Mystery involving fateof Hannibal marshal
The new city hall/police department was under construction during the time that Charles C. Anderson was serving as city marshal. The construction was between 1878-1879. Photo from Steve Chou’s vast collection.
MARY LOU MONTGOMERY
Charles C. Anderson, known for his crime-fighting tenacity, served as Hannibal’s city marshal from midyear, 1878, continuing into the following spring.
On the local front, Marshal Anderson and Captain Wes Butner made an arrest, following a two-week investigation, at a home in South Hannibal. He took into custody Jacob M. Markey, former proprietor of the Altoona House, located at the corner of Main and Hill streets.
Markey was charged with making and passing counterfeit nickels and 25-cent pieces, according to a local newspaper account of the alleged crime, published on March 19, 1879.
Confiscated at the scene were suspicious coins, amounting in value from $18 to $20.
The Hannibal Morning Journal of March 19, 1879, reported: “the proof of Markey’s guilt seemed complete and his chances are good for a term in the penitentiary.”
The newspaper reporter later witnessed Markey, handcuffed, at the depot with Officer Solon, awaiting the St. Louis train. Markey “looked a little discouraged at the sudden turn of affairs.”
Marshal Anderson’s involvement in crime fighting didn’t stop at the local level, however.
Prominent during that era was a gang of lawbreakers based out of central Illinois, north of Jacksonville. The perpetuators were dubbed the White Hall law-breakers, and consisted of thieves, gamblers and counterfeiters.
Besides Anderson’s family, Andrew Murray Ray, a Hannibal druggist, perhaps knew Charles C. Anderson better than any other.
The two men roomed together on North Sixth Street for four years, while both were establishing themselves as leaders in the community. In March 1879, Murray was operating a drug store at 226 Broadway. And, as aforementioned, Anderson was serving a term as Hannibal’s marshal.
It was during a visit to Ray’s drug store on April 25, 1879, that Marshal Anderson showed his good friend a telegram recently received. In the telegram was a request for the marshal to come immediately to Jacksonville.
“I read the telegram in my store on Broadway, and he borrowed my pistol, stating he did not have time before the train left to go up home for his own pistol,” Murray Ray would later report in a sworn deposition, “and for me to explain his going to his mother, that he would return in a few days. He then hunted up his deputy,” William A. Wilson, in order to turn over his duties until he returned.
Little did Murray Ray realize at the time, but that would be the last time he would see his good friend.
“He told me he would not be gone but a short time, and was so hurried by the telegram coming late, a little while before the Wabash passenger train left for the East, that he did not have time to change his clothing or take his satchel, and he expected to come back home very soon, and so told me.”
Two people received communication from Marshal Anderson following Murray Ray’s correspondence:
First, Murray Ray said, “Mr. Dink Leflet, a former resident of Hannibal, but then living in Toledo, O., met Charley on Sunday the 27th day of April 1879, and, in their interview, Charley Anderson told him that he was about to return home.
“And second, the postal card that Charley Anderson wrote to his deputy, William A. Wilson, dated April 27, 1879, two days after he left home and at Toledo, that he was coming by way of St. Louis, and would be at home on the following Tuesday.”
Murray Ray was also aware that there had been known threats upon the marshal’s life, regarding his work toward thwarting the White Hall gang’s crime spree.
Eleven years would pass without a word from Hannibal’s former marshal.
Marshal Anderson had been the sole means of support for his elderly mother. His departure left Elizabeth C., the widow of Dr. Robert N. Anderson, virtually destitute, forcing his youngest sister, Miss Ann T. Anderson, to take a job, working long hours as a night operator at a local telephone company.
Marshal Anderson’s mother passed on, convinced that her son had been killed by an outlaw gang at Toledo, Ohio, in retaliation for his law enforcement work.
After 11 years, his sister turned to the Bluff City Lodge, No. 23, Ancient Order of United Workmen, with whom her brother had been affiliated. She hoped to claim $2,000 in benefits on behalf of her brother. Her request launched further investigation into Marshal Anderson’s status, including the collection of testimony, such as from Murray Ray, in order to justify the paying of the claim.
Finally, the AOUW came to the conclusion: “We solemnly believe and affirm the fact to be, beyond any reasonable doubt, that Charles Anderson fell a victim in April 1879, at Toledo, O., to the gang of outlaws whose crimes he had unearthed, and for which and to prevent further convictions they had determined to murder him.”
The story may have ended there, except …
The St. Louis Post Dispatch reported in its Feb. 19, 1892 edition:
“Ex-marshal Anderson of Hannibal, Mo., located in California”
Word came in the form of a telegram, sent from a former Hannibal resident who conversed with the missing marshal.
“William G. Richardson, the Grand Recorder of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, is not a man easily startled, but when he read a telegram which was handed him at his office this morning he almost jumped out of his chair. The telegram was as follows:
“Hannibal, Mo. Feb. 19. Charles C. Anderson, the City Marshal of Hannibal who disappeared eleven years ago, has turned up. He was seen recently by a former resident of Hannibal, in a California town. Anderson asked about his family, but assigned no cause for his strange disappearance.
“The reason for Mr. Richardson’s unusual perturbation will be understood when it is explained that the disappearance of Anderson is one of the most remarkable mysteries in AOUW history in America. Anderson was a member of the order and his family were paid the $2000 due them when what were considered satisfactory proofs of his death were produced.
“The history of the case as given by the Grand Recorder Richardson is very interesting …”
No further accounts of communication from Marshal Anderson were found in subsequent newspapers.
Note: Regarding the Markey case, Jacob Markey went on to live a long and satisfactory life. He died July 4, 1921, in Linn County, Mo., at the age of 82.
