Abortion was illegal in Iowa during 1880; women who became pregnant outside the bonds of matrimony were scorned --- and during March of that year, these circumstances and others combined to generate a series of tragic acts that erupted into a sensation that was reported upon from coast to coast.
The setting was the village of Hartford, located in northeast Warren County about equally distant from Indianola and Des Moines. Highway 5, linking Carlisle and Pleasantville, skims alongside Hartford today.
The principals were Mary Elizabeth Henderson, born Dec. 27, 1861, and therefore 19 years old; her mother, Elizabeth (Weaver/Henderson) Wellons, age 50; Mary's older sister, Sarah Jane "Jennie" Henderson, age 21 --- and the father of Mary's child.
The initial reporting of the case operated on parallel tracks because of Hartford's location. The Indianola Herald chose to shield the young man by not naming him. The Des Moines Register unhesitatingly identified him as William Ray, age 27, who had grown up a neighbor and was employed as a miller in Hartford when he impregnated Mary.
The Chariton Leader reprinted the initial Indianola Herald report of April 1, 1880, on the local news page of its April 3rd edition.
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Elizabeth Wellons, nee Elizabeth Weaver, had married her first husband, Isaac Henderson, in Clermont County, Ohio, during 1852, and they had relocated to Hartford by 1860. The couple had four children by August of 1862, when Isaac enlisted as a private in Company C, 34th Iowa Volunteer Infantry --- Elijah F., Thomas J., Sarah Jane and Mary.
Isaac died of dysentery on the 16th of October 1863 at New Orleans, leaving Elizabeth a widow with four youngsters to raise. Two years after his death on, Aug 27, 1865, she married at Indianola a widower some 25 years her senior, John C. Wellons, who had a considerable number of children from his first marriage. They were estranged and living apart, however, by 1880.
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The case was reported upon in The Indianola Herald of April 1, 1880, by a reporter identified only as "Scribe" and commencing as follows:
"Last Monday morning, the 22nd inst., the usually quiet village of Hartford was suddenly thrown into a fever of excitement from the intelligence that a most horrible crime had been committed in our midst. The first impressions were from the vague and unsatisfactory reports that were being circulated, that the crime was abortion, but further development proved it to be even more horrible. As further disclosures were made, the excitement became more intense, and, had surrounding circumstances permitted, it is not improbable that mob law would have again desecrated the name of Warren.
"The history of this crime from its incipiency, the time it must have been plotted till its tragical culmination, is dark, scheming and atrocious.
"Last fall suspicions were entertained by many that Miss Mary Henderson, the deceased mother, was enciente. In fact, her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Wellons, indiscreetly admitted the fact privately and, we are informed, even tried to secure medical aid to procure an abortion. In this she signally failed, but received some wholesome advice as to her duties in the premises which, had she entertained and been guided by, would have averted a terrible calamity.
"About the beginning of winter, she stated that her daughter had gone to Des Moines to work and denied her condition. During the winter, several parties claimed they caught glimpses of her through the window of her mother's residence. Many doubted her going to Des Moines at all."
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The Des Moines Register, in its edition of March 26 already had reported that, "Mary Henderson and her sister, Jennie, were employed as help in Des Moines houses, the latter being for some time past a dining room girl at the Sabin house. Both have always borne the best of characters, and Des Moines people who knew them since childhood in Hartford speak well of their reputations. When it was found that the result of Mary's sin was bound to be known if she staid in this city, she went home to the mother's at Hartford, and there for four months she was confined in a single room with no light but that furnished by a single window and no one in the neighborhood being aware that she was with her mother.
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The Indianola Herald report continues: "The mystery deepened and no further disclosures were made until a physician was called in professionally. At first, she denied the cause of her illness, but finally admitted having been confined, stating it took place in Des Moines and that the child was there. Fully a week elapsed after confinement before it became positively known to the public that she was at home. When the situation was made known, everything possible was done to relieve the poor girl but it was too late. From inattention and want of medical attendance at the proper time, it soon became evident she could live but a short time.
"Weighed down with grief and remorse and the certainty that her end was near, the dying girl made a full confession, disclosing some startling crimes which seem too horrible and diabolical to be true. During the winter the girl secluded herself in a dark room and, when her child, a little girl babe, was born, in order to conceal the shame, they plunged it in a red hot stove. Its agonizing cries were soon hushed by its fiery grave, and the deed was done, the most heartless, cruel and revolting ever perpetrated in this county."
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The Des Moines Register dispatch had described the killing as follows: "About two weeks ago, the child was born and on her dying bed when the neighbors were called in, she imparted the horrible intelligence, stating that immediately after the birth of the child, the girl's mother, in order to conceal the shame of her daughter, took it and killed it, and cutting it in pieces put the pieces into the stove to be burned, after which the partly burned flesh and cinders were taken and thrown into a privy vault."
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The Indiana Herald's report continued, "Scarcely had the last clod been placed on the young mother's grave when the older sister, Jane, and Mrs. Wellons were arrested. This was Wednesday the 24th inst. and the preliminary examination was set for the following Friday.
"During the interim a quantity of ashes were noticed in the privy vault, and upon further search the bones of the infant were found, burned and discolored; some entirely gone, yet easily recognized as belonging to a human being.
"On the first information the two parties arrested were charged with infanticide, and the case against the young lady dismissed. The old lady was arrested upon another information, charging her with murder in the first degree. She then waived examination to a charge of murder in the second degree, and her bond was put at $5,000, in default of which she was sent to jail."
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"The coroner's inquest was held on the remains of the child on Monday," The Herald reported elsewhere in its edition of April 1. "The evidence which was principally the statements made by the mother before her death to certain persons, tended to exculpate (Mrs. Wellons) and show that it was dead before placed in the stove and that Mrs. Wellons is not guilty of the crime charged, that of murder. The betrayer of Miss Henderson is reported to have left Sioux City in a hasty manner on Monday morning."
The coroner's jury report stated, according to The Herald, "The said child came to its death on the 13th day of March A.D. 1880 by being smothered by its mother, Mary E. Henderson, assisted by Elizabeth Wellons willfully and feloniously."
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The Des Moines Register reports had been reprinted in The Sioux City Journal and on March 27, The Journal reported as follows:
"Yesterday morning a young man slipped out of Sioux City in a hurried manner and he was none other than Wm. Ray, the person referred to in the dispatch. It is altogether probable that the first intimation he had of the death of his victim, and of the atrocious act for which the mother and sister were under arrest, was derived from reading the dispatch in yesterday morning's Journal, and the fear which struck to his cowardly heart induced him to take hurried leave of this city, where he was known by his right name. Ray came here from Hartford on Sunday, March 7, and the next day went to work in the City mills, and during all the time he was here boarded at the St. Elmo hotel. From one who became well acquainted with him we learn that he was 27 years old, 5 feet 9 inches high and weighed about 160 pounds. He has dark hair and a small insignificant mustache. Which way he went is not known."
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I've been unable to find any indication that Elizabeth Wellons ever was indicted for whatever part she may have played in the death of her granddaughter and disposal of the remains. The Herald of June 24, 1880, reported that, "Mrs. Wellons, of the Hartford tragedy, has been removed from the jail to the county house."
Some online family databases state that Mrs. Wellons died during 1900 or soon thereafter, but I've not been able to find confirmation of that. I've made no attempt to track either Jane Henderson or the father, William Ray. Mary Henderson probably was buried in the Hartford Cemetery, but if so her grave is unmarked.
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