THE LYNCHING OF ADOLPHUS F

  

THE LYNCHING OF ADOLPHUS F. MONROE

 


NATHAN ELLINGTON

 

The following has been compiled from various newspaper accounts, census records, etc.
Transcribed and submitted by Bonnie Snow.

Key characters are:   Adolphus F. Monroe

                                    Nathan Ellington

                                    Nancy Ellington

A. F. Monroe (Adolphus) is listed on the 1850 Pendleton County Census as age 22, school teacher.
He was living with his mother, Anne Mariah Monroe, age 51, his sister, Mary Ellen, age 20.  Also living with this family is Mariah Louisa Woodworth, age 13.

 

 

THE COVINGTON JOURNAL

A Weekly Paper--Devoted to Politics, Literature, Agriculture, Education, the Mechanic Arts, and the News of the Day

Vol. VIII-NO. 31 COVINGTON, KY, FEBRUARY 23, 1856

HORRIBLE AFFAIR IN CHARLESTOWN, ILLINOIS
A. F. Monroe Hung by a Mob!

Two weeks since we noticed the trial and conviction in the Coles County (Ill.) Circuit Court of A. F. Monroe for murder. It will be recollected that the trial was had under circumstances which made it a mere mockery of the forms of justice. The prisoner's council was deterred by threats of mob violence from making an application for a change of venue. The trial was urged on in the midst of high popular excitement and in the absence of a material witness for the defense. The excited populace thronged the court room, overawing by their presence and threats, counsel, judge and jury. The result, as might have been anticipated, was a verdict of guilty; and this was followed by sentence of death to be executed within thirty-two days! Friday of last week was the day named for the execution of the sentence. At the last moment the Governor of the State granted a respite for 90 days. The mob, thirsting for the blood of Monroe, and exasperated by the postponement of the execution, went to the jail, forced open, took the prisoner out and deliberately murdered him!



Falmouth, KY., February 18, 1856

We received this morning, the intelligence of the execution of A. F. Monroe, late our fellow citizen, who but four short years ago removed to the town of Charleston, Illinois. After remaining there some length of time it was his misfortune to become entangled in a family difficulty. Being a man of sensitive feelings, he sought the cup that invites to forgetfulness, wherin he could drown his misfortunes. At last aggravated, (in a number of ways that the world could not see, but he could feel) he was driven to the dreadful extremity of killing his father-in-law--William Elllington( should read Nathan Ellington)--a man of wealth and influence--beloved by all who know him, a good citizen, and an honorable man. Yet all this does not destroy our indignation and contempt for that which is tinctured with injustice or for those who fail to administer to man the justice and privilege the laws of our country grant him and the God of nature designed he should have and enjoy.
Monroe was confined in the Charleston jail, and on the 14th (?) was brought out, tried and condemned to be hung on the 15th inst. An application was made to the Supreme Court for a new hearing, but failed when a respite for ninety days was granted. Friday, the 15th inst., being the day of Monroe's execution from 800 to 1000 persons flocked to witness the joyful scene, a scene that should be attended with tears and petitions for their miserable dying fellow man; but they were sadly disappointed. Monroe was respited until the 1st of May. This was too long. A mob was talked of--sanctioned by near 500 persons; but they were not prepared to commit such a horrible deed; they must (to use their own language) "get about half tight" to prepare them for the execution of this hellish act. About 12 o'clock after drinking freely, they proceeded to the cell of the prisoner, and there committed an outrage which fiends from Hell could not have aggravated. An infuriated and blood-thirsty mob, with power as a safeguard and protection for their cowardly persons-and blood as their motto, they demanded admittance to the prisoner's cell; The jailer's wife, like a heroic and noble lady, (characteristic of her sex) locked and bolted the doors and bid them defiance, Noble woman! Although too weak to save him your noble purpose demands and will receive the admiration of all those who love justice and have sympathy for their fellow man! But they were almost within reach of their victim whose blood would satisfy their manic desire; going to the window of his cell, they forced an entrance, overpowered and dragged him out, in broad open daylight-in a State that guaranties protection and justice to every man, -hung him-without law-without justice and without authority! They are satisfied-they have drunk the blood of their murdered victim. It has satisfied their demonic appetites and they disperse, and at their ease enjoy it. Bloody Charlestown! Long will the 15th of February, 1856, be remembered-and remain a disgrace and stigma of your records.
But calm thinking and reflecting citizens of Illinois, is this outrage to go unpunished? Are the perpetrators of such a black and brutal crime to go unwhipped of justice? Will you suffer premeditated public murder in your midst? Surely not. You will, by inflicting such punishment as the extent of the crime deserves, relieve your State of the deep disgrace that stains her records. Will you not use every exertion and show to the world that such an example is not sanctioned by your state? Will you not prove, by the severe punishment of this brutal outrage, and guarantee to those who are desirous of removing to your State that they will be protected (not by mob law), but by the provisions made by your laws?
Will this matter rest here or be smoothed over, from the facts that Monroe was a young man with but few friends and the murder of on of your popular and influential citizens? Will this, I ask, expiate the crime or the brutal and inhumane manner in which he was punished? Certainly not. I leave this subject, hoping that something at least may be done to avenge the great injustice done him, his family, relations and friends.
We learn that a faithful history of all the incidents of this affair, from its incipiency to its tragic termination, edited by a gentleman every way competent, will shortly be laid before the public. The public may expect some startling disclosures.


