Vigilantes string up a horse thief at Corydon (1870)

Find a Grave photo by "In Search Of"

Lucas County gained considerable notoriety on July 6, 1870, when --- shortly before midnight --- a Putnam County, Missouri, horse thief named Hiram Wilson was pushed by vigilantes out of a second-floor south window of the old courthouse with a rope around his neck. That morning, Wilson had fatally wounded Sheriff Gaylord Lyman during an encounter just off the southeast corner of the square. Lyman breathed is last just after 10 p.m. and Wilson was lynched almost immediately thereafter.

Often overlooked in the annals of southern Iowa is that the fact that our neighbor to the south, Wayne County, had a lynching of its own to contend with just three months later. In this instance, an alleged horse thief named William N. Lyon was snatched by vigilantes from the Wayne County Jail in Corydon on the night of Oct. 15-16 and hanged a few miles south of town soon thereafter. It was believed by many, or so it was reported at the time, that the gang of vigilantes was from Putnam County, Missouri, Hiram Wilson's home county.

The remains of Wilson rest in an unmarked grave in what we now call Douglass Pioneer Cemetery, just southeast of Chariton. But I believe the tombstone in the Corydon Cemetery shown here marks the grave of the unfortunate Wayne County lynching victim. It is a government-issue marker bearing the inscription, "W. N. Lyon, Co. K 1 Ky Cav. Mex. War." If I've misidentified the occupant of this grave and he's actually someone's revered ancestor and died of natural causes, I will apologize profusely.

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There are a couple of reasons why William Lyon's death may have received less attention. First, no murder other than his own was involved and horse thieves received little sympathy at the time. Secondly, only scattered issues of The Corydon Monitor, the only newspaper published in Corydon at the time, have survived. As far as I know, none of the surviving Monitor issues cover the period during which the lynching occurred. And finally, Wayne Countyans were more than willing to attribute the violence to their Missouri neighbors to the south.

As it turns out, the Monitor report of the lynching survives because the editor of The Chariton Democrat picked up and reprinted The Monitor story of Oct. 19 in his edition of Oct. 25 and I'll transcribe it a little farther on.

News traveled fast then and now, however, and Democrat editor John V. Faith had gotten wind of the lynching a week earlier --- but had time to prepare only the following brief item, misnaming the victim, before printing his edition of Oct. 18:

HORSE-THIEF HUNG --- David Lyon, who was taken to Corydon this week by the Sheriff, charged with stealing horses, was hung by a mob from Missouri and the south part of Wayne county. We learn this fact just as we go to press, but have had no particulars, except that Lyon was taken from the jail by  party of seventeen persons. Lyon at one time lived in Chariton, and more recently at Warsaw, Wayne county.

There were no further reports linking Lyon to either Chariton or Warsaw, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of that information.

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The Monitor's Oct. 19 report, as republished in The Democrat on Oct. 25 under the headline "Lynch-Law at Corydon: Hanging of a Horse Thief," reads as follows:

Wayne County, proud of her past, today deplores an act of outrageous lawlessness done within her borders. We ask the Press to make a note of her attitude, and do justice to the twelve thousand people whose names must be associated with the conduct of a few.

Friday night, October 14th, W.N. Lyon, who had on Wednesday been arrested at Ottumwa, Iowa, for horse-stealing in Putnam County, Missouri, was lodged in the jail of this county, on his way to Missouri, for trial. Saturday morning he waived an examination, and was remitted to jail to await requisition from Missouri. Saturday night a band of perhaps twenty armed horsemen entered Corydon and stationed themselves in the neighborhood of the jail. 

Part of them roused a prominent citizen, who slept alone in his office on the public square, whose disturbance, therefore, was not likely to alarm others, and required him --- with pistols pointed at his head to enforce silence --- to conduct them to the residence of the jailor. Some persons, meanwhile, discovering these movements, rang a bell to rouse the town; whereupon the mob, releasing their prisoner, rushed for the jail and proceeded instantly with a sledge to break the locks of the double iron door, using carbines, revolvers, and threats of death to halt all citizens who attempted to approach; and then with curses dragged Lyon from his cell, threw him, undressed, upon a horse, and at about one o'clock, within ten minutes after striking the first blow, galloped out of town by back streets, and proceeded southward.

Three and a half miles on their way, they HANGED the captive to a derrick which stood on the prairie for post driving, and made their escape into the night. We know not who they were --- whether a part came from Missouri, or all were residents of our own county.

The barbarous murder met the instant condemnation it deserved. True as it is, that citizens along the border line have recently been exasperated by horse thieves, and that Lyon was known to be a horse-thief. It is felt, however, by our own people, that thus snatching him out of the hand of the Law --- which alone had arrested him at a place distant from the crime, and was still safely conducting him to certain conviction --- was an outrage; and that, in his death, if allowed to passed unquestioned, THE LAW IS SLAIN, and all men put in jeopardy.

On Monday the District Court charged the Grand Jury to make strict investigation of the crime. On Tuesday the board of Supervisors of this county, by unanimous vote, offered one hundred dollars for the arrest and conviction of each and any one of the perpetrators, and have requested the Governor of Iowa to offer an additional reward. On Tuesday night, pursuant to call by prominent men of Corydon, a large meeting, composed of respectable citizens, whom the public business this week draws together from all quarters of the county, was held at the Methodist Church, Rev. L. Proufit presiding, and took additional and appropriate action.

Some evidence has been found, and a well informed official expresses the opinion that all who had a hand in the high outrages of Saturday night will be brought to punishment.

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Iowa's governor, Samuel Merrill, issued a proclamation on Oct. 29 offering a reward of $500 "for the arrest of the perpetrators of such crime, and their delivery to the proper authorities for punishment, or a proportionate amount for the capture and delivery of any of the parties engaged in the commission of said crime." 

The Democrat of Nov. 1 republished a follow-up Corydon Monitor story from Oct 26 that contained no new information, only a lengthy warning from the editor to the people of Wayne County about the hazards involved in vigilante law that contains reference to the recent lynching at Chariton. It reads in part as follows:

"We warn good citizens and christians (of Wayne County) to get out of such a (vigilante) organization. It can lead only to disgrace. It must be ready to violate other laws to sustain itself. 'It is not nor it cannot come to good.' We believe there are in other counties Vigilance Committees. Vigilance is a good thing. But if these committees claim power to wrest prisoners from the law, at the risk of the pubic peace, and even at the risk of other people's lives, and then put them to death for a crime not capital, they make themselves a rebellious nuisance. Let it be remembered that it was a Vigilance Committee that hung Wilson at Chariton, and not the indignation and sympathy of Sheriff Lyman's fellow citizens, roused anew by the bell that tolled his death. It was the Vigilance Committee that broke down the door of the mayor's office and with one rope, executed the law and its prisoner." 

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There were no takers, however, on the offere of a reward, no one was arrested and gradually the lynching faded from Wayne County's collective memory. And there were no further lynchings in Wayne County. William N. Lyon's death remains, however, among the coldest of Iowa's cold cases.