A Lively Case

I recently ran across an article in an 1892 Springfield newspaper entitled "A Lively Case" that I found amusing. It was about a woman named Maggie Langley who was charged with "keeping a bawdy house," with a neighbor named Lucinda King being the complaining witness.
When the case came up in early July, the prosecution brought out the names of a number of men who had allegedly visited the home of the 51-year-old Mrs. Langley at the corner of Lyon and Locust streets. There was "considerable amusement among the crowd when certain names were mentioned," and the judge had to threaten to clear the courtroom unless order was restored.
The 35-year-old complainant, however, proved to be a fairly weak witness for the prosecution. Mrs. King, a near neighbor of Mrs. Langley, admitted that she and the defendant had recently engaged in a dispute, which caused jurors to conclude that her complaint might be little more than a personal vendetta. In an apparent attempt to buttress her own character, Mrs. King also made several "more or less remarkable" statements. She claimed that she always opened the doors and blinds any time a man entered her home, that she'd never seen a married man walking with a girl on the streets, that she'd never seen a young woman "arrange a gentleman's cravat," and that she herself had "received but very little company" when she was young. Whether Mrs. King's own reputation was less than stellar or the jurors simply thought the statements were incredibly naive is not clear, but for whatever reason they found them hard to believe. Mrs. King also added that the property occupied by Mrs. Langley had previously been the domicile of "Madam Bell," whom those in the court remembered as a notorious woman but also a benevolent one.
"The case from start to finish was sensational," according to the newspaper report, "and many men were afraid that allegations would be made which it might be difficult to explain or disprove." However, "the testimony was 'rocky' all the way through," and "was not convincing to the jury," who brought in a verdict of not guilty after a brief deliberation.
In a footnote to this story, Maggie Langley and Lucinda King were still neighbors living near the intersection of Lyon and Locust eight years later, at the time of the 1900 census.

Prostitutes in the Ozarks

Last time I wrote about the rowdy character of the town of Baxter Springs and cited the 1870 census as evidence, particularly the fact that the occupation of seven women living in the town at the time of the census was listed as "prostitute." Actually, I got to thinking about this whole subject of prostitution, gambliing, etc. in the early-day Ozarks because it was pointed out to me not too long ago that several women living in Joplin at the time of the 1880 census were listed as prostitutes. I know, too, that prostitution was fairly common around the mining town of Granby immediately after the Civil War before Joplin was even formed. I'm not as well versed on the early history of Springfield, but I'm pretty sure prostitution was fairly common there during the war, because Springfield was a Union headquarters throughout much of the war. Anywhere young single men congregated; be they soldiers, miners, or cowboys; prostitutes were sure to show up.
What strikes me about the census records is the fact the census takers (not necessarily the women themselves) were so open about calling a prostitute a prostitute. Today, prostitutes would more likely show up on census records as "escorts" or some other euphemism.

Murphy Movement

I mentioned in my last post about Liberal that the late 1800s were a time of great social and religious experimentation across America. It was also a time of religious revival and reform. One aspect of the reawakening was the abstinence movement, led mainly by women, that swept across the U. S. during the late 1800s and continued into the 1900s. Organizations like the Anti-Saloon League and the Women's Christian Temperance Union sprang up, and their anti-liquor campaigns gave rise to crusading figures like Carrie Nation.
While these groups opposed the consumption of alcoholic beverages mainly by targeting saloons and by trying to get laws against drinking passed, one strain of the temperance movement, called the Murphy Movement, concentrated on the drinkers themselves. Named after its founder, Francis Murphy, who was a former saloonkeeper himself, the movement asked people to sign a pledge not to drink, and they were then given blue ribbons to wear as a token of the pledge. The movement started in Pittsburg, Penn. in late 1876, and by early 1878 it had reached the Ozarks. A series of meetings were held at various churches in Springfield, particularly the First Christian Church located just west of the square, during January and February of that year, and over two thousand people took the pledge. The movement also spread to other Greene County communities like Ash Grove and Walnut Grove and to towns throughout southwest Missouri, like Pierce City, Carthage, Webb City, and Joplin.
By late March of 1878, the movement had petered out in southwest Missouri, having died out about as fast as it got started, but the overall temperance movement did not culminate until many years later with passage of the Prohibition law.

Fantastic Caverns

A few years ago, I wrote an article about the history of Fantastic Caverns that was published in the Ozarks Mountaineer. Probably the thing that stands out most in my mind from the research I did for the article concerns the popular story about the twelve adventurous women from Springfield who comprised the first explorers of the cave. The reason I particularly remember this aspect of the story is because I learned from my research that it's not true. After John Knox discovered the cave on his land northwest of Springfield, he announced his discovery and opened it up for public exploration in early 1867. The first group to explore the cavern went out from Springfield on February 14 and contained no women. The group that included the twelve women from the Springfield Women's Athletic Club did not explore the cave until February 27, almost two weeks later. Contemporaneous newspaper reports in the Springfield Tri-Weekly Patriot make these facts clear, but the idea of twelve adventurous women composing the first exploratory party makes a good story. So, it has been handed down as part of the popular mythology of Fantastic Caverns and is still perpetuated today, I believe, in some of the tourist attraction's own brochures. Why quibble over two weeks? I suppose.

Nettie Pease Fox

The late 1880s were a time of great social and spiritual experimentation. All sorts of Utopian societies and religious communities were founded. One such movement was spiritualism, the belief that one could communicate with spirits of the dead. Spiritualism traces its roots to the 1840s but reached its peak in the United States during the latter half of the nineteenth century when spiritualist lecturers toured the country and mass camp meetings were held.
One such lecturer was Nettie Pease Fox, who caused quite a stir in Springfield when she and her husband, Dorus M. Fox, arrived in the city in the fall of 1877 and started printing a spiritualist newspaper from an office located in the 200 block of South Avenue, just south of the square, and lecturing at the Opera House located a block farther south. During Nettie Pease Fox's stay in Springfield, many locals were reportedly converted to spiritualism, but the fervor died almost as quickly as it had arisen and the Foxes' sojourn in the city proved brief.