Bigamy and Bloodshed

E. Wood Larry

Description

Emma Molloy-temperance revivalist, prohibitionist, and accessory to murderIn the summer of 1885, ex-convict George Graham bigamously married Cora Lee, foster daughter of nationally known temperance revivalist Emma Molloy, and the three took up residence together on the Molloy farm near Springfield, Missouri. When the body of Graham's first wife, Sarah, was found at the bottom of an abandoned well on the Molloy farm early the next year, Graham was charged with murder, and Cora and Emma were implicated as accessories. As Larry E. Wood notes, this sensational story made headlines across the country and threatened Mrs. Molloy's career as a prominent evangelist and temperance revivalist.Although Graham confessed, taking sole blame for the murder, he inflamed the scandal surrounding Emma Molloy when he claimed that he'd carried on a passionate affair with her while simultaneously courting her foster daughter. When Graham was lynched by a mob before he could come to trial, critics of Mrs. Molloy even suggested that she and her friends in the temperance movement had instigated the hanging to silence him. Although Cora Lee was eventually acquitted of being an accomplice in Sarah Graham's murder and the charges against Emma Molloy were subsequently dropped, many of Mrs. Molloy's detractors remained convinced that she was, at the least, a very indiscreet woman. Her reputation was irreparably tarnished, and she never fully recovered her status as one of the country's most noted female orators.

Sujets

• USA
• True crime
• États-Unis

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 15 octobre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631013690
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Bigamy and Bloodshed
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Bigamy and Bloodshed
The Scandal of Emma Molloy and the Murder of Sarah Graham
Larry E. Wood

