Death Valley Ghosts, Part 4: Reunion at Columbia

This is the fourth (and final installment) in a series of posts about the October 1901 murder of Joseph H. Buchanan, age about 51, in an area of northeast Lucas County's Pleasant Township that some call Death Valley. An account of the murder is here; of the arrest and release of suspect Lee Whitlatch, here; and of the trial a year later during which Whitlatch was found not guilty, here.

Lee Whitlatch was found not guilty of the murder on Oct. 18, 1902, and seems to have departed Lucas County immediately thereafter. The Chariton Herald on Oct. 23 reported that he had gone to Malvern in southwest Iowa's Mills  County "to engage in selling fruit trees for a nursery there."

Lee's brother, Owen, charged as a co-conspirator, was released on $4,000 bond after Lee's verdict and all charges against him were dropped during December. He and wife, Edna, left the area soon after that, too. Their older sister, Mary, and her husband, Samuel Reed, continued to live in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, their home since marrying in 1899.

That left Dr. Eli and Milly Whitlatch on their own at Columbia, where he continued to practice medicine. Milly Whitlatch died 20 years later at age 84, on Jan. 25, 1924, while visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Sauk Centre. Her remains were returned to Columbia for burial.

According to John Pierce, who wrote an excellent summary of this case for The Chariton Leader of March 9, 1993, Eli Whitlatch died four years later of a heart attack while picking grapes in his arbor on Sept. 3, 1928. He was 80 at the time.

Owen and Edna Whitlatch were living at Delphos in Ringgold County during 1905, then relocated to Redding, also in Ringgold County, where he purchased the Union Savings Bank. Soon after World War I, Owen signed on as manager for Iowa and Nebraska of a new venture, the Fremont Joint Stock Land Bank, but during August of 1920 bought the State Bank in Butler County's Allison. The couple remained in Allison, highly respected, for the remainder of their lives.

Lee seems never to have settled down --- or to have exactly straightened out. During 1907, he was in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, again --- with his sister and brother-in-law.

By 1908, he was back in the Columbia vicinity and causing trouble again. The Herald carried the following report in its edition of June 25, 1908, headlined "Lee Whitlatch Wanted."

"Last Sunday Sheriff Gittinger received a telephone message from Columbia asking his assistance in capturing Lee Whitlatch, who was tried a few years ago on the charge of murdering Mr. Buchanan and was acquitted. The crime for which he is wanted this time is the alleged forgery of a check and passing it at Maryville. The check was for but a small amount, and it was said that the name of Cashier Carruthers, of Columbia, was forged. So far Whitlatch has not been captured but the officers are still chasing him."

Apparently quite a few others were chasing Lee, too --- other reports state that as many as 60 men from the Columbia neighborhood had gathered to beat the bushes for Lee by the time Gittinger arrived.

He was not captured and seems to have departed Marion County thereafter --- and remained away for a considerable length of time.

He was back by 1920, living with his parents, occupation given as "painter," and apparently still was living in the vicinity of Columbia as late as 1923. When his mother died during 1924, however, his address was given as Los Angeles.

During the 1930s, Lee settled down for time in Ames, apparently still working as a painter, where he ended up in the news a couple of times --- once for sustaining serious stab wounds during a drunken brawl, another time after engaging in a fist fight during a political argument.

By the 1940s, according to John Pierce, Lee was back in Marion County, living at least some of the time in barns at the Marion County Fairgrounds. He died, according to John, at a nursing home in Bussey during 1947 at the age of 76 --- and his remains were brought to the Columbia Cemetery for burial beside his parents.

His sister, Mary, died at Sauk Centre on Oct. 11, 1950; and Owen Whitlatch sustained a fatal heart attack at his home in Butler County on April 30, 1952. And that was the end of the line for this branch of the Whitlatch family tree. None of the children of Eli and Milly had children of their own.

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Find a Grave photographs by Kim Hayes

The Columbia Cemetery, not far south of town, is an extremely pleasant place, sloping gently down hill to the west and south toward Columbia Creek woods. Buried here are my maternal grandparents, various aunts and uncles, one set of great-grandparents and up toward the front, not far from the entrance, Mary Clair --- my great-great-great grandmother, widow of old William Clair whose lone grave still presides over "Death Valley." There wasn't a cemetery here when he died during 1853.

Old Joe Buchanan and his accused killer, Lee Whitlatch, are neighbors here, too, now --- and I will wonder the next time I'm there how they're getting along. And we still don't know if Joseph H. Buchanan and his severed head ever were reunited.