The Confrontation

Chapter Twelve:

Dred’s Scheme

Chapter Thirteen:

The Fire

Chapter Fourteen:

Yet Another Predicament

Chapter Fifteen:

The Reward

Chapter Sixteen:

The Stranger

Chapter Seventeen:

The Christmas Season

Chapter Eighteen:

The Gifting

Chapter Nineteen:

Hiram’s Friend

Chapter Twenty:

The Waiting

Chapter Twenty-one:

A New Hearing

Chapter Twenty-two:

The Aftermath

Chapter Twenty-three:

The Appointed Time

Chapter Twenty-four:

The Celebration

Chapter Twenty-five:

The Last Journey

Epilogue

Points to Ponder

About the Author

Acknowledgements

The Hanging of Hiram the Hoss is a work of fiction based on actual events occurring in the middle 1800’s in Indiana. The court testimonies were gleaned from summaries of court proceedings available in the Greene County Courthouse, Bloomfield, Indiana.

From my childhood, I heard stories about my great-great grandfather Hiram Bland, a.k.a. Hiram the Hoss. Though some of the stories conflicted and may have been fabricated or embellished over time, this book is based on stories told to me. I leave it to the readers to sort out what they want to believe.

Most of the names of the minor or peripheral characters are fictitious. Their names are fictitious either because I never heard or remembered their real names or because I have some doubts about the stories I heard. However, I have used the true names of all the main characters. My goal is to tell their story in the way it may have happened. All of the main characters were real people with the natural propensity for good and evil and the ability to learn from their mistakes, which they so readily acknowledged. Of course, my endeavors to delve into the minds and hearts of these characters are based upon my own assumptions of what they may have been thinking or feeling, based on their purported actions.

For readers who want more factual information about Hiram Bland’s legal entanglements, I suggest they read the synopses of the criminal case as given in the following resource books:

History of Greene and Sullivan Counties, Indiana, Godspeed Brothers & Company, Publishers, 1884, pp. 97, 98.

Gone but Not Forgotten: An Anthology of Fact and Folklore, collected and privately published by Mildred Uland, Bloomfield, Indiana, 1986, pp.204, 205. To order a copy, call [phone].

In addition to all of my ancestors and old friends, now deceased, who in some measure contributed to this narrative, my appreciation extends to my living relatives: Howard Abbitt, DeWayne Bland, Joann Burch Jacob, David Lucas, Thelma McConnell, Jeff Nelson, and to my new friend, Millie Uland.

To Lee Lucas, Tonya Nelson, and Linda Knowles, I offer my gratitude for all of their constructive criticism. Without their help this book would never have reached fruition.

Chapter One:

The Preparations

Rachel Bays Bland wiped a wisp of stray rich auburn hair back into her low slung braided bun and tried to walk as tall and proud as her five-foot-three slender frame would allow. She let her bonnet fall down around her neck so that everyone could see her crowning glory. She had been half-minded to wear her hair down to let bystanders see the full beauty of her long silky hair, but decided that would be too bold an act for a twenty-five-year-old married woman. She used long, tapered fingers to tug her black loosely woven shawl closer to her body as she neared Rachison’s Mercantile. The day was unseasonably warm for November in Indiana, but Rachel felt the chill of the Bloomfield townspeople who stopped to stare at her as she hurried by.

Peter Rachison had promised to give Rachel enough dress goods for her to make a fine new black frock as befits a woman to wear to her husband’s hanging. Rachel’s mind revolted at the thought that old man Rachison might not be making this offer out of genuine goodness of heart. Mr. Rachison was a shrewd businessman. There had to be something in this offer that would benefit him. He might be making this offer to ease his conscience a little, to make himself appear more compassionate, or to make a better showing of the would-be-widow at the public hanging. Rachel was well aware of Rachison’s philanthropic gestures, but somehow she could not think of him as an altruistic person. There had to be something in this so-called act of kindness to benefit him. Perhaps publicity was the motive. After all, the hanging set for November 15, 1850, was to be the biggest affair ever in Bloomfield, possibly the biggest event in the whole state of Indiana.

There had never been a legal hanging in Greene County; however, there may have been some lynchings in the region. It was rumored that some angry farmers had strung up a few horse or cattle thieves. The Ku Klux Klan was also active in early Indiana. Despite Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise of 1820, some local citizens were originally from the South, and they tried to keep the controversy alive in this Union State. The Ku Klux Klan’s modus operandi frequently included hangings. But, of course, if indeed, there had been lynchings, none of those hangings had official sanctions.