Mattoon Daily Journal Gazette, September 1, 1955. 

First Coles County Clerk Murdered; Killer Lynched.

Just six days after Mattoon was officially recorded as a city in the county records, Nathan Ellington, the first clerk of Coles County and then circuit clerk, was shot to death by his son-in-law.
His killer, Adolphus F. Monroe, was tried, sentenced to hand and was awaiting execution when a mob intervened and lynched him in Charleston.
In the following story, the material for which was collected by E. D. Hortenstine of Gays, cetain names are omitted to protect innocent persons. The material comes chiefly from newspapers in the files of the Illinois Historic Library.
Charleston, October 19, 1855 Mr. Nathan Ellington, clerk of the Coles County circuit court, was fatally shot by his son-in-law, Adolphus F. Monroe.
The first ball glanced from his skull; the second passing through his lungs. The difficulty was about Monroe’s wife.
After the first pistol was fired, Ellington knocked Monroe down and fell upon him, choking him; when the coward assassin drew another pistol and fired again. Ellington still retained his hold and would have strangled him if they had not been separated.
January 24, 1856, Monroe the murderer of Mr. Ellington at Charleston has been found guilty and sentenced to hang. There was great excitement during the trial but no outbreaks.
February 15, 1856, Governor Matteson, has granted Monroe, who was to be hanged today at Charleston, a reprieve of three months.
February 18, 1856, (Summary of Newspaper reports) We stated last week that Governor Matteson had granted a respite to Monroe, convicted of the murder of Nathan Ellington at Charleston. In October last on Wednesday last, The Governor dispatched a messenger to Charleston with the necessary instructions to the sheriff of Coles County to grant the respite. The messenger arrived at Charleston early Thursday morning and immediately delivered the respite to the sheriff, John R. Jeffries. The document was received by the sheriff and he immediately had 400 copies of it printed and circulated, which actions produced an intense excitement.
The sheriff however did not seem to apprehend any mob, and refused to provide any suitable force to resist such an attack, saying that he had eighty loaded muskets in the jail and did not want any more assistance.
The crowds continued to pour into Charleston all day, about 400 people arriving on the evening train, and men, women, and children arriving in all kinds of conveyances and from all parts of the surrounding country. By eleven o’clock on Friday, there were at least five thousand persons in the town, who came, as they said, “to see the fun.”
At twelve o’clock midnight the crowd commented moving towards the courthouse, led on by a man by the name of James Cunningham, a brother-in-law of the prisoner.
Mr. Cunningham made a speech in which he said, “I appear here as a warm friend to the deceased and to inform you that a respite has been granted by the Governor of the State, postponing the time of the execution of Monroe until the 15th day of May. I have always had respect for the laws: I have consulted with many of the old citizens of Coles County upon the subject of obeying the respite, and have come to the conclusion, upon reflection, to postpone the execution until the day fixed upon by the Governor for the execution, and that he shall be executed on that day, not withstanding his excellency the Governor.
Gentleman, I speak the sentiments of a part of old Nathan’s friends, whom I have conversed with, but mind you, only a part.”
The sheriff then responded that he would comply with the conditions named by Mr. Cunningham. A man in the crowd then shouted of the prisoner, “Take him out, take him out and hang him.” Then the courthouse bell began ringing which seemed to be the signal for an attack upon the jail.
The mob inflamed and excited, rushed in mass to the jail yard, where, yelling like demons let loose from the infernal regions, they began to make an attack on the north side of the jail. Some ten to fifteen minutes after they had commenced the attack, the sheriff made his appearance, and addressed the mob for about two minutes, commanding them to desist, but made no appeal to the spectators to assist him in enforcing the law. The sheriff then disappeared and made no further effort to resist the mob or to protect the prisoner.
