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North
Arkansas Times
Batesville, Arkansas
October 10, 1868
Page 2
History
of the Notorious Robber and Murderer, Wm. Monks
He is a native of Fulton
Co., Ark., and was raised on Bennett’s Bayou; is about 35 or
33 years of age; large and muscular; light, or rather red, complexion,
considerably marked by smallpox. When
a young man was noted as one of the most worthless in the country, always
being very ragged and dirty. In 1859
or ’60 he married and moved to Howell Co., Mo., where he erected a black-jack pole cabin, about
11 feet square, in a barren hollow, upon vacant land, and fenced in with
black-jack poles about six acres of prairie land. His property consisted of one old blind
horse, estimated by his neighbors to be worth $15; one cow and calf, supposed
to be worth $10, and five or six hogs, and a few things in the hourse, (for they could not be called bedding or
household furniture.) He would ride
his old horse to West Plains, four miles distant, in the morning, and have to
lead him home at night, as the horse was so poor that it was unable to carry
him to town and back on the same day.
The war came on and found
him in this condition. He took sides
with the Union party and immediately commenced improving his pecuniary
condition by appropriating any little valuable that his more fortunate
neighbors might be in possession of, even to provide
clothing for his children from the wardrobes of those who had the
article. His thirst for plunder
improved with his practice, and from robbing houses he commenced stealing
horses, and in the course of a twelve month he was considered one of the most
expert and daring robbers upon the border, (the Allsops
not excepted.) He went on in his
profession, acquiring considerable notoriety, and all the lawless men in the
surrounding country fell in with Monks, and directly enough of them had
collected together to form a company, and as a matter of course elected Monks
captain, which rank he holds to this day, for he never was higher in rank
during the war, neither was he ever in the regular federal army; and as soon
as he was elected captain he reported his company as Missouri enlisted
militia, and encamped at a place called the Lick Settlement, and built, or
made prisoners build, a kind of stockade fort. He and his outlaws completely laid waste to
the country from there to some distance into the State of Arkansas, robbing and murdering all whom he chanced to com
upon, but never being in the first battle of any kind. He and his men have killed boys and old
gray headed men whom they chanced to catch at their homes. On gentleman, name Hotman,
was shot by them while lying in a bed of sickness. It would take a week to recount all the
robberies and murders committed by Monks while in command of the fort before
spoken of.
After the war ended Monks
was as wealthy a man as there was in Howell County. During the fall of 1867 Monks
was commissioned by Gov. Fletcher to raise a company of militia and look for
and catch up horse thieves that were said to abound in Oregon County, Mo., and to turn them over to the civil authorities,
to be dealt with according to law. He
organized his militia and proceeded to Oregon County, but instead of hunting
up thieves, he arrested the sheriff and a great many other prominent men, and
hung up the sheriff as he did Bryant and Deshazo
recently in Fulton County, and tied several of his prisoners together in a
wagon and hauled them around over the country, sometimes making them walk
behind the wagon, tied hard and fast, saying to them he would kill them on a
certain day if they did not tell certain tales on certain men; and he not
only hung the sheriff, but sent a squad of men into the State of Arkansas and
murdered Capt. Smith, at his home near Salem.
They also arrested the Circuit Court then in session, judge, lawyers,
and all, and committed other outrages in different localities, in open
defiance of the law. – These statement can be established by living
witnesses. - Absence.
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