Why Did Pomeroy Trust York?

The narrative reflects on the curious interconnections of events during Montgomery County’s early history, emphasizing that truth can often be more remarkable than fiction. It recounts key incidents, including the infamous Bender tragedy and the political scandal involving Senator A. M. York and Senator S. C. Pomeroy. Senator York’s efforts to relocate a land office to Independence reveal a complex web of political maneuvering and moral complexities. The account underscores how seemingly unrelated events intertwine, highlighting York’s integrity during the Civil War and his pivotal role in exposing corruption that led to significant historical implications.

By H. W. Young

That “truth is stranger than fiction” is among the most trite of proverbs. And yet, that it is the facts of human life rather than the wildest vagaries of the romancer that appeal to us more powerfully as weird, strange, wonderful, or inexplicable, is evidence of the infinite versatility of nature. The materials that go to make the warp and woof of events are often the most unexpected, and are ever blended in any way that sets at naught the greatest foresight and the wisest predictions. Indeed, the more one reads and studies the lore of the past and the fiction of the present, the more fully will he be convinced that all there is of interest or value in the creations of the novelist is the truth they contain.

During the first five years of Montgomery County’s history, the most striking events, seen with the clear perspective of almost a third of a century’s distance, are the Bender tragedy and the exposure by Senator A. M. York of the attempt made to purchase his vote by United States Senator S. C. Pomeroy, who was a candidate for re-election. Another less important, but still remarkable event, was the location of the Osage District land office at Independence. That there could be any connection between events so entirely dissimilar, or that one of them should stand to another in the relation of cause and effect, would seem to be especially unlikely. And yet not only was this the case, but we find one name — and that of a man who was unquestionably the foremost citizen of Montgomery County in those early days — coming to the front in all three of those events. It was only the fact that Dr. William York was the best known of the Benders’ victims, and that it was his disappearance which led to the search that brought their crimes to light, that connected Senator York with that tragedy in 1873. What an eventful period that was for our Senator between January 1872 and July 1873. How much of thrilling personal experience was crowded into it.

When in the early winter of 1872 the mayor and council of the city of Independence decided to leave no stone unturned to secure the removal of the United States land office from Neodesha to their own town, they raised $5,000 for the purpose and sent Senator York to Washington to engineer the deal. What he did there he shall tell in his own language, as it is recorded in the report of a legislative investigating committee at Topeka, testifying before which on January 31st, 1873, the Senator said:

“I was authorized as an attorney or agent of the town of Independence, by the mayor and council of that place to visit Washington last winter and to do all I could to get the land office located at Independence. I think I left for Washington in January, 1872; anyhow I knew Mr. Caldwell was at home, being absent through the holiday recess. I took with me a letter of introduction from Mayor Wilson to General McEwen. I visited Messrs. Pomeroy and Lowe frequently with reference to the land office removal, and had consultations with the Kansas delegates in Congress separately and collectively, and could do nothing for a long while. I also called on Secretary Delano and ascertained from him that Mr. Pomeroy had the control of such orders. I then saw Mr. Pomeroy again and wanted him to promise that the office should be removed when the ‘strip bill’ passed, but he told me it could not be done, and advised me to return home. This conversation I think was in February. However, I have a record of all my conversations with the delegation and with every member thereof. I recorded the conversations immediately after the respective interviews occurred. Thereafter I called on General McEwen and presented my letter of introduction, and as our companionship grew he made me acquainted with the details of the Alice Caton scandal and showed me the original affidavits, similar in every respect to the printed affidavits circulated in this city recently. And now let me say here that I did not countenance the circulation of these affidavits during the late Senatorial canvass, but did remark to a friend that they were word for word of the original affidavits which I had then and have now in my trunk. After reading these affidavits in General McEwen’s presence, I received permission to keep them, and the following evening called to see Senator Pomeroy at his private residence in Washington. I found him in the middle parlor. I think there were three parlors or reception rooms in his house, communicating with each other by folding doors. Senator Caldwell was there that evening and other gentlemen, and, I think, several ladies. Seeing Senator Pomeroy occupied, I requested the privilege of an interview at his committee room early the following morning, and the Senator said he guessed the company would then excuse us, and he invited me into the back parlor. We went to the further side of the room and sat down close together, my chair facing him. I said: ‘Senator, you have all this time failed to appreciate the earnestness of my demands for the removal of the land office to Independence, and now I want to show you some documents that will, I think, appeal very forcibly to you.’ And thereupon I took from my pocket the affidavits referred to and showed them to him. He commenced reading and soon his face began to change color. I leaned forward and put the question direct to him: ‘Did you go to Baltimore (naming the day); did you stop at Barnum’s hotel?’ He said he did. I then asked him if Alice Caton went to the same city the same day and stopped at the same hotel. He said she did go to Baltimore that day, and he thought she stopped at Barnum’s hotel. I asked him if he did not room in No. —. He said he could not recollect. I asked him if there was not a door directly communicating between his and her room. He denied that there was, and said he slept with a young man that night whose name he did not remember. At length he agreed to have the land office removed on the first of April, preferring that the scandal should not be revived as coming from a respectable source; and the land office was removed to Independence according to agreement.”

In reply to a question by a member of the investigating committee as to the means he employed, Colonel York said he thought “they were questionable, but the people of Independence sent me to Washington to get the land office and I got it.”

It has always been a wonder how so astute and experienced a politician as Senator Pomeroy could put himself so entirely in the power of a political enemy as he did when he placed those packages of bills in York’s hands to buy his vote, especially in view of the fact that York was made secretary of the anti-Pomeroy organization in the legislature, of which W. A. Johnson, afterwards Justice of the Supreme Court, was chairman. The story told above by York throws a flood of light on this question. York was not a stranger to Pomeroy. The latter naturally had concluded that the Montgomery County man was as unscrupulous as he was himself, and that he would employ any means, no matter how “questionable” to accomplish the purposes he had in view. York had blackmailed him into locating the Osage land office at Independence, and he had evidently set him down as a bird of his own feather. That the man who would extort a favor for his town by a threat to expose Pomeroy’s moral corruption to his constituents, would be any too good to pocket $8,000 as the price of a vote for the same reprobate in the joint convention never seems to have occurred to that statesman. He would not have trusted a stranger in any such way, but a peddler of scandal! Why not count him safe?

So it is that but for the removal of the land office to Independence it is entirely improbable that York would ever have been in a position to “expose” Pomeroy’s corruption. Thus strangely are events linked together. That York was an honest man is attested by his Civil War record. He was made captain in a negro regiment and offered an opportunity to line his pockets by putting fictitious names on the payroll, and defrauding the ignorant blacks of their pay. This he sternly refused to do, and he was in consequence promoted to be lieutenant colonel, whence his title.

It was in the same year, 1873, and only three months later, that York was again brought into prominence in an entirely different way, by the discovery of his brother’s body in that well-plowed garden of the Benders’.