MySource:GayelKnott/Scott Family Documents

Fatal Stabbing of Willie Daniels

Unionville Republican, Unionville, Missouri, Wednesday, March 12, 1968
article by Mrs. Nathan Wells, [sent by her to Effie Scott Mayer ]
Seated in his farm home September 29, 1957 with Frank F. Statton (born June 1, 1879), I listened to an eye-witness account of the fatal stabbing of Willie Daniels.

"I was a boy of fifteen years. The community was celebrating at St. John some sort of achievement, probably an election. In the evening Bill Daniels and an older brother, a cripple, came by our house on horseback. They asked me to accompany them to St. John for the evening. My father consented to my going and assigned to me the horse I should ride. Bill was a year younger than I. About 10 o'clock, Jerome Putnam, the only clerk in the store (D. W. Pollock's) announced that he had had a hard day and was very tired. He asked that anyone wanting to make purchases should do so and he would lock up and go home and go to bed. His request was acted upon and soon the persons who made up the crowd within the store moved out to the porch at the front of the store. Very soon Bill Daniels and Dave Scott were quarreling. The Scott boy was very weak and frail. The Daniels boy, a husky fellow threw back his shoulders to remove his coat, the easier to engage in a fisticuff that seemed imminent. As he did so, the Scott youth drove a knife into the chest of Bill Daniels. The boy cried out, "He struck me with a knife! He struck me with a Knife!" No blood was in evidence until someone seized the front of his garments and tore them open. Blood gushed out. It was later learned that the knife had severed the aorta. Excitement was high and Jerome Putnam, who had got no farther than the rear of the store, unlocked the front door, the boy was carried in, laid on a counter at the rear of the store. Death soon came, but as long as he breathed Willie Daniels kept talking. The boys, mere children, had been stirred to combat by older associates. The difference in political allegiances of their respective families, which to the children had significance only as interpreted by older persons, was the only cause they could have for dislike of each other.

I was a witness to the tragedy and when the case was taken into court I was summoned as a witness, my first time in court. Neither side denied the undeniable facts. The defense urged that the Scott boy was frail and physically unable to defend himself against such an adversary as the strong Daniel boy. In court the boy's bared right arm was exposed to the jury - only bone and skin seemed to be there. The boy had suffered what was known at the time as "white swelling" and the arm was useless - he had struck with the knife in his left hand. The boy's guilt was not questioned. A jail sentence and fine were assessed. The boy re[??]ed from his imprisonment to die at home."

Following the stabbing the frightened Scott boy fled into the night. His father assured those about the store that he would bring his son to town the next day, and did so. The parents of the Daniels boy were Asa and Agnes Pollock Daniels. Long afterward, Mrs. Alice Bucher, who kept a restaurant in Powersville, told me that James Scott never came into the restaurant without coming to her and asking quietly, "How is Agnes by now?"

Marilla's Poem

Poem by Marilla Scott Kidwell, June 28, 1940, Garfield, Washington, to be read at a Scott family reunion in 1940 at the home of Mrs. Garrett (Annie) Scott (widow) in Emmett, Idaho, with parenthetical notes by E. S. Mayer.

Greetings To the Clan
I send my greetings to the Clan.
Perhaps their only merit
Will be to show the best I can
I'm with you in (the) Spirit.

In eighteen hundred fifty-two, (actually 1854)
Or was it eighteen fifty?
Jim Scott the world went out to view
In homespun suit so nifty.

He was eighteen or twenty (actually 21)
When stirred by youth's endeavor With 50 cents in money (actually $2.50)
He crossed the "Muddy" river. (Mississippi River)

He cast his fate with the backwoods state (Missouri)
And near her northern border
Bought time land (cut over?) to cultivate (for taxes)
And began his home to order.

The neighbors said, "Jim is a fool . . .
. . . a grubbing up the timber,
Then setting out a lot more trees (horticulturist)
To keep his muscles limber."

Just as a century ago
The soil stirred him to action,
Today I'm finding in it, too,
My keenest satisfaction.

I never knew just when the rest
Crossed the Missouri river. (Mississippi)
I do recall a family jest
That marked a boy's endeavor.

Garrett picked up some pretty stones
And put them in his pocket.
They said, "so if he saw a bird
He'd be prepared to knock it."

Jim had written there were no stones
But soil so rich for growing.
After the rocky eastern fields (Maryland?)
That must have sounded glowing.

Oh, I remember Uncle "Rutt" (Garrett)
So jolly, kind and tender
How often in our motherless days
They were ready aid to render.

They lived a half a mile away
We could walk when it was fair.
They took me, once a week to stay
While the rest went to the Fair.

When Mary Ida, at her birth,
Was left without a mother
I saw her carried past the school house
To . . . Aunt Angie's . . . "There's no other." (Ann Jane Reece Scott)

Eleven months it was her home
I was the "family baby"
Perhaps in all the years to come
That was what spoiled me, . . . maybe?

The boys were told when they went to school
Their names and age to give (Bert and Al, Garrett's boys)
She didn't ask, so Bert called out (The teacher was a man, Harley Martin)
"'Ban's" four and I'm five."

Later South Missouri called them (Garrett's)
Wild fruits and nuts a-growing,
Fish, squirrels, game, warm springs, and falls
The prospect seemed most glowing.

I don't remember much of that
But I recall one letter
They were having sickness and trouble there,
But would the north be better?

And one remark that made Pa laugh,
(Of course I'd remember that)
"A rolling stone gathers no moss"
But . . . "A setting hen never gets fat."

Oh, well, those by-gone days are gone
Perhaps as well forgotten
Or, let them be remembered
For what they have begotten.

My dearest memory of early days
Was my beloved Aunt Mary. (Aunt Mary Ellen Wilson)
I think I'm like her in my ways
As loving and contrary. (Most Scotts are a bit contrary!)

I know I'm like my father too, (James (Jim) Scott)
In justice, strength and laughter.
As stern, high tempered, kind and true
And proud to be his daughter.

He walked three miles to work in woods
(They worked from sun to sun)
Then sometimes read 'till two a.m.
After his work was done.

I think he never went to school
After he was eight years old
So he read at night by candle light . . .
It helped to stand the cold.

Sixteen years, Justice of the Peace
He judged with such clear vision
Only one time did a higher court
Reverse his wise decision.

Clerk of the school board twenty years,
He helped support three churches
Himself bought many helpful books
To aid in Scripture searches. (Uncle Jim did have many books, more than usual for his time.)

As I look back upon his life
I know 'twas worth the living
Invulnerable to toil and strife
He found a joy in giving.
- X - - X - - X -
Epilogue
I'd like to have it said of me
When my work here is finished
I did my best what e'er it be
With fervor undiminished.

A friend to all, I think I've been
For service always ready
Through toil and strife
And heartache keen
Become serene and steady

I'm working fourteen hours a day, (This was after Dave died, her husband)
With problems grave I'm wrestling,
But nothing can the heart dismay
Where in true love is nestling.

New problems greet us every day
Our happiness involving
When clouds or sunshine
Lead our way
According to their solving.

We children of the pioneers
Have harder days before us (Reference to WWII in 1940)
The clouds are drenched with
blood and tears that hang so darkly o'er us.

The fate all Europe shares today
We all may share tomorrow
We can't be happy, safe and gay
While the whole world groans in sorrow.

July 2, 1890
Just fifty years since my wedding Day,
Life has lead o'er a strenuous way.
but my heart is light, my love still true
As I try . . . Alone . . . to bring youthful dreams true.
Goodbye, Good wishes to all,
Marilla Scott Kidwell