The First Legal Hanging in South Central Missouri, Part Two
Wed, 10/30/2024 - 1:36pm
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By:
Lou Wehmer
Our previous article told the story of the public execution of convicted murderer Robert Shehane, an event witnessed by thousands in Thomasville in August 1858. There are several variations of the story, including misidentifying the name of the victim and suspect and even the location and circumstances of the murder. For this article, we are going directly to the period documents showing the case's progress through the court. Oregon County is among the few in southern Missouri retaining pre-Civil War documents. Most county courthouses and their records were destroyed in the war.
On August 7, 1858, before his execution, the condemned man signed a will witnessed by two others that read, “I, Robert F.H. Shehane, being under the sentence of death and being assured that I will have to die in a short time by those who have me now in charge and that there is little or no chance of a respite and knowing that in a very short time, it will be the duty of the sheriff to execute the sentence of the case upon me and being now of sound mind and memory, make and declare this to be my last will and testament:
1st. I give and bequeath my soul to God who gave it.
2nd. I give my body to Doctor Lewis to be dissected.”
Lewis was one of the physicians who pronounced Shehane of sound mind, allowing the execution to proceed. Doctor William Henry Lewis, age thirty-two, was one of four physicians shown in the Oregon County 1860 census. Doctor Lewis' home was in Moore Township, Thomasville, with his wife Eliza, age twenty-eight, and a three-year-old child. He is the only married physician, owns a home and likely has an office there. The other physicians, all single, lived in homes as renters or borders, as their trade mainly was on horseback, seeing patients in their homes.
Local lore and period sources said that Shehane received a gallon of whiskey from Doctor Lewis in exchange for his body, and he consumed the contents the night before his hanging. After death, Shehane was dropped from the gallows into the same casket he set on en route and stood on while speaking to the crowd a few minutes before. The body was turned to its new owner, complete with a county-supplied rough wooden casket.
Why did Lewis want the body? Many doctors in the mid-nineteenth century in Missouri did not have formal training but worked under another doctor, learning the craft. Perhaps Lewis desired to know a little anatomy in the process, but I think the real goal was his skeleton, often hung in doctor’s offices, like the posters we see in many doctor’s offices today.
I suspect Doctor Lewis didn’t spend long dissecting Shehane; it was mid-August, and the body would not have lasted well in the August heat. After de-fleshing to some degree, he drilled holes in the coffin, added some big rocks, and threw the remains into a hole in a creek feeding the Eleven Point River, presumably to let the aquatic life finish cleaning the bones.
The deed was known in the community, and an Oregon County grand jury and indictment for nuisance followed two months later. The indictment read,
“The Grand Jurors for the State of Missouri Empanelled Sworn, and Charged to inquire within and for the body of the County of Oregon at the October Term 1858 of the Oregon County Circuit Court upon this court presents William Griffith, William H. Lewis, and Spencer W. Lewis all late of the County of Oregon on the twenty-first day of August in the year of our Lord Eighteen hundred and fifty-eight with force arms at the County of Oregon aforesaid, unlawfully pollute Eleven Points River with Body of Robert Shehane.”
“The defendants being brought into court and being demanded of how they will acquit themselves plead not guilty to the charge but throw themselves upon (the mercy of) the Count, and the plaintiff by his attorney does the like whereupon come a jury to wit: M. G. Norman, George Frazier, W. Hurst, R. W. Darby, Wm. N. Jolliff, Irvin Wooldridge, Richard Boze, Hiram Hannen, John Griffith, Abraham Goodwin, Samuel Frazier, and Bird Palmer twelve good and lawful men of Oregon County who were sworn to try the issue who, after hearing the evidence and the argument of council return into court the following verdict we the jury find William Griffith, William H. Lewis, and Spencer W. Lewis guilty in manner and form as charged in the indictment and assess their fines at Ten Dollars each signed M.G. Norman foreman. It is therefore considered by the court that the plaintiff have and recover judgment of and from the defendants, for the sum of ten dollars each, the fine so assessed as well as her costs and charges in this behalf laid out and exchanged at that she have execution thereof.”
Ten dollars in 1858 is equivalent to four hundred dollars today, so the county raked in much cash on this case.
Apparently, the body remained in the river long after the disposal of the case. Perhaps it had moved in a flood and was resting in the bottom of a hole deep enough that it could not be retrieved or was forgotten about, as Doctor W. H. Lewis died in 1861. The Civil War brought on more significant concerns, and Shehane, sleeping with the fishes, was forgotten about. The doctor’s estate was probated by his brother, by then Doctor Spencer Lewis, years after the war. Spencer was gone from 1861 to 1865, serving in the Confederate Fourth Missouri Infantry.
In 1925, pioneer Eph Buford, who lived at West Plains when a boy told his version of the story to the Journal Gazette who wrote, “When Mr. Buford was a boy he saw Jack Shehain (another variation of the name of the suspect) at Thomasville. Shehain had killed a man and was convicted and sentenced to pay the death penalty. Before his hanging, Shehain sold his body to two doctors of the town for a gallon of whiskey, which he drank while in jail at Thomasville. The hanging was witnessed by a big crowd.”
“A few years afterwards, Mr. Buford and his uncle, Jack Beller, were fishing in Elevenpoints just below Thomasville, and found a coffin in the creek. They went to town and told the story of their find. Several of the townspeople rushed to the scene, drug the coffin from the creek, and examined the contents. It was the skeleton of the murderer, which the doctors had dissected and wired the bones together. They had placed the skeleton in the coffin and hid it in the creek when the war broke out. It had been there several years undisturbed.”
Another version of finding the body was published in 1934, stating that when the coffin was brought up and opened, a huge catfish was inside with the body. A small catfish that had gone into the box to feast had grown so large it could not get out through the drilled holes.
Here, I’ve lost track of Shehane’s skeleton. It had value only with another doctor. However, the May 29, 1942 edition of The Thayer News under the title “Memorial” stated, “The Thayer Public School wishes to acknowledge the receipt of a human skeleton which has been placed in the Science Room for use in Biology, Physiology, and Health. The skeleton is a gift to the school by Mrs. J.C. Culp in memory of her husband, Dr. J.C. Culp. Joseph Clinton Culp served the Thayer community for many years, dying in 1936. I like to think that Robert Shehane contributed to medical knowledge by hanging a second time in a doctor’s office and perhaps a school.
Happy Halloween!