THE MURDEROUS SCARECROWS OF COFFIN'S GROVE

     University of Emmetsburg history student Susie Blackthorne, while conducting research for her graduate thesis on the Underground Railway, the network that aided escaped slaves flee from the deep South to the free North, stumbled across a story that led her to Coffin's Grove, Iowa. While Iowa abolitionists were active in this cause, and frequently at dire peril to themselves, not all, Blackthorne learned, were motivated by a desire to see fellow humans freed from bondage.

     Take one Silas Peacock, greedy landowner and purported magician, who arrived in Coffin's Grove in the late summer of 1845. Though not a vocal supporter of John Brown, whom he decried in private as a "sword wielding madman," Peacock did have business dealings with the Quakers of the area and sought to increase his profits by making a show of supporting their movement. This inevitably led to agreeing to harbor fugitive slaves. Ms. Blackthorne traced a route which led to Delaware County, and mysteriously ended at the Peacock home in Coffin's Grove. Of the few slaves she was able to track to the house (few written records were made, and fewer still survive), none ever made it further, or at least not heard of again.

     With much tenacious work, she located Reginald Hillus, whose grandfather, Oswald Hillus, had worked for Peacock up until his employer's untimely demise in 1859. When asked about the slaves, Reginald said his grandfather often repeated in his declining years, "Only I knows where they bodies is...only me, only me...."

     Now incredibly ancient himself, Reginald recalled that when he misbehaved he was often admonished by Grampa Hillus to mind himself or be "got by the scarecrows". There are many gardens and fields in Coffin's Grove and this was a common parental threat in those days, little minded by most. But for Reginald the phrase held a special terror, for not only had his grandfather seen what scarecrows had done to Silas Peacock, Oswald Hillus had been the one who made them!

     Reginald says his Grampa's story begins with a group of escaped slaves making their way from Tabor in the southwest to Rock Island, IL. Often the fugitives would be given money and gifts for the road by those that helped them. It was never much, but any amount of treasure could catch the eye of a man as rapacious as Mr. Peacock. Fat and evil, with no bottom to the depth of his covetousness, Silas insisted the fugitive slaves pay for their shielter, reportedly telling them, "You're to be free men, then pay your way as a free man does." Those that could not pay were sent away without assistance. As no further trace exists of those sent away thus, we can not be certain any survived...or were allowed to survive.

     Those unfortunates who could pay what Peacock demanded were hidden in a secret cellar. There, he promptly robbed them of whatever they had left by threatening to send them back to their masters, and forced them to submit entirely to his will. He compelled them to do unspeakable acts for his pleasure, and to even partake in certain arcane and vile rituals before he finally killed them. After the murders, Silas called for Oswald, and ordered his servant to strip the bodies and bury them under cover of night in various secret locations. Silas reasoned that if he himself did not know where the bodies were hidden, it would be harder to prove his connection with their deaths should they be discovered. Oswald, too terrified of his employer to reveal the truth to the authorities, laid the unfortunates to rest in the surrounding fields.

     While Peacock had ordered that no grave should have a marker, Oswald could not comply. though bound to his master, he was Christian and knew that many of those he buried were of the same faith. Compelled to erect a large cross over the site of each tomb, and say words over the dead men and women, he hit upon the clever idea of stuffing the victim's clothes with straw, carving pumpkins for heads, and planting these rough effigies over each cross. Thus, he disguised the memorials with jack-o-lantern headed scarecrows.

     Silas, suffering greatly from nerves, ordered the straw stuffed figures taken down and burned, and Oswald, now more fearful of crude figures than of Silas, moved to comply. To his astonishment, he found that the stakes were impossible to draw from the ground, and left deep cuts and long splinters in his hands. Silas was beside himself with rage and fear as he stood wringing his hands at the window. He bellowed, "Fool! You're too weak to be of any good to me and too cowardly to admit it! Go fetch the six best men you can find and pay them ten dollars each to do your work for you, you miserable cur! I'll take it out of your back pay!"

Silas' House c.1878, Coffin's Grove

     Grimly agreeing, the troