THE MURDER OF JEHU DUKE
By L. S. Harrington
Sept 6, 1954
News article donated by Bettie Wheat
Transcribed by Laurie Selpien
(Editor: Sources of this item of actual Northern Wayne county history are “Aunt Jennie or Ginny Pearce, resident and frequent visitor among relatives throughout Wayne County over a lifetime of more than ninety years; my brother, Monroe Harrington now 84, and his wife, lately deceased, Mary Crumbacher, oldest granddaughter of the Mr. Crumbacher who talked with Mr. Jehu Duke within a few hours of his death; Mr. Clinton Duke, whose father was a nephew, and who often heard the story as a well remembered family tradition)
On the afternoon of Elm River Chowder day in northern Wayne County, the last Saturday of August 1948, William Duke and I secured a seat apart from the crowd of perhaps three thousand people for a quite chat in the origin and history annual chowder gathering and the general interest shown by the attendance and a couple of earlier published reports made first hand material desirable. During our chat Mr. Duke incidentally asked “Do you remember about the murder of Jehu Duke, whose body was found in the woods a long time ago?”
“No I don’t remember that I ever heard of it.”
“His body was found almost eaten up by a number of hogs that attracted the attention of a couple of women that came to the creek to get wash water. His granddaughter is here today.” He commented.
The tragic horror of the idea so stunned me for the moment that nothing more was said about it at the time, and I failed to utilize the opportunity of getting perhaps the most reliable report of the occurrence that likely could be secured for the murdered man was most certainly a relative of William Duke owner of the land where the chowder feast was held annually for many years.
A BRUTAL MURDER
The brutal character of the murder clung to me like a burr, so that for fifteen years I have tried to get as complete and accurate as account of the events as could be secured. It is …..? now that anyone is living whose memory goes beyond the time of the actual events. Less than a year ago Fred Barth gave me part of the story, secured from Wayne Trotter, which adds two important items I had not heard before and gives some explanation and motive for the murder, and something of the character and activities of the man.
As tragedy and sacrifices often forces people to seek improvement in social conditions, this narrative may serve to bring to light other facts of this story. It will at least be some gratification to people of this region that we have advanced in civilization a long way from the character of the event that took place eighty or more years ago.
NEAR GUNION CHURCH
The murderer was a man named White, who had come with his wife and daughter from somewhere in Indiana. Mrs. White had a married sister living near what was then known as “Doc Evans Place” something like a mile or perhaps less north and west of where Gunion church and cemetery now stands. This family relationship likely brought the Whites into the neighborhood. John and Dolph Evans were pupils in the old Gunion school seventy years ago, and the family was well and favorably known.
The Whites lived in a log cabin in the woods east of the road cut north and south through a heavy growth of timber, which shielded the White place securely from observation, yet placed it no great distance from Mrs. White’s sister. Perhaps half a mile south of the White place, skirting the hill on which Gunion church stands, ran a creek large enough to require a bridge. During wet seasons this stream carried considerable flow of water in these days, which left only isolated pools between dry and beds during the summer-the time the events of this narrative occurred.
The patient and thorough investigations in securing information, locating and providing names of persons buried in the Enterprise cemetery during the last few years located the grave of the White child who evidently died before the date of her father’s crime, and was buried in the only cemetery that had been set aside for that purpose in that part of Wayne County. The Gunion church and cemetery by it had likely not been built at the time. There is at least a rumor that the tragic event so stirred up the people of the neighborhood, that they were moved to erect a church near the first school, as civilized agencies to avoid any subsequent occurrence of such lawless and beastly conduct.
OWED DUKE $300
In some manner, White, whose given name is not known to the writer, had secured a loan of three hundred dollars from Jehu Duke, who lived somewhere north of Enterprise and perhaps a mile or more east of the present site of Gunion Church. After some unknown period, probably during the month of July, White word by someone going by the Duke home, for him to come to the White place because he was ready to pay off the loan.
Duke rode a white horse along what was little more than an Indian trail across the country toward White’s and stopped for a chat with an acquaintance, a Mr. Crumbacher, three of whose grandchildren are still living, John Crumbacher, near Orchardville, Mrs. Lillie Robertson and Mrs. Elzora Slade, of Flora. That Duke had some misgiving for the outcome of his visit, might be surmised from the report, that he told Mr. Crumbacher the circumstances concerning the loan and the message he had received as the reason for his journey. How a man living in the woods in a newly settled county could secure three hundred dollars to pay such a debt, with no visible evidence of other wealth, might be doubted.
