Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past by David W. Jackson

Pioneer Men Weren’t The Only Ones to Take Law Into Their Own Hands

An Account of Abuse and Murder on the Frontier

Laura Thatcher Ulrich said, “Well behaved women rarely make history.” This insight holds true to the real-life story of one experienced Jackson County pioneer, Rebecca Hawkins, who made history in the 1830s when, in desperation, she took the law into her own hands.

Rebecca, an illiterate mother of five and pregnant with her sixth child, had no choice but to follow her husband, Williamson Hawkins, when he picked up and moved his family west from their Tennessee home in 1830. They traveled by wagon and settled in newly created Jackson County where Hawkins began accumulating land. Within eight years, he retained 1,680 acres of land, including two gristmills and ten slaves.

The chain of events that follows took place along the Little Blue River where today stands the Eastland Shopping Center at the confluence of M-291 and I-70 Highways.

During this time, Rebecca bore three more children, and the family appeared to be living solid, hardy, pioneer lives. But, under the surface lurked a dirty secret. For nearly 20 years—all her married life—Rebecca Hawkins suffered the physical abuses inflicted by her husband. She was a battered homemaker. It was common knowledge in the small, rural Jackson County community that her husband, under the influence of whiskey, routinely beat and whipped Rebecca, as proved through historical documents by biographer William B. Bundschu, in his book, Abuse and Murder on the Frontier: The Trials and Travels of Rebecca Hawkins: 1800-1860.

In 1838, Rebecca sought a home remedy to her desperate situation. She stirred white arsenic ratsbane poison into her husband’s coffee. Her initial attempt to end the attacks by removing the attacker failed (and there’s evidence she may have tried twice). Still, Williamson, ill from the effects of an unknown plague, made out a lengthy Last Will and Testament.

Meanwhile, Rebecca resorted to Plan B. She paid $150 to her next-door neighbor, Henry Garster, to administer another form of poison—a lethal dose of lead poisoning by way of a gun. Rebecca assisted Garster by removing a portion of the mud chinking between the logs of her house by the side of the chimney through which Garster took aim with a squirrel rifle and shot Williamson in the heart while he was sitting asleep before the fireplace.

Unfortunately for Garster, he was tracked to his house by footprints he left in a light layer of snow, and ultimately paid for his part with his life in the first legal hanging in Jackson County in 1839. Rebecca was arrested at the time of Williamson’s burial and later tried and acquitted on charges of aiding the murder. But, she was convicted on charges of poisoning based on testimony quoting a conversation with her own slave, Mary.

Bundschu writes, “Rebecca…could well have been a model for the statues of “Pioneer Mothers” placed along the [trails…as she] certainly endured the variety of hardships and loneliness that the sculptors and sponsors of the statues had in mind. They might not have endorsed her final remedy for one of the all-too-frequent hardships—spousal abuse—but they would have understood the pain that drove her to use it.

What was the fate of Rebecca Hawkins?

Her life’s story is presented in Abuse and Murder on the Frontier in short, easy-to-read chapters, and packed with detail that all add up to answering the complex question as to whether her experience was typical or unique among women on the Missouri frontier. It also yields interesting information about various aspects of every-day life in Jackson County in the 1830s.

David W. Jackson is archivist for the nonprofit Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society’s Archives and Research Library at 112 W. Lexington Ave. Suite 103, Independence, MO, 64050. Discover all the products, services and programs including Jackson County Counts that are available through the Historical Society at www.jchs.org (click on ‘Educational Opportunities’). For more information, or to donate historical materials, call (816) 252-7454, or e-mail info@jchs.org.

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