HENRYVILLE MURDER TOUR: COLD CASE UPDATE
HENRYVILLE MURDER TOUR : UPDATE 2022 COLD CASE FILE the PARK FAMILY MURDERS and LYNCHING of JOHNSON TAYLOR AND DAVIS
In Part 1 , we presented three horrifying episodes of murder in Henryville Indiana. A small town about 15 miles north of the Ohio River in Clark County Indiana. They were the Pigeon Roost Massacre from , the murders of three juvenile boys in the 1970's by a never caught apparent serial killer and finally the Danny Guthrie killing in the 1990s ...attributed to Charles Sweeney but never admitted by him and with some cause to question if he was, in fact, guilty as found by a Clark County Jury.
Since then, we discovered yet another, horrific triple murder which occurred in Henryville in 1871. This was the Park Family massacre.
The Park family lived in a hand built house about 3 miles East-Southeast of Henryville. Another website which has a snippet of a land ownership map shows us where the Park home was located.
Heres a link. You cans see the names of some of the neighbors and how their land was situated near the Park home. Including Kirk and Llewelyn. The Park home was within easy walking distance of the Mt. Lebanon Presbyterian Church which is still standing today . The church was built in 1853 according to their website. Today the location of the site can be found at the junction of Mt Lebanon Road and Dunlevy Road.
THE MURDERS
On Sunday, November 12, 1871, the small congregation noted the absence of the Park family for Sunday service. This was extraordinary and so concerned neighbors sent someone to the Park home to see what might be wrong. There was a lot wrong. Inside, according to my best information, Mr. and Mrs. Park were found in their bed....victims of an ax assault. Likewise, their 10 year old son was found in his bed murdered in similar fashion. Two daughters, though attacked in similar fashion, were still alive..but insensate. Murdered was Cyrus Park (father) He was found with two ax blows to the head. He was 45. His wife, Isabella, was found on her right side facing Cyrus. One blow to the head killed her. There were three children in the home. Ellen, Mary and the youngest John Park. When found, Ellen and Mary were still alive. Mary was sitting in a doorway...stunned from her horrible wounds. Ellen was still alive but died soon after and John , the youngest was dead when found.
Mary Park had three wounds. It is amazing she survived. One wound was to the occipital over the right eye. One was in the rear of the skull creating an indenture and the third was on the 'crown' of the head. Nothing could be done to treat it. The assailant had used the 'poll' of the ax.
Mary Park survived. She lived to be 88, dying in 1943.
The oldest son, Marion, was in Scottsburg. He had recently married. He identified that there was about $180 dollars that should have been in the home. Nothing was found. Also found outside the house, Mr. Park's ax, left with the blade in the ground and with blood and hair on it. Also found was a mostly empty whiskey flask.
EVIDENCE
At this point, I should acknowledge my source for most of the content of this page. I looked at this "Murder and Mob Law" a pamphlet published in the 1870s. The work examines the sequel to the murders that led to the lynching of three black men by citizens (identified as Ku Klux Klan) and condemns the whole affair. It is an interesting read on it's own. But, here, we are going to focus on the underlying murders mostly as they fit into our "Henryville Murder" series.
Shortly after the bodies were discovered an "inquiry" was organized led by "Justice Gurnsey". It is a fact of some note that today the Gurnsey family is a prominent family in Henryville. Perhaps one of the top three prominent families. In any case Justice Gurnsey convened an inquiry and according to our report the question was "who was the enemy of Mr. Park". This resulted in a man named Kirk announcing he was familiar with Park having received threatening letters directing Park to vacate the 'neighborhood'. The cause was not given. This line of inquiry was quickly shut down and the 'inquiry' moved on to creating the foundation for the lynchings that subsequently occurred
However, it is reported that following his publication of the threats to Park, Kirk himself was assaulted , at night, by two white men...one of whom was described as tall and scraggly. Kirk lived near the Park home and was with his neighbor, (or hired hand) Mr. Llewellyn when two strangers (white men) appeared. Kirk, like Park had been of the party who opposed the vigilance committee using it's 'authority' to settle personal scores. The night after the Park murders we are told the two scraggly strangers came to his home and repeatedly tried to get in or threatened Kirk...but did not complete their task as Kirk did not relent in his vigilant guard. Later, it is reported Kirk examined the footprints his would be attackers left behind and compared them to those left behind at the Park home. They matched.
Thus, there seems to be reason to suspect that the Park murders were done by two white men. Stranger to Mr. Kirk and Mr. Llewellen.
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Meanwhile, the "inquiry" located a black man named Johnson who could not account for his whereabouts the night of the murder. He was promptly terrified into making a confession which led to the subsequent lynching of himself and two others. From what I can tell the 'confession' was coerced and of very dubious quality. Johnson was induced to name two other black men, Squire Taylor and Charles Davis as the actual killers. As so often seen in coerced confessions, Johnson himself merely watched the dirty deed. (See the West Memphis Three case for a good example of how this works.) In the Federal Census of 1870, a "Charles" Johnson, Race: "Black", is found living in near proximity to the Park family. Is this same man later blamed for the Park murders by the mob? I can't imagine too many Black men named Johnson living nearby.