A recent report relates that White was a man of doubtful origin and character, who may have left Indiana either by official order, danger of prosecution for crimes, or that he already acquired in Illinois an unfavorable reputation in the neighborhood where he lived. It is believed that Mrs. White paid a visit to her sister that day whether that had…… (possible line missing)
Hundred dollars to buy a team, household supplies etc., until he could make a crop or secure other financial means.
THE MOTIVE
But why promise to repay the money later as a decoy to lure Duke to his home for the purpose of murdering him? The large white horse was sufficient loot for the taking such a gambler’s chance. In his weak depraved intellect, White likely thought in such a wilderness he could succeed without difficulty, conceal the body, turn the horse to one of his confederates, and no one would be able to discover his connection with the crime. But as criminals usually do, he had greatly miscalculated the hazards of the case; he had failed to take the strength and intuition of the horse into the problem as his enemy, and that the forest that seemed to give him shelter and seclusion could also become the very means of his undoing. White made the horse bear himself and the body into the woods where the forest became the animal’s helper. Using his strength and opportunity the horse brought the body in site of a man who became a witness in the case and thus began to set the stage for the whole disclosure.
ENDING UNKNOWN
What became of White? Two different versions have come to me.
1) Before next term of court White became ill and died in the Fairfield jail. During his delirium of his fever he is said to have cried “Duke hang me! Duke hang me,” the cry of a trouble conscience confessing his own guilt. The story of the death of White without trial or action of the court seems to indicate that illness brushed aside human intervention and judgment of the case by men, to take the case to a higher court beyond human control, and that White received the sentences in what the state of law describes as “an act of God.”
2) The other only heard of once as the ending, is that the case came to trial and the Judge or the Attorney defending White provided him a horse on condition he would leave the county and never return, and that he was given his chance and allowed to go free. This not only seems more unreasonable than the first, but is almost exactly like the story written by Kipling of a murder case among the Forty-Niners of Californian in a case in which a conviction was almost self-evident, the judge appointed a stuttering young lawyer to defend the accused , with the advice to take the client out for a conference and do the best he could for him. The young lawyer took the accused man out of the room and showed him a young mare in the pasture of the judge and advised him to get on her and ride away fast as he could. In a suitable time the lawyer entered the court room and addressed the judge with a halting plea about the desperate case of his client. “Judge you advised me to do the best I could for him. I showed him your young mare and advised him to ride her away as fast as he could, that was the best I could do for him.” Kipling closes the story with the statement that the stuttering lawyer made his fortune within the next few years.
DESCENDANTS STILL LIVE
When Mrs. White died some years later, I am told she mumbled in her delirium, “I must never tell. I must never tell.” While the thought of the crime and the part she had to take in it still lingered her secret had been known far and wide for many years.
If there is additional authentic information to fill the gaps in this story, or valid changes of fact it should be of interest to the local historical society or to anyone who can give truth of the story, and make it part of the history of Wayne County. There are many people in this perhaps some in others counties to whom this story in the main is not new. In name as in blood and married relationship, a host of worthy people carry in their hearts and veins the blood stain of the person or the ancestry of Jehu Duke. L. S. Harrington.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
I could not in good conscious put this article up without pointing out contradictions to the above information from news articles printed at the time of the incidents. ….
White’s name was Waller O. White
He came from Kentucky not Indiana
After spending 5 months in jail without trial, in poor, neglected conditions, he died
It sounds less as an “act of God” and more like an act of neglect Laurie.
Note from Laurie: I found the following abstract articles in Doris Bland’s
Wayne County Illinois Newspaper Gleanings 1855-1875…
Prairie Pioneer
May 5, 1861
On Saturday the 10th ult. A horrible murder was committed in our county. Jehu Duke, an old resident living near Enterprise, ten miles north of this place, was shot through the head and his throat by some unknown person. A man by the name of White was arrested on suspicion.”
Prairie Pioneer
Oct 31, 1861
“Departed this life, in the county jail Waller O. White, aged about 30 years Formerly of ___son, County, Ky. The deceased as our readers are aware was arrested and lodged in jail as the murderer of Jehu Duke of this county. Whether true or false, we have the most indubitable testimony of his previous good character from his youth, up to his departure from Ky.”
“He died of continued fever, having few comforts and attention such as the sick so much need or that a Christian community ought to have given.”
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