The mob was about two hours in making a breach in the wall of the jail. Not more than ten or twelve men did the actual work, but they were encouraged by a large portion of the crowd, who used every means to keep up the excitement. During all this time were heard the sounds fife and drum, amid the demon like yells of the multitude.
Several men who were placed in the jail as guards stood in the open windows, with guns in the hand, and called upon the crowd to assist in the work, and to take the prisoner out and hang him. Some of these men were placed there by the sheriff, and others were placed there by other parties, for the purpose of watching the proceedings and to prevent escape of the prisoner. A man displayed from a window a portrait of Monroe’s wife, and called upon the crowd, in a vehement manner to behold the daughter of the father, the prisoner had murdered. It is proper here to state that Monroe’s wife had always sustained him in the dreadful affair.
At times during the attack upon the jail, the excitement of the mob would die away, and had the sheriff or any, prominent citizen, made the effort, he might have succeeded in quelling the excitement and restore order.
When the breach was made large enough, the prisoner was dragged through wearing only his night clothing, into the cold black winter night, badly bruised and insensible, amid the deafening shouts of the mob, who immediately moved with him towards the public square, the fife and drum in the meantime sounding. The crowd pressed around and it would have been impossible to know the position of the prisoner, had it not been designated by one who carried a long staff.
The mob then proceeded to the public square, with the evident intention of there hanging the prisoner and thus completing their hellish transaction, however, the mass commenced moving from the square and the cry immediately arose—“to the woods, to the woods” Immediately the mass moved with the prisoner, towards the woods. After proceeding about a half mile southwest of the square another halt was made, and those most active pressed the crowd back and succeeded in making a ring. In which some six or seven men held the prisoner. In the middle of the ring was a tree, against which a ladder was placed, on which a man ascended with an axe and trimmed of the smaller branches. The rope was now made fast to the tree and all things appeared ready for the blackest outrage which has anytime been perpetrated by any people, much less those who have claims to civilization.
During all the time the prisoner appeared insensible of what was going on, being unable to sustain himself alone. He appeared like a man who had taken poisonous drugs, which had taken effect upon him; (It was later learned that his business partner, who operated a drug store with Monroe had smuggled morphine to him before the attack.) he did not seem to heed the crowd, but would occasionally laugh in a wild and insane manner.
A cry was heard, “take him back to jail, will you hang a dead man?” but some demon's voice was heard saying, “you cowards, are you afraid to hang him after bringing him here?” The prisoner was now placed in a wagon under the rope and again the mob hesitated. It seemed that no one could be found blood thirsty enough to adjust the rope to his neck. Finally, a tool in the hands of others, a man placed the rope around the prisoner’s neck, while others held him up. The wagon was pulled away and the awful deed accomplished, the victim, as he hung, not making a single struggle.
So ended one of the most disgraceful outrages that was ever perpetrated in our State. May its history never be blacked by another.
The body was taken down by the mob, who had not yet satisfied the brutal vengeance, and carried in a wagon twice around the public square of the town, as in triumph in their disgraceful deed.
Upon the appeal of the sister of Monroe, his body was surrendered to his relatives for burial. His wife, Nancy, while waiting for the train to arrive to take her and the body back to Kentucky for burial, sat with her club-footed son, in a defiant manner upon the coffin in front of the railroad station.


