Rube Burrow, king of outlaws, and his band of train robbers

by George W. Agee

“I have no doubt,” answered Allen Burrow, “that he was mobbed.”

This sentiment was diffused among the friends of the outlaw, and finally found culmination in a sensational letter written from Vernon, Ala., and published in the Birmingham Age-Herald. The publication asserted that Rube had been mobbed, his neck horribly broken and his body shamefully mutilated. All this, despite the fact that the body had been viewed by newspaper correspondents at Demopolis and Birmingham, and by at least five thousand persons before it reached Sulligent. The body and face bore no marks of mutilation and no wound of any description, save the small bullet hole from Carter’s pistol.

The remains of the most famous bandit of modern times were buried among the hills of Lamar County, in the quiet graveyard of Fellowship Church, on the morning of the 10th of October, 1890, on the very spot where, a year before, he had enlisted Rube Smith as a member of his unlawful band—a strange coincidence, surely.

The train robber’s pistols, belt and Marlin rifle were taken to Memphis, Tenn., and the publication of the chase and capture by a Memphis journal, accompanied by illustrations of the pistols and cartridge belt, and the announcement that the arms would be on exhibition at its office that morning, created a remarkable and unexpected effect. The rush of visitors that ensued was extraordinary, and is mentioned here merely to show the wonderful interest with which the career of Rube Burrow imbued all classes of people. Early in the morning the first callers were the newsboys, porters and clerks. All wanted to see and handle the weapons of the great outlaw. Later, merchants, bankers, lawyers, shop-keepers, all alike interested, left their places of business to view the weapons. It became necessary to place the pistols and belt in a glass case and hang the rifle beyond reach, and still the crowd continued to gather.

The weapons were on exhibition for several days, during all of which time the influx of visitors never ceased. Rich and poor, male and female, black and white, all were possessed of the same curiosity, and the deeds of the outlaw were discussed by some with admiration for his courage, by others with an expression of detestation of his crimes—by all with a feeling of relief that he was dead.

CHAPTER XXI.
TRAGIC SUICIDE OF L. C. BROCK, ALIAS JOE JACKSON—HE LEAPS FROM THE FOURTH STORY OF THE PRISON INTO THE OPEN COURT, SIXTY FEET BELOW, CAUSING INSTANT DEATH—HIS LAST STATEMENT.

L. C. Brock, alias Joe Jackson, was placed in the penitentiary at Jackson, Miss., for safe keeping, on the twenty-first day of July, pending his appearance for trial at the November Term of the Federal Court. He had elected to plead guilty, and receive a sentence of life imprisonment for the offense of robbing the United States mail at Buckatunna, Miss., September 25, 1889, rather than be taken to Duck Hill, because the penalty of death by hanging he knew would be his fate. Again, he felt that the outraged friends of Chester Hughes, the heroic passenger who had, in assisting Conductor Wilkinson on that fateful night, been shot down in cold blood, would probably mob him if taken there for trial, and fearless and bold as he was, his heart quaked within him whenever the alternative of being taken to Duck Hill was presented to him. Again and again he had been told by the officials of the Southern Express Company that whenever he repented of the conclusion he had made to plead guilty to the Buckatunna robbery and testify against Smith, that the confession he had made could be withdrawn, and he could elect a trial for the murder at Duck Hill.

Meantime Rube Smith, unaware that Brock had made a confession, had notified the officials of the Express Company that he would turn state’s evidence against Brock, provided a nolle pros. could be entered in his case in the Federal Court. Rube Smith’s proposition was, however, rejected, but Brock was told of Smith’s offer to testify against him, and thus he found the coils tightening, day by day, about him. On August 22d Brock, under the assumed name of Winslow, the name he at first gave when captured, wrote the following letter to his uncle, at Pleasant Hill, La.

Jackson, Miss., August 22, 1890.

J. T. Harrell, Pleasant Hill, La.