Presented before the Rotary Club of Keosauqua May 15, 2012

My talk today is about the first indicted murder case in the history of Van Buren county - District Court Case #20. In summary, Isaac Hendershott reportedly from Burlington killed Nathaniel Knapp from Fort Madison in a sleeping room at Columbus on the night of July 13, 1837.

I came across this story while doing research for the sign the Van Buren County Historic Preservation Commission put up at Columbus.

One might say "Columbus"? Where's that? Its a reasonable question given that the research was for the "Forgotten Towns Project". Columbus was located on the left bank of the Des Moines river about 2 miles upstream from Bentonsport.

The sign reads in part:

"On June 5th, 1837, John Robinson Sparks filed his plat for the town of Columbus with Henry Bateman, the Deputy Recorder of Van Buren County, Wisconsin Territory. It contained 68 blocks of 12 lots each. ....

In July 1837, Columbus was the site of the first murder recorded in Van Buren County. Nathaniel Knapp was "dirked" with a sword cane by Isaac Hendershott, who thought it was in self defense. The Grand Jury disagreed. Hendershott fled South but died in Missouri of an illness."

The second paragraph above is based on the 1878 History of Van Buren county. This was, no doubt, taken from the speech that Judge Charles Negrus of Fairfield gave before the Van Buren County Pioneer Association on August 20, 1873. Negrus stated:

"Popular excitement was very much against Hendershott at the time, he was arrested and indicted for murder; but before the time came for his trial, he made his escape from his prison and fled from the country, and soon after it was reported that he was taken sick and died at a public house, twenty-three miles west of Lexington, Missouri, while endeavoring to make his way to the city of Mexico."

The first clue to the problems with the Negrus story came when trying to confirm the prison escape and death episode above.

An online map search gave me the towns and counties that were about 23 miles west of Lexington, MO. Scanning the wiki pages and genealogy sites for Jackson and surrounding counties led me to historic Sibley, MO and its cemetery. It was old enough and it was 23 miles west of Lexington. But when I obtained a copy of the burials there, Isaac Hendershott was not among them.

Of course, this proved nothing by itself. Given the circumstances, the grave could have been unmarked but it raised a doubt in my mind about the story's accuracy.

Fortunately, the original court records are still housed in the Clerk of Court's vault. So with my trusty Powershot, I imaged the pages and set to work.

The case was brought to the attention of the Van Buren county court system when Edward Doyle, Nathaniel Knapp's traveling companion, filed a complaint with Justice of the Peace Samuel C. Reed. Doyle's statement was:

" on the 13th day of July Inst. at Columbus said county that one Isaac Hendershott did kill one Nathaniel Knapp by stabbing him through the left arm and into his left side which caused him to die in about one hour and further this despondant saith not."

Isaac Hendershott was arrested and subpoenas were issued to witnesses for an inquiry held by Justice Reed at Columbus on July 14, 1837.

Doyle, who was from Rushville, IL, gave testimony at this inquiry and was cross examined by the Defendant. Titus Long and Stephen and Aaron Jessup also testified. All the witnesses were released on a $1000 Recognizance except Doyle who as Justice Reed put it:

"Edward Doyle departed without leave before the examination was complete or ended."

Reed concluded there was cause for legal action against Hendershott and ordered that he be held in the prison at Farmington until the next term of court.

However, Isaac was later released on an $8,000 Recognizance guaranteed by David Hendershott, Ephraim Gilbert and Thomas L. Pickett. The Recognizance was:

"Taken and Acknowledged before us in the prison at Farmington on the 19th day of July 1837." Samuel C. Reed J. P.

After his release, Isaac Hendershott did not flee as the Negrus story stated. Instead he set about organizing his legal defense. On July 20th he issued subpoenas for George Temple and Hamton Ratleir from Des Moines County and Titus Long, Edward Briswell and Elias P. Shaw of Van Buren County. Then, on August 23rd, Hendershott summoned Henry D. Davis from Fort Madison.

George Temple was a cofounder of the Burlington Academy in 1837. He served as an Alderman in 1838 and 1839 and was the Mayor in 1840. Temple was, no doubt, a character witness and the same probably applied to Henry D. Davis. Davis arrived in Fort Madison in 1836. He was elected Coroner March 5, 1838 but died the following September.

Titus Long was a material witness having given testimony at Justice Reed's inquiry but he was no longer in the county to answer the subpoena for the Fall Term of Court. He was born in Green Co. PA around 1818. He was censused off and on in Van Buren County from the 1847 through the 1885 State Censuses.

Summons were issued by the Clerk of Court in late August and were returned by the Sheriff on September 9th for a trial to be held on September 11, 1837. But for some reason, the court session was not held. I wonder if they did not have a Judge available to hold Court? Everything else seemed to be in place for the trial.