Mattoon Daily Journal Gazette, September 1, 1955. 


Tombstone Has Lengthy Inscription 
Nathan Ellington, the first clerk of Coles County, was assassinated by his son-in-law, as related in a story appearing elsewhere in this paper.
His body is buried in a private cemetery known as the Ellington cemetery which is located on property of the new Charleston High School. Inscribed on his monument is the following:
“A mourning widow and children erected this monument to the memory of Nathan Ellington, who was born in Russell County, Virginia, May 31, 1805, and emigrated to Illinois in 1826. In the year 1830 he was appointed clerk of Coles County at the first organization, which office he held by appointment and election for 18 years. In 1835 he was appointed Clerk of the Circuit Court, which office he also held by appointment and election for 20 years, together with many other offices from time to time bestowed upon him by appointment and election, in all of which he discharged with great fidelity, the trust and confidence reposed in him, in health, vigor, and in the midst of usefulness to all around him. He was suddenly cut off by the hands of Adolphus F. Monroe, his son-in-law, departing this life on the 27th day of October, 1855. With unshaken confidence in the great atonement he exclaimed in a song of praise upon his dying bed. Yea when this flesh of heart shall fail. 
And mortal life shall cease
I shall possess within the vial
A life of joy and peace.
Reader, learn from the life, character, and success of the deceased, that integrity, industry, and virtue are the only sure passports to the confidence and respect of mankind and an entrance into the paradise of God.”




1905 Coles County, Illinois History - Chapter 6

In October, 1855, Adolph Monroe shot and killed his father-in-law, Nathan Ellington, as the result of a little family disagreement, greatly augmented and stimulated by the fires of the whisky consumed by Monroe. It was a most lamentable occurrence. Ellington was a man of exceptional qualities, held high in the esteem of the people. Monroe was a man of splendid appearance, of fine address and born of one of the best families that Kentucky ever sent to our county. Monroe was tried, found guilty and sentenced to be hung. The Governor granted a thirty days' respite, and the sullen spirit of the mob arose. It was the old story. Men who, as individuals, respected the law and loved order, became under the malign influence of that spirit, the agents of a merciless vengeance. The jail where Monroe was confined was the brick building which yet stands in Charleston, on the west side of Sixth between Madison and Jefferson streets. It was surrounded, its guards overpowered and Monroe was hustled, carried, dragged through the streets, to a point south of the Western School building, where stood a tree about two hundred feet north of the bridge that crosses the "Town Branch" on Jackson Street. To a limb of that tree he was suspended until life was extinct, and the insanity of intemperance and the insanity of the mob had once more jointly accomplished their perfect work.



Source: Cole County, Illinois Genealogy Society

ELLINGTON CEMETERY 

Originally located on Charleston High School Field two and a half blocks east of 11th Street at Taylor Street in Charleston, Illinois. The cemetery was moved to the Old Charleston Cemetery about the year 2000. 