The Vincennes Gazette, the only official newspaper in the state of Indiana, had picked up the story of the murder of William Walker and the subsequent hanging of Walker’s brother-in-law, Hiram Bland, and made the upcoming event front page news. Small independent newspapers, although they printed more sporadically, were swirling with facts and innuendoes about the murder case. So all over the state people were talking about the hanging. The governor and all the state dignitaries had been invited to attend the execution. Vendors were vying for places to set up their flimsy wooden stands. The band at the state normal school was practicing for a march from the jail to the hanging grounds. The local church choirs were practicing hymns to be sung at the great event, and, no doubt, the preacher was rehearsing the short sermon he would deliver to the crowd just before they tightened the noose around poor Hiram’s neck.

Rachel had left her four children with her sister-in-law, Cynthia Bland. Cynthia and Hiram’s brother, Warren Bland, had tried to help Hiram by testifying for him at the murder trial last October. Their testimonies had been a little conflicted, and the jury seemed not to believe them. Alas, it probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The jury seemed hell-bent on hanging Hiram from the start of the trial, Rachel thought. Wasn’t it evident in the way they scowled at Hiram every time they entered the courtroom? No one seemed to believe Hiram. No one seemed to know Hiram as she did. Now thoughts of Hiram, dear, sweet Hiram, caused Rachel to liven her steps.

Rachel entered the store with her head held high. In spite of her hard life as a tobacco farmer’s wife and having had four children in only six years, she knew she could still turn a man’s head. She meant to use those charms if necessary to make old Pete Rachison give her black taffeta cloth. If they were ever actually able to hang Hiram – which she doubted - she meant to rustle up to the widow’s reserved seat in a shimmering black taffeta dress. As Hiram’s wife, she had never owned anything but homespun, and, by crackety, she swore she wasn’t going to miss this chance to show the townsfolk what she could look like if she were a woman of means.

Rachel paid little attention to all the commotion across the unpaved street from the mercantile. The racket raised as the workmen constructed the gallows was a little disconcerting to Rachel. But they’ll never hang Hiram, she thought, smiling to herself. I’ll get me a taffeta dress and wear it in the new town where Hiram is going to take me. How foolish of those men to go on working on that scaffold! Hiram is not going to hang! The prying eyes didn’t faze her now as she thought more of Hiram. She was of proud Virginia heritage. Her forefathers had been indomitable, and so was she. Those old men who spent their days sitting in the shade outside the store could ogle and gossip all they liked, and the old biddies inside the store could turn up their noses at her, but it wouldn’t matter. She had Hiram, and no one could take him from her!

Mr. Rachison greeted her tepidly, glancing out of the corner of his eye to see how the lady customers were reacting to the arrival of the widow-to-be. But after a quick, quizzical look, each woman turned to her own affairs. This countrywoman was to be pitied, they thought, but no one was willing to take the initiative and offer sympathy.

The store proprietor brought out the broadcloth and laid it on the cutting table before Rachel. This fine goods was brought in just this mornin’, Mr. Rachison announced. I can give you eight yards, ‘nuff to make a fine frock for yourself and maybe a handbag and a dress for the little one you’ll be aholdin’ on your lap.

Mr.Rachison, Rachel drawled in her syrupy southern accent, "I told everyone, even that reporter from the Gazette that you had promised me a purty taffeta dress to wear to Hiram’s hangin’ and burial. Even the governor knows it by now. We wouldn’t want to disappoint them now, would we? She looked up into the face of the old man. Her green eyes sparkled as she flashed a bright, even smile. The newspaper is goin’ to write up a description of how purty the widder lady looked in her shiny new black dress on the day of the hangin’. All the ladies are gonna want one like it."

Rachel fluttered her long eyelashes and gave a little swish to her body as if to demonstrate how she would make the taffeta rustle, letting the shawl fall away from her shoulders in a provocative twist of her torso. Hiram would not have approved of her flirtatious actions, and she felt a little silly acting this way, but she was so desperate to get a beautiful frock. She might never get another chance. And, after all, Mr. Rachison had offered her that chance! She looked deeply into the old man’s eyes and saw him succumb to her charms. Peter Rachison glanced over the array of shoppers, and seeing his wife busily engaged in making a sale, sighed, and pulled out the expensive imported English taffeta. Cutting the cloth quickly, he bundled it up in brown paper, tied it, and hustled Rachel out of the store.