TWO SEARCHES
Of interest is the claim that there were two thorough searches of the black mens' homes. One search was before they were arrested in what sounds like a general search of suspect person's homes. Nothing was found. The second search was after the three men were arrested (supposedly) and these items were found that are claimed as being from the Park house:
a. Old overcoat
b. sheepskin pocket book w/ two ferry tickets inside.
These two items were 'vaguely identified by the surviving son, Marion Park.
In addition, the claim is that two sets of mysterious large footprints were found around the Park residence. They led from a potato 'patch' down to a stream nearby. (I note this last information adds to my confidence the site of the murders is as I have identified above because this site is about 750 feet from the nearest stream....Sinking Creek.)
We are told that the footprints found at the Park residence matched those found by Mr. Kirk after his assault. As he described these as white men, the author of "Mob and Murder" concludes the three black men were wholly in the clear and the lynching an injustice. Much is made of the 'planting' of evidence of the coat and pocketbook in the homes of two of the black suspects. A larger conspiracy begins to emerge.
In the journalistic investigation, a character of interest appears as a champion of the black victims of the lynching. Matthew Clegg was apparently a local attorney. He claimed Park had been a member of a Henryville "Vigilance" committee.(as had Clegg) to guard against roving thieves and such scoundrels.
However, according to Clegg, one of the Vigilance members proposed to use the committee to get charges brought against a personal enemy and when being transported as an arrestee, for the Committee to seize and lynch the enemy. Clegg states that both he and Mr. Park were determinedly against this scheme and it put hm in wrong with the Vigilance committee.
But, what is going on here? Other sources claim that Clegg was in fact behind the murders of the Park family. That he arranged the arrests and blame being placed on the 3 black men to distract attention from himself and the fact that he had been in a feud in which Park was on the other side.
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MATTHEW CLEGG In the 1870 Census, Clegg is identified as a 'farmer' who lived in Monroe township. (the politcal subdivison of the county that included Henryville). Notable is that his personal property and real property are valued high making him one of the richest men in the town. He is identified as an attorney in the Mob and Murder pamphlet. Indeed, we find him as identified in a few appeals court cases from the late 1800's originating in Clark County. One case is very telling as to his character. It is a short, terse opinion rendered by the Indiana Supreme Court in which we find that Clegg had ...while handling the estate of a client simply taken a mortgage and payments thereon belonging to the client and converted them (stolen) for his own use. The Supreme Court was understated, but brutal, in it's finding, "An attorney is not excused by once making a tender of the money collected for his client, if he subsequently converts it. If he converts the money by making a wrongful use of it, he must answer to his client, although he may have, at some time prior to the conversion, tendered it to the client." Clegg v. Bamberger , 110 Ind. 536, 9 N.E. 700 (Ind. 1887)
Surely, one episode of misconduct doesn't answer the questions about Mr. Clegg which arose in the aftermath of the Park murders, but it does give this writer hesitancy in seeing Mr. Clegg as the 'hero' as depicted at the end of Mob and Murder.
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The sequel to the Park Murders
In any case, Johnson, Davis and Taylor were all arrested and taken before a Grand Jury convened in Jeffersonville. It is pretty shocking to see what happened then. The Grand Jury did NOT indict the men. The simplest answer is that the evidence, such as it was against them was not considered credible. In reading the various accounts from the time, it seems it was widely known that Johnson had been coerced and there were stories going around about the "Vigilance Committee" that had fingered Mr. Park and a general atmosphere of uncertainty as to WHY such a brutal set of murders had occurred.
However, some of the more rural members of the county ... were having none of it. The three black men were taken to the jail in Charlestown. They were placed in the care of Sheriff Baxter. But a large Mob formed in or near Otisco....came down to Charlestown and took the three out of the jail a ways north of town and lynched them. In "Mob and Murder" the author plainly calls this Ku Klux Klan and links them by innuendo, at least, to "the Vigilance Committee" of Henryville that Park refused to take part in.
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Mary Park
Poking around in Ancestry.com we learn that Mary survived and was apparently cared for. Her image , with her wounds was made and cards sold to the morbidly curious to help support her. She was only 14 and it's not clear where she lived. But, we do know she later married a railroad man and moved to Maple street in Jeffersonville. Her husband, Reuben Reynolds, was 10 years older than her. He was a widower. His first wife had been murdered in their Jeffersonville home. The accounts show that while he was out of town on the railroad (as a conductor) an intruder came in a window and shot his wife, Nancy Jennings Reynolds. So murder was a 'presence' in the lives of this couple. Reuben and Mary had a son, Herbert who died very young...age 21 in 2014. Mary lived on until May 25, 1943 in Jeffersonville. She is buried in Walnut Ridge Cemetary.
Other sources: US FIND A GRAVE rareandearlynewspapers.com
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