The Day They Shot County Sheriff May
The story is the type that makes for a good Country and Western ballad. The best part is it's all true.
It concerns a unique bit of Washington County history, recollecting the saga of the
only County Sheriff ever to lose his life in the performance of his duty.
It was resurrected recently by Bill Temme when he found what he believes to be one of the bullets fired in the historic shootout, Temme found the bullet
lodged inside the southwest wall of the L & N Depot building now under renovation by the County Historical Society. The bullet was discovered while
replacing worn weather boards.
"I'd been looking for it for the last year and half," said Temme, who has researched the depot building and its historic significance. "Everybody said
it (evidence from the shootout) was in the southwest corner and that's the only hole on the south side."
Temme hopes to determine the caliber of the bullet as a final way of proving who fired the shot. It is logical to assume the bullet came from the gun of
Assistant City Marshall, August Leker, one of three men who died as the result of a confrontation on Wednesday, June 20, 1917.
Leker and Sheriff, Jacob "Jake" May had been summoned to the Jankowski saloon which was housed next to the depot around 12:30 p.m. on June 20, to
disarm Hiram Rice. Rice, who had taken a shotgun into the saloon and was threatening to shoot John Evilsizer, Jr., his 20 year old perspective
son-in-law.
Evilsizer and Rice's 16-year-old daughter, Ella, planned to be married. In fact, the parents of both had applied for a marriage license earlier that
year, but because Ella was under 16, the license had been denied. June 20 was Ella's 16th birthday. Rice had changed his mind about the marriage and
now threatened to shoot Evilsizer rather than see the marriage confirmed.
Rice was a 60-year-old former City Marshall and had been president of the local miner's union for the last 20 years. He had been suffering from
rheumatism and until the day of the shootout, walked with the aid of crutches.
But on that Wednesday, Rice visited several saloons in Nashville before going to the Jankowski place. When May and Leker confronted Rice on the
street between the saloon and the depot, outside the establishment, Rice threatened May with a raised shotgun.
"You saw that" said May as Leker pulled a revolver and fired five shots at Rice, missing him with all five. Rice blasted his shotgun into Leker's
chest, reloaded, then shot May in the back of his head before he fell to the ground, wounded in the abdomen by one of three bullets fired by May,
according to Newspaper reports.
Customers from the saloon ran outside to find May and Leker both dead and Rice mortally wounded. Rice was transported to Mt. Vernon hospital where an
operation proved useless. He died after signing a confession four days later.
In the flowery prose of the Nashville Journal Newspaper of June 28, 1917:
"Rice passed from the reach of human courts to face the Supreme Judge." Rice was given no chance of recovery after the operation in Mt. Vernon found the
bullet lodged in his hipbone and pierced five intestines. "Sinking spells set in," but before he died he stated that it was a bullet from Leker's gun
which had struck home. He claimed Leker fired first.
Witnesses at a Coroner's Jury held the day of the shooting differed as to whom fired first. Most said it was Leker.
Rice was disarmed after the shooting by Leo Jankowski, the saloon owner a veteran of the Spanish-American War. Rice surrendered without a struggle.
Rice was kept under armed guard at his home to prevent a get-away or possible lynching before he was transported to the Mt. Vernon hospital
Wednesday night.
Thousands of County residents attended the funerals of May and Leker. Leker had been born in Nashville on April 29, 1881. May was born in Lettveiler,
Germany on November 17, 1871. He had first been elected Sheriff in 1914 and was the second of five May family members to hold the position in
Washington County, since Illinois became a state in 1818. Jacob May was Sheriff from 1874-1878; William H. May was Sheriff from 1922-1926, a
cousin, Freeman F. Kaser was Sheriff from 1958-1962 and A. Virgil May was Sheriff from 1962-1966.
The day after the shooting, Ella Rice and John Evilsizer again applied for a marriage license but were denied by County Clerk Heckert "under the
circumstances." Ella and John eventually married and had a number of children and remained married until death.
Newspaper reports identified the bullet, which killed Rice as a 32-calibre. Rice was using a 16-guage shotgun. The identity of the revolvers used by May
and Leker was not given. From the Coroner's Jury testimony, however, the angles indicate the position of the bullet found in the L & N Depot could be
one fired at Rice by either Leker or May. The likelihood that it came from Leker's gun is prevalent due to the extreme closeness of his shots to the
window of the depot where the bullet was found. The bullet was found three feet from the corner of the depot building about two and one half feet above
ground level.
Newspaper accounts say Rice was standing about three feet away from the corner of the building on the southwestern side.
|
|