An Old Monument In a Meadow 

Easter Sunday, 1900, out in a meadow in the south-east portion of the City of Charleston, at about the point where Fourteenth and Polk Streets would intersect if the farm were opened up for building purposes one would find a lonely, sacred spot of ground about sixty by forty feet, in tile center of a meadow, securely surrounded by a high board fence and inside are five evergreen trees, the largest about 20 inches in diameter. There are also the remains of a decayed trunk of a cedar and the roots of a scotch pine or fir tree showing that two or more existed and perished during the past 45 years. Two clumps of shrubbery are also inside and small granite boulders are located for the lines of demarcation for the "Ellington Grave Yard." 
There are inside two commanding monuments, the larger about ten feet high and the next about seven. The four remaining stones are one being an ordinary tombstone for an adult and the others reduced to correspond with the ages of young children. 
The field is cut up by hedge fences; four rivulets Join together a few feet to the east and from the fountain head of a run which enters the Town Branch east of Tenth Street. The location of the graves cannot be reached by any road for it is in the middle of a large field, a hundred rods north of Lincoln Avenue and a like distance west of Eighteenth Street. 
The large shaft, is about 20 'inches square and all of its sides are filled with fine script perpetuating the memory of the man whose ashes lie beneath and bringing back to the older inhabitants a tragedy which shook the foundations of pioneer society in Coles County and the murder was followed by a mob which broke the Jail and dragged the miserable murderer to a great oak tree on the Town Branch near the present Jackson street bridge and there hanged him from a limb by horrible strangulation, he being upon a wagon which was pulled from under the doomed man. 
And 5,000 people witnessed the horrible spectacle. But, the murder trial, reprieve and mob is a matter of history. But few in Charleston can tell who Nathan Ellington was, or where he lived, or where he was buried. 


Dec 14, 1853 - The Courier [Illinois]

Married on the 12th, inst by Rev. Samuel Huffman, Mr. ADOLPHUS F. MONROE to Miss NANCY ELLINGTON, both of this place. 

________________________________________________________________________________________

Married: Charles C. J. Dickenson and Mrs. Nancy Monroe - April 4, 1857, Coles County, Illinois

________________________________________________________________________________________

Married: Nathan Ellington and Fanny Mariah Yocum - Sept. 29, 1831, Coles County, Illinois


Coles County, Illinois

1850 Federal Census
Charleston

Roll 101, pg. 15
55-56 
Nathan Ellington, 48, M, Farmer, $ 8500 , VA 
Fanny M., 48, F, KY 
James, 16, M, Ill 
Nancy, 14, F, Ill 
Elizabeth, 11, F, Ill 
William, 8, M, Ill 
Edwin, 4, M, Ill 


CUMBERLAND COUNTY, ILLINOIS OBITUARY
1894 Greenup Press, Greenup, IL


Akers, Mary - Aunt Mary Akers is dead. She left friends and home last Monday for the next world. She was 75 years old. Her oldest brother was Ambrose Yocum, the first sheriff of Coles County, who died from exposure in the line of his duty by riding through the bleak prairies of this -- Coles County--for this county (Cumberland) was then a part of Coles.
Her mother, Mary Eve Yocum, died at the age of 84 and her remains rest in the Dry Grove Cemetery. Her only other brother, Thornton Yocum who died in Coles County, all except Aunt Elizabeth Coleman who, though feeble, still survives. 

Her sisters married as follows: Catharine married Rev. Miles H. Hart and lived and died on the old homestead, four miles south of Mattoon; Fanny married Nathan Ellington, for long years clerk of the circuit court of Coles County, and part of the time county clerk as well. Ellington was killed without any fault of his. The other member of the family was Elizabeth C. Cunningham, mother of the editor of this paper. Her remains lie in the old Dry Grove graveyard. 
When Aunt Mary was a beautiful sprightly girl living with Uncle Nathan Ellington in Charleston, she married Philip O'Dell, of that place, and the result of the union was one son, Clarence, who now lives in the west. When she married last it was to Joshau Akers who is left to mourn his loneliness.

Joshau and Aunt Mary started in life to make money and succeeded. They never had but one child, Thornton, who lives in Dry Grove and is one of the prosperous farmers of the county. 1894 Greenup Press, Greenup, IL


MIGRATIONS

Ambrose Yocum - 1797-1834; born in Nelson County, KY, migrated to Charlestown, Cole County, Ill. in 1830


Home