Justice was swift in county’s first murder
The 1878 History of Fayette County makes mention of all the “firsts” to occur in each township in the county – the earliest settlers, first birth, first death, first marriage, first mill, first school, first burying ground and, in the case of Pope Township, the first murder.
Both Loudon and Pope townships claim the murder of George Ogle’s common-law wife, Ellener Swick, but it was known that Ogle lived on Big Lake in Pope Township.
It is told that Ogle accused the woman of being faithless, and, in a fit of jealous rage, killed her – concealing her body in Big Lake, now a part of Carlyle Lake. Big Lake was said to be one mile long and a quarter-mile wide.
With George making his home in Pope Township, also referred to as the "Lost Township," we can surmise that he provided for himself and Ellener by hunting, fishing and trapping, and possibly farming a little on the side, when the water was down.
If the two paragraphs in the 1878 history book and my surmises were all the information we had on this early murder and his hanging, the first in the county, this would be all I could tell you about George Ogle and Ellener.
Some years back, while copying information from the Fayette County Circuit Clerk’s office, I found a packet of coroner’s inquest records, including the inquest held on the body of Ellener Swick, which had been discovered on June 15, 1842.
Coroner Manning Gore convened a jury of 12 men, namely James Linton (foreman), Diocleson Jackson, Elijah Allen, John Dowd, John Altom, David Jackson, A. Lawrence, Preston Hoskins, John Cox, Josiah Wade, Joshua Hoskins and Jacob Harman, who concluded that Swick had been willfully and feloniously murdered.
Soon after the murder, and before the discovery of the body, Ogle fled the area, but was later caught and incarcerated in Vandalia’s jail in the 100 block of North Fourth Street.
According to the documents from the December 1842 county commissioner meeting, various people were paid for having participated in the incarceration and hanging of Ogle.
John Redmond was allowed the sum of six dollars for wood furnished for use of the jail during the confinement of Ogle. Michael Steinhauer submitted a bill for $15 for blacksmithing for the prisoner – making shackles.
Asahel Lee was paid $15 for "building the gallows and platform and coffin for the execution and burial of George Ogle" and Lewis Stamps was paid $7.50 for digging the grave.
George Ogle became a part of Fayette County’s history when he became the first white man to hang.
Twenty years earlier, an Osage Indian was hanged near the capitol building in Vandalia.
Charged with the murder of a Missouri family, the Indian had been taken before a justice in Missouri by Col. Leavenworth, who refused to hear the case because Missouri was a territory (before 1821).
The Colonel then put the Indian on a horse and brought him to Vandalia to stand before the sitting Supreme Court. He was found guilty and, according to Dr. James Goodrich of the Missouri Historical Society, taken out and immediately hanged.
