A Murder in Pulaski County at the Beginning of the 20th Century... 

​(Printed in THE MILLER COUNTY AUTOGRAM-SENTINEL, in the column, 'WINDOW TO THE PAST', March 8, 2012)
 

​Elias Smith of Pulaski County, Missouri was tried for a murder that occurred in November 1904. It was an infamous episode in Pulaski County’s history and has been written about on several occasions, but after 108 years, there still seems to be some unanswered questions and various tales about the murder.

I am still not sure who Elias Smith was because there were several Smith families in Pulaski County in the 19th and early 20th centuries. I think he may have been a son of John and Telitha Smith, natives of Kentucky who were in the county during the 1850 census. In their home were eight children, one whose name was Elias, born circa 1844.

According to legend, Elias Smith, his wife Sarah, and their two children worked for a man named James M. Smith on his farm near Dixon in the Pisgah community. There was no kinship between the two Smith men and evidently James/Jim came to Pulaski County before 1900 and bought the land where he lived. Needing to have the land cleared, Jim Smith hired Elias to work for him and let his wife and two children move there and Jim lived with the family because he was a single man and had no family of his own.

Elias was charged with killing Jim Smith in November 1904 and when arrested was asked why he killed him. His answer was that he thought he could get his money and personal property, but some interesting things came to light during the inquisition of the murder. Elias may have killed him in anger when Jim Smith accused Elias of marrying a Negro woman and producing black children stating some very unkind and hurtful words about his family. Elias is said to have told him that he could not talk about his wife and children in that tone and manner. I don’t know if the truth was ever known for sure.

Elias was arrested by local law authorities in November 1904 and taken to the jail in Waynesville which sat near the new courthouse which had been built in 1903. His trial was not held until a few months later in April 1905 and he was sentenced to go to the gallows to be “hanged by the neck till dead”.

His hanging was held on Friday morning, April 21, 1905 at 7:40 a.m. A large crowd of people gathered to watch his execution. I can’t imagine that anyone could stand in a crowd and watch the painful death of a man that way, but it was common place at that time and has been carried on for generations both before and after 1905 ~~~~

Elias Smith had one last request before his death---he wanted to be buried at the Smith family cemetery where his infant son had been buried several years before. The cemetery was located near the Gasconade River in eastern Pulaski County but there is no trace of the old cemetery today.

Another gory detail to this story is that pictures were taken of Elias Smith and other law enforcement agents including ‘Pop’ Sutton, sheriff when he was executed, and the pictures were displayed for sale following the infamous hanging…..Some must have been sold because I have seen 2 different poses printed in books and on the internet !!!

I don’t like writing these type of stories, but this is definitely history, though not the glorious type that I usually record of happy families, heroes, and fine family heritages which have left wonderful legacies.