Isaac Hendershott appears to have gone home until the Spring Term in 1838. But where was his home? The name David Hendershott on the Defendant's Recognizance was the clue that led to Isaac. David was active in the early history of Burlington. He was an Alderman in 1838, Mayor in 1839 and was elected to the Iowa House in 1840.

His son, Judge H. B. Hendershott of Ottumwa, was appointed the Iowa representative to the Commission established by the U. S. Supreme Court to re-survey the Sullivan Line between Iowa and Missouri. The Judge's obituary states he was born in Miami County, OH in 1816. This led me back to the Internet and to archive.org which has many county histories online.

The History of Miami County, OH showed an Isaac Hendershott residing in Piqua, Ohio. He was the first school teacher there. By 1816, he was licensed to practice medicine and in 1829 he ran for the Ohio state legislature from Miami and Montgomery counties.

Hendershott genealogy sites show this Isaac was the brother of David Hendershott from Burlington. Isaac married Catherine Agan of Montgomery Co., OH in 1833. On October 27, 1835 he became the County Recorder in the adjacent Clark county. It seems he spent the latter part of his life in Springfield, the Clark county seat, holding various elected and appointed offices - except for that interlude in Van Buren county, Iowa.

As it turns out, Isaac Hendershott was in Columbus to buy lots in the newly platted town. This information was a lucky find but extracts of the Fort Madison Patriot from May 16, 1838 were online. This notice was found on page 3:

"L. C. Conrey and John R. Sparks of Columbus, Van Buren Co., warn against purchasing property in Columbus from Isaac Hendershott or Dr. Hays, as they had not been compensated and 'have never delivered possession to them and never intend to' ."

Luther Calvin Conrey figured prominently in the witness lists of both the aborted 1837 Fall Term of the Court and the Spring Term which commenced on April 16, 1838. Conrey was a physician born in Clermont County, Ohio. By 1845, he was a resident in the newly formed Marion County, Iowa along with William Welch, who was the first Recorder in Van Buren County.

The opening of the Spring Term saw a Grand Jury impaneled in which the witnesses at Justice Reed's Inquiry and several others were called. The exception was Titus Long. For some reason, he was not called to testify. This was most unfortunate for Hendershott, as Long's testimony was crucial to Hendershott's contention of self-defense.

Hendershott was indicted for murder on April 17, 1838 but he never appeared in court to face trial. This incident reported in the 1914 Story of Lee County seems to explain why.

"The following spring (1838) a steamboat stopped at Fort Madison and some one recognized Hendershott as one of the passengers. The news spread rapidly and in a short time an infuriated crowd headed by Thomas Fulton, a relative of Knapp, boarded the boat and gave the assassin a terrible beating.

At the next term of the District Court in Van Buren County, Hendershott appeared at Farmington, relying upon his theory of self defense to secure an acquittal, but upon learning that an indictment for murder had been returned by the grand jury, he hastily decamped and was never seen in Iowa afterward."

Isaac was likely on his way to see his brother in Burlington before coming to the Spring Term of the Court at Farmington. The beating seems to have delayed Hendershott's arrival in Van Buren County until after his April 17th. indictment by the Grand Jury.

Since he failed to appear in court, the Recognizance was ordered forfeited, but the signers refused to pay. The pre-indictment beating apparently hardened the feelings of Hendershott, Gilbert and Pickett on this matter. They were taken to court but the government never recovered any money.

These Murder and Recognizance cases were repeatedly continued in 1839 and 1840 but with no results. The Murder case was finally dismissed at the Spring Term of the Court in 1841 and the Recognizance case was dismissed at the Fall Term. And thus ended the prosecution of the first murder indictment in Van Buren county.

Any doubts that I had found the right Isaac Hendershott were laid to rest when I found this story on page 538 in Rockel's History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio.

" Dr. Isaac Hendershott is another of the pioneers of special interest to present day physicians, as he was the first President of the Clark County Medical Society and one of the few physicians who have held an elective office in Clark County, excepting that of coroner. Nothing is known of the date or place of his birth or of his coming to Springfield. He was a cripple, walking with one cane, as the result of hip-joint disease, and had a very beautiful daughter who became afflicted with and died as a result of the same disease. He was at one time postmaster and twice was elected county recorder, from 1835, and from 1856 to the time of his death, in 1862. "

"Nothing is known of ... his coming to Springfield." is clearly disinformation. According to Hendershott family history, his mother, Charity Diltz-Hendershott, died in Springfield, Ohio on March 12, 1833.

But this quote ties together some loose ends in the Iowa story. Hendershott being a cripple explains why he overreacted when cornered by a belligerent Nathaniel Knapp in the sleeping room at Columbus. Knapp's drunken challenge that he could "whip any man in the room" was doubly true for Isaac Hendershott.

Isaac's hip-joint disease explains why he had a cane in the first place and may explain how the people of Fort Madison could recognize him on the steamboat a year later. The testimony at Justice Reed's Inquiry made clear that neither party knew who the other was and that they had only met in the sleeping room that fateful night.