As Mr. Rachison watched Rachel traipsing lightly down the street toward her waiting buggy, he shook his head sadly and groaned, muttering under his breath. I hope Letty Walker hasn’t spouted off to the press that she’s wearin’ taffeta to the hangin’, too.

Rachel had walked sprightly out of the store, ignoring the old men who sat on the mercantile porch gawking at her. She smiled to herself and swung her parcel by the string old Pete had tried around it. Rounding the corner out of view of the men, she was half tempted to sneak closer to hear what they were saying about her. But then she might bump into another woman leaving the store. Rachel shrugged, threw her package into the buggy, lightly hopped up onto the seat, and snapped the whip. Turning the horse toward home, the little one-room cabin built by Hiram and his kin, she headed back to her children and, yes, - to Hiram.

*   *   *

The old men could hardly wait until Rachel was out of earshot to start talking. Shadrach Kavins and Spooner Clark reclined on the hewn log bench, leaning their backs against the log walls of the mercantile building. Jed Hampton sat in a roughly constructed pole chair nearby. There was a checkerboard between them, but the old men weren’t interested in a game today. They had been watching the construction of the gallows on a slight knoll surrounded by a level plain across the street from the store. And their interest had been further tweaked by Rachel’s appearance at the store.

Work on that there gallows seems to have slacked a mite since Hiram broke jail, don’t you think, Shad? As he spoke, Jed tilted back his chair to better observe the construction work in progress across the street from the store.

Shadrach, Jed’s old crony going back forty years, took his time lifting the straw hat from over his face and adjusting his wad of chewing tobacco in order to speak. Well, Jed, seems like a waste o’ time to keep on buildin’ that contraption now, don’t it? Hiram’s skee-daddled outa the county by now. I heered some folks think he’s crossed the Mississip and in Indian country by now. No man is gonna stick around for his hangin’ less he has to.

I been wonderin’ about that. Spooner agonizingly raised himself to an upright sitting position. His wife’s still here. His kids, too. I heerd he beat on ‘em ever time he got sot. Still they’re his own. Spooner leaned closer to his friend. Do you think he’d leave ’em behind?

Shadrach wiped the stain of tobacco juice from his beard and hesitated a moment before answering. He weren’t no family man. None of them Bland boys are. I’d sooner tangle with a copperhead snake than one of them boys after a night of carousin’. Ain’t one o’ them worth the powder to blow him away.

Or the price of a gallows tree, fer that matter, Jed added. But ol’ Pete Rachison’s gettin’ his money’s worth outta that gallows, I reckon. It’s shore brought a lot more folks to the store since ol’ Pete donated that piece o’ ground fer a hangin’ place.

And jist you wait until hangin’ day - if they ever do ketch Hiram – this store will be bulgin’ with customers. I heered ol’ Pete done ordered a wagon load of beer for the hangin’. If Hiram don’t get hanged, ol’ Pete’s liable to hang one of us jist so’s he can sell that beer, Spooner laughed robustly at his own joke and licked his lips in anticipation of the hanging day.

Ol’ Pete ain’t the only one who stands to make a heap off the hangin’, Shadrach admitted. Guess I don’t have room to talk about Pete. My woman’s plannin’ on makin’ sassafras tea fer the ladies and maple sugar candy for the younguns who come out to the hang. She’s settin’ up a stand to sell her wares. She figures the men folks will crowd the store and the tavern, so the women and children will welcome the chance to trade with her.

It’s her right, Jed nodded his approval. If she don’t sell ‘em what they want, someone else will. Ain’t been near ‘nuff hangin’s these last few years, and folks is starved fer excitement. They’re also tired of scalawags gettin’ off easy with the law.

Shadrach arose to spit a long stream of chewing tobacco over the edge of the porch. Turning to his friends, he announced, My wife says the church ladies are plannin’ a bake sale for the hang. Said they might sew up little mementos of the hangin’ to sell as souvenirs.

Well, more power to ‘em! Jed blurted. The church needs the money. Most folks here are way too stingy to do their share in supportin’ the church. That’s why we don’t have a regular preacher. Them circuit ridin’ ones ain’t dependable ‘nuff.

This shore is an excitin’ time to be livin’! Spooner said as he prepared to mosey on home. I ain’t seen this town in such a tizzy for years. Guess we’ll have cause to celebrate if the sheriff can jist get Hiram back in jail and see that justice is done.

