Volume 15 , Issue 35

Bones Of The Benders

It was in The Salt Lake Herald, date 7 January 1883, page 8, that we found the article concerning the Bender family, with the headlines: "Bones Of The Benders."

time and again the fate of the Bender family had been a question warmly debated in all parts of the West. Many people maintained that the family were duly killed by the avengers of Dr. York, whose death first brought to notice the murderous family. Every little while comes the report that the Benders were sill living and had been captured. There had been discovered no less than a hundred different Bender families, and a collection of the newspaper sensations relative to the discoveries of Benders would prove a most interesting literary curiosity. The latest Bender sensation was a local one, when the detectives clapped a guileless citizen into a calaboose, upon the statement of a man named Green. He was discharged from custody a few days afterwards.

The Benders kept an inn on a lonesome road near Cherryvale, Labette county, Kansas. The road passed through the middle of a prairie, six miles from Cherryvale, and all the inn travelers often stopped to get lodgings for the night. Travelers stopping there, supposed to have money, were seated at the table, and while they were taking their meals, a curtain which was suspended behind them showed the position of their heads. A blow with the head of an axe, from behind the curtain, would stun or finish them. The bodies were lowered into a cellar underneath through a trap-door, where the pockets would be rifled of money and valuable and then the bodies were buried in a hole, dug in the lot in the era of this hospitable tavern. The disappearance of Dr. York led to the discovery of these terrible crimes, and the sudden departure of the Bender family.

Many statements of the manner in which the Benders met their retribution had been made, but the circumstances of the affair had for a long time been enveloped in mystery. A new version of the fate of the benders sets the matter beyond all doubt.

The following statement was made by Captain J. C. Reeves, who was First Lieutenant of Captain Burrows' Battery, U. S. volunteers, and who was living at Independence, Kansas, at the time the Bender family were detected as the murderers of Dr. York and others, was given to Colonel D. W. Wear of that city, who furnished it to the Republican.

According to captain Reeves' statement, Dr. York lived in Independence, Kansas, and went from Independence to Fort Scott to sell a house and lot at that place. He negotiated the sale, but the purchaser did not pay any money down. York started for his hoe in Independence, and was met and recognized at Parsons,Kansas, where he purchased some cigars. He was next met on the road from Parsons to Benders, and recognized by three or four parties, but he never could be traced beyond Benders. Dr. York's wife being indisposed, her husband's return was expected that night. His bother, Colonel York, aware of the delicate condition of his brother's wife, started out after him, and the first trail he struck was at Parsons, which place he learned the doctor had passed through on his way home the day before. From this place he set out on the trail, and heard of his brother three or four times between parsons and the Bender place. Colonel York stopped at the Bender place and made inquiries for his brother, the doctor. The Benders denied that he had ever been there. Colonel York then went to Independence, MOntgomery county, Kansas, and got Sheriff Stone. They both (Colonel York and Sheriff STone) made a visit tot he Benders. On arriving there, the information they got from him was unsatisfactory, but enough was obtained to arouse their suspicions.

Colonel York and Sheriff Stone then returned to Independence and raised a party of men. They started out to Bender's the very next morning, and when the party arrived at the place it was discovered that the family had all decamped. They then hunted around the house, and finally prosecuted their search in the garden where they found that the ground had recently been disturbed. On removing the surface soil they found the body of Dr. York, and others who had been murdered, in these crude graves. Hon. William Wright and S. S. Peterson, Deputy Untied a marshal at that time, followed the wagon track across the open prairie to Thayer, Kansas, which was about twelve miles distant front eh Bender house. There they found the Benders' wagon and horses, which had been abandoned. They tree learned that the Benders and taken the train on the L. L. & G. railroad for the north. The pursuing party telegraphed the conductor of the train and he telegraphed back that the Benders had stopped at Chinutte or New Chicago. They next telegraphed the ticket agent at Chicago or Chinutte. He answered that he had sold the Benders tickets to Chetopia, Kansas, which is just two miles from the Cherokee line. Messrs. Wright and Peterson, after obtaining this valuable information, mounted their horses and rode rapidly back to the Bender place, where they found Colonel York and Sheriff Stone. The four men at once procured fresh horses and stated in all haste for Chetopia.At Oswego they again procured fresh horses and started anew for Chetopia, only distant eight miles. Then they ascertained that the Benders had taken a team and wagon, which was awaiting them there, and had gone in a southeasterly direction toward the Grand River, in the Indian Nation. Chetopia is about thirty miles front he brand River. When the pursuing party reached Chetopia, they were only about three hours behind the Benders. They pushed rapidly ahead, and the four men came up with the fugitives four miles front he Grand River, and there without further ceremony the Benders met the retribution due their crimes. They were all shot to death,a nd the bones of old man Bender, his wife, John and Kate, lie there in a hole dug in the ground, where they remain at this day.

Mr. Wright was in 1883 living in Iowa, and Peterson was a resident of Independence, Kansas. Stone was living in Montgomery county, Kansas. The scene of the terrible murders was visited a year after their perpetuation, and the house had disappeared as well as most other evidences of the monstrous crimes committed by the Benders, who in their turn met with swift punishment and a just retribution. - Missouri Republican.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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