The Kent State University Press
KENT, OHIO
© 2019 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Catalog Number 2019014335
ISBN 978-1-60635-385-1
Manufactured in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced, in any manner whatsoever, without written permission from the Publisher, except in the case of short quotations in critical reviews or articles.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Wood, Larry (Larry E.), author.
Title: Bigamy and bloodshed : the scandal of Emma Molloy and the murder of Sarah Graham / Larry E. Wood.
Description: Kent, Ohio : Kent State University Press, [2019] | Series: True crime history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019014335 | ISBN 9781606353851 (pbk.)
Subjects: LCSH: Graham, George, –1886. | Molloy, Emma, 1839-1907. | Murder--Missouri--Case studies. | Polygamy--Missouri. | Lynching--Missouri.
Classification: LCC HV6533.M8 W66 2019 | DDC 364.152/3092--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019014335
23 22 21 20 19 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Preface
Acknowledgments
Prologue
  1 The Agreeable, Intelligent, and Interesting Emma Molloy
  2 George Graham, the Irrepressible
  3 Allowing an Ex-Convict to Manage Her Affairs
  4 Marriage at Highland Cottage
  5 The Disappearance of Sarah Graham
  6 George Graham the Forger
  7 George Graham the Bigamist
  8 The Search for Sarah Graham
  9 Mrs. Molloy as “An Object of Suspicion”
10 A Ghastly Discovery
11 Mrs. Molloy under Arrest
12 George Graham the Murderer
13 Mrs. Molloy behind Bars
14 Taking Sides: A Whirlpool of Excitement
15 The Preliminary Hearing, Part One
16 Graham’s Great Story
17 The Preliminary Hearing, Part Two
18 Mrs. Molloy’s Champion Rises to Her Defense
19 Lynched by “The Three Hundred”
20 Mrs. Molloy’s Statement
21 Mrs. Molloy’s Desolation
22 Cora Lee’s First Trial
23 Cora Lee’s Second Trial
24 Mrs. Molloy’s Redemption
25 Unanswered Questions
Epilogue
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Preface
I FIRST became familiar with the Sarah Graham murder case around 2000 as I was perusing Jonathan Fairbanks and Clyde Edwin Tuck’s Past and Present of Greene County, Missouri , published in 1915. I was struck by the authors’ recollection of the preliminary hearing for two of the defendants in the case as “the most spectacular court procedure in the entire life of the county,” and the more I researched the case, the more intrigued I became.
The case had a cast of characters ready made for a real-life drama. A smooth-talking man with a troubled past who had been twice married to his first wife, the mother of his children. A second wife, a chaste young woman naive in the ways of the world, but completely devoted to her roguish husband. Most intriguing, one of America’s most famous temperance revivalists embroiled in scandal and accused of hypocrisy by her enemies in the press and the liquor industry. And, finally, a mob of vigilantes bent on dispensing rough justice, Missouri style. The case made headlines across the country, with the New York Times calling Sarah’s murder “one of the most shocking crimes ever committed in the West.”
In 2004, I wrote an article about the Sarah Graham murder case for the now defunct Ozarks Mountaineer , and I thought at the time I’d probably never write about it again. But something kept bringing me back to it. I included a chapter about it, similar to the magazine article, in my 2009 book, Ozarks Gunfights and Other Notorious Incidents , and the Sarah Graham case again made up a chapter in my book, Wicked Springfield , published in 2012.
But I still wasn’t ready to let it go. I went on to other projects, but something kept drawing me back to the Sarah Graham murder story. It had all the elements of a compelling tale of true crime, and I knew there was a lot more to it than I had been able to chronicle in a twenty-five-hundred-word magazine article or one relatively short chapter of a book. I decided the Sarah Graham murder story deserved a complete telling. I hope readers agree.
Acknowledgments
I OWE A debt of gratitude to a number of people who contributed to my research for this book. First, I’d like to thank the reference department of the Joplin Public Library, in particular Jason Sullivan and Patty Crane, for filling my numerous interlibrary loan requests. Nellie Hoskins of the Galena (Kansas) Public Library also filled several interlibrary loan requests for me, and Patti Street at the adjacent Galena Archival Library was very helpful as well.
I spent a good deal of time at the Greene County Records and Archives, where Connie Yen and Steve Haberman greatly facilitated my search of Greene County Court Records pertaining to the Sarah Graham case.
I would like to thank Mary Alice Pacey of the Washington County Historical Society for showing me around Washington and for allowing me to copy her collection of Washington County newspapers clippings and transcriptions pertaining to the Graham case.
I appreciate the help of the Illinois State Archives in locating and forwarding George Graham’s Illinois prison record. Matt Holdzkom of the Indiana Historical Society and Michael Vetman of the Indiana State Archives filled similar requests in a very timely fashion.
Rhonda Purvis of the Christian County Circuit Clerk’s office was very helpful in locating Christian County Circuit Court records pertaining to Emma Molloy, and library specialist Brandon Jason provided similar help at the Christian County Library.
I thank John Rutherford, local history associate at the Springfield-Greene County Library, and Ben Divin, digital imaging specialist at the same institution, for locating and providing me with two historic photos for use in this book.
I want to thank William Underwood, acquiring editor for the Kent State University Press, for his suggestions and prompt replies to my inquiries as I was writing this book. I also thank copy editor Valerie Ahwee for her thorough and professional edit of the manuscript and managing editor Mary Young for her attention to detail during the proofing stage.
Prologue
Thursday Morning, February 25, 1886, Brookline, Missouri
J OHN P OTTER , Isaac Hise, and several other local men hitch up their teams and head out to the Emma Molloy farm three and a half miles northeast of Brookline on the Springfield road. The men are determined to search the Molloy premises to see whether they can find any sign of Sarah Graham, the missing woman everybody around Brookline has been talking about for the past several weeks. Ugly rumors have begun to circulate about what might have happened to her, and folks are up in arms over the possibility that she might have been killed.
An immigrant from Germany, the forty-eight-year-old Potter has lived in this area since before the Civil War, and he hasn’t seen people so stirred up in a long time. Maybe not since the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, five miles south of Brookline, claimed the lives of over five hundred men early in the war and gave the Confederacy temporary control of south-west Missouri.
Potter kept a store at Little York until 1871, when Brookline was established as a stop on the newly completed Frisco Railroad two miles to the east. Like most Little York residents, he packed up and moved to the new community, and he has served Brookline as both postmaster and store-keeper ever since. He was also the depot station agent for