THIRTY-EIGHT YEAR OLD PAPER GIVES DETAILS  OF EARLY CIVIL WAR MYSTERY

While it may be ancient history, it is nevertheless interesting, and to old-timers it brings memories of the Civil War days, which were uncertain and exciting times for St. Francois County, as some of the important engagements of that war were fought in this section of the state. Feeling was running high in Southeast Missouri and neighbor was against neighbor, churches were torn asunder, and even members of families were on opposite sides of the [?] question.

The following clipping from the Farmington Times, dated February 11, 1897, is the account of an incident related to the disappearance of one of the farmers in the vicinity of Bismarck during the Civil War. The story was published in the St. Louis Globe-Democrat under a Bismarck date line of February 6th.

The Journal obtained this 38 year old page of the Farmington Times from Mr. T. G. Mitchell of Bonne Terre, who is an "old timer," having recently observed his 83rd birthday, and lived in this county all his life.

The clipping follows:

Bismarck, Mo., February 6.-- One night in June, 1862, August Schaefer heard a noise in his barn, on his farm, in St. Francois County. He got up from his bed, and without taking time to dress himself, went to investigate. He did not return and his family and friends never saw him again.

It is said that he had made himself obnoxious to his neighbors, who were generally Southern sympathizers in the contest then waged between the sections, and that he had caused at least two of the leading citizens of the community to be whipped for their rebel predilections. On another occasion he had instigated, if he had not actually participated in, an unsuccessful effort to assassinate one of the best citizens of the county for the same reason. Under these circumstances it was readily surmised by his family and others that he had fallen "into the hands of the Philistines," but nobody seemed to know anything definite as to his fate.

Mrs. Schaefer, after a few years, married again and moved away. The Schaefer farm was sold to Rev. John Hinze, a Lutheran minister, who has since occupied the premises.

The sudden and mysterious "taking off" of Shaefer had been forgotten, till a few days ago, when "Uncle" Elihu Cartee, an octogenarian of seventy years' residence in the community, on his deathbed told how the deed was done, and disclosed the place of execution and burial, but refused to say who, besides himself, were concerned in it.

Briefly told, the story as given by Mr. Cartee is this: On the night in June, 1862, a party of six or eight in number went to Schaefer's home on the public road leading from Dent Station (now Bismarck) to Iron Mountain. One of them caused a commotion among the stock in the barn near the road, and when Schaefer came to see what was the trouble they marched him off in his robe de nuit to Mr. Cartee's residence, about a mile north of where Bismarck now stands, where, after an informal but impartial trial, he was found guilty of seeking to compass the death of his neighbors and sentenced to immediate execution.

Accordingly the prisoner was taken at once to a hickory tree in the forest about a quarter of a mile west of the Cartee residence and hanged. As soon as life was extinct the body was buried, without coffin or shroud, under the same tree, and the grave was undiscovered until its whereabouts were revealed, as stated, by Mr. Cartee.

Last Sunday the relatives of the unfortunate man removed the dust of the remains to the family graveyard at Doe Run. And thus time and death have solved the mystery.

Published by THE ST. FRANCOIS COUNTY JOURNAL, Flat River, St. Francois Co. MO, Thurs. April 11, 1935.
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