Dear Editor:
This website brought to you in part by the following sponsor:
Find out how to advertise here - Email us! [email protected]
About 30 years ago, my Uncle Ross Reno, lifelong farmer and resident of the community of Civil Bend, gave me a souvenir booklet of the Joe Jump/John Smith story entitled “Life, Trial, and Conviction of Joe Jump and John Smith Who Murdered Wm. C. Gladson, at Gallatin, Dec. 29, 1885, With Statements Made By Them.” The back page of the booklet says: “This booklet is reproduced by offset directly from the original pages of the souvenir publication printed by the Gallatin Democrat following the conclusion of the case in 1886. No effort was made, aside from adding the photograph and these lines, to enhance the quality of the print in order to preserve the flavor and style of the original.” In the front of the book it has a photo of the gallows and indicates that it was the only known photo of the hanging scene. There is no date on the publication.
As a youngster I was consumed with this story and kept the booklet handy ever since. In more recent years, I’ve read other stories on your website and a book with your comments in the forward entitled “125 Years with the Gallatin North Missourian.” This article shows the same gallows photo of Joe Jump’s execution scene plus a panoramic view of the valley and gallows scene of John Smith’s execution.
Several years after receiving the booklet from my uncle and after becoming more familiar with the story, we were thumbing through the family photo album of Claude and Cora Haver that was in the possession of their daughter, Mrs. Zollie Wendt. I first saw the two post card photos of the gallows scene at this time.
The photo album documents the lives of Harvey and Edith Haver’s (great-grandparents) family and their descendants. The Havers settled and lived in the Civil Bend Community. At the time, I mistakenly thought that the pictures documented the same hanging.
Fast forward to present time: I read an article about the Jump story on your website and got to thinking that the one picture may be unknown to local historians. I asked my cousin, Carole Jean Davis (Zollie’s daughter), if she would scan the pictures and send them to me so that I might share them with the Daviess County Historical Society. She did one better and sent me the two original souvenir post cards. When I read the backs of them, I realized that they were two separate scenes. One of Joe Jump’s execution and the other of John Smith’s which was conducted two weeks later.
I’m sending you digital scans of both the front and back of the post card on John Smith’s execution. This photo provides evidence of details of historical descriptions of the executions, including the story on your website by Wilbur Bush.
Also, I read where they buried the two men in the Herndon Cemetery at the south edge of town. Are you familiar with this cemetery?
Kyle Reno,
Cameron, MO
P.S. I’m a life-long Cameron resident but my family’s roots are in the Civil Bend and Jameson communities of Daviess County.
Editor’s note: Editor’s note: Our thanks to Mr. Reno in discovering a new photo for historical archive and perhaps introducing this topic to those who may be reading about the only public executions ever to occur in Daviess County for the first time. The authentic post cards are being donated to the Historical Society by Carole Davis on behalf of the family of Claude and Cora Haver.
Scenes and details of both executions are on informational displays at the Squirrel Cage Jail in Gallatin, which serves as the local visitors’ center. One such photo is reprinted here. The post card scenes provided by Mr. Reno offer close-up and thus more morbid views of the proceedings.
The scene depicting John Smith’s execution is entirely new and, thus, a welcome addition to the photo archives of the Daviess County Historical Society. We are indebted to Kyle Reno and Carole Davis for adding to the archive, and we know still other and different photos of these public executions exist.
If any readers have historical photos of any topic in your possession, we welcome inquiries like that from Mr. Reno and your consideration to donate authentic historical photographs or post cards, such as done by the Haver family. Thanks to both, from those interested in preserving Daviess County’s history.
Website update
The website Mr. Reno refers to is www.DaviessCountyHistoricalSociety.com which is provided as a community service to the Daviess County Historical Society by Gallatin Publishing Company. It was recently upgraded in format and is now hosted on a different server; the transfer of photos and stories archived on the old website continues as a work in progress.
Booklets available
Original copies of the booklet “Life, Trial and Conviction of Joe Jump and John Smith” are scarce; a reprint of this booklet was published in 1991 and copies are available for $3 at Gallatin Publishing Co. and at the Rotary Jail with proceeds to benefit the Historical Society.
Herndon Cemetery
An account of Herndon Cemetery, posted in 2004, can be found on the DaviessCountyHistoricalSociety.com which reads as follows:
“For many years the black people of Gallatin were buried in an isolated cemetery a mile south of town. There were actually three cemeteries in close proximity there.
“The first one, on the north, was considered “Potter’s Field” for the destitute and abandoned; the second one on the south, Elmwood, was reserved mostly for blacks, and a third, to the west, was the “Herndon Family” burial plot. It is noteworthy that Joe Jump, who was hanged in Gallatin along with his partner in crime, John Smith, in one of the last public hangings in Missouri, is allegedly buried in the Potter’s Field cemetery area.
“All three burial grounds have been virtually inaccessible in recent years and the cemeteries have been badly neglected. The last burial in any of the cemeteries there occurred in the 1960s. Ironically, the main road into the cemetery area was at one time an extension of Main Street, Gallatin, which entered it from the north. There are occasional movements to clean up these burial areas to open the cemeteries to visitors.