*   *   *

Inside the store, Peter Rachison paused at the cash register to take a quick glance out of the window. Yes, the construction of the gallows was coming along nicely, he thought. By next week the gallows would be finished and the workers could start on the grandstand. People seemed to be overwhelmed and grateful for his generous offer of land and other supplies needed for the hanging. He had saved the county quite a lot of money, he supposed. The county was financially strapped since building the big brick courthouse and the cost of a hanging could prove to be enormous were it not for donations. So civic minded individuals like him pitched in to donate supplies or to work in the construction of the gallows. The loggers and local sawmill owners donated most of the building materials. Pete stepped in to make sure they used the best-seasoned lumber and the strongest nails, tallow-coated to delay rust. It was important to him that the scaffold would stand as long as he operated the store. Pete had convinced the county commissioners that the gallows would serve as a monument to law and order. The highly emulous entrepreneur had also convinced town leaders that, with the addition of a grandstand, the grounds could become permanent fairgrounds like the fairgrounds in Bloomington. Yes, it was a business venture, but it was also a public service.

The rhythmic ring of saws and hammers was music to old Pete’s ears. The pounding of the hammers almost kept pace with the jingle of coins inside the store for business was brisk. The poor hypocrites, Pete mused with a smile. They say they don’t like executions, don’t enjoy seeing a man dangling from a rope. But they make excuses to come in here everyday just to see how the building work is coming along. And when the Big Day finally arrives - as I’m sure it will - they’ll come out in droves to witness the hanging.

Pete turned quickly from the window and began to readjust bolts of dress goods as two more ladies entered the store. Good afternoon, Mr. Rachison, the taller of the two middle-aged women greeted the proprietor of the store. Would you believe it? I can’t find my thimble anywhere. Now I can’t sew up the dress goods I bought day before yesterday without my thimble, can I? Both ladies tittered happily over the loss of the thimble. Pete had heard that refrain a dozen or so times since the building of the gallows had begun and especially since Hiram Bland had escaped prison.

No, of course not, Mrs. Grimshaw, Pete sounded very concerned. But I sold my last thimble a week ago. I even sold one of my wife’s favorite thimbles. He smiled broadly, Over Hattie’s protests, you can be sure. But I’m expecting a new shipment of thimbles any day now. Keep checking back. He gestured toward other merchandise displayed on a nearby table. Now I do have some new ribbons. There’s a blue shade same as the blue flowers in that dress goods you bought. I said to myself when I first looked at that blue ribbon, ‘Why wouldn’t that make lovely ribbon rosettes for Mrs. Grimshaw’s new dress’.

As the ladies admired the bright assortment of ribbons, Pete hurried back toward the entrance to greet more customers and to fawn over their children. The ladies had come for thread, needles, baking powder, string, and lamp wicks - little items, which individually did not represent much money, but the profits were adding up. The donation toward the hanging of one Hiram Bland was proving to be the best advertising technique Pete had yet devised. Maybe it was all for the best that Hiram had escaped from jail. The delay of the hanging could only serve to heighten anticipation and cause business to boom.

From the corner of his eye, Pete caught sign of a familiar figure approaching the store. The thin and haggard woman dressed in black muslin was Hiram Bland’s widowed sister, Letty Walker. The three old men on the porch hushed their talking as she approached. She walked slowly with her eyes focused on the boardwalk before her. Her hair was pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. From under her bonnet wisps of her faded blonde hair were caught up in the faint breeze making her look even more unkempt and forlorn. She gave no indication of being aware of the hustle and bustle around her, the clamor from the hanging field, the passing horse-drawn wagons, and the comings and goings of Rachisons’ customers.

Mercenary though he was, old Pete’s heart was touched by the sight of this sad and lonely looking woman. She couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, but gaunt as she was, she looked much older. She walked a little sway back with the perpetual paunch of one who has borne many children. Or was that just a paunch? O Lord of Mercy, thought old Pete, surely she’s not pregnant again! Not now! Surely not, he determined at last. That’s her habitual stance. She’s just bloated from being so dang emaciated. She doesn’t have the glow of a woman with child. The dried, sun burnt texture of her skin and the bags under her eyes undercut fine, sculptured features, the only remnant of her youth. She might have been a beauty at one time, Pete thought. But time and her hard lot in life had stolen that beauty.

Old Pete considered the plight of this wretched looking woman. An uneducated, sickly looking woman can’t live alone for long in these parts, especially a woman with five children. She lives too far out in the country to take in washings or do the other menial tasks widows in town are able to do. Moreover, she has the added stigma of having her husband murdered by her own brother in a drunken brawl.

Now Letty Walker was here to get the cloth he had promised her. It had been an off-hand remark that got him into the mess of giving away dress fabric, old Pete recalled. His wife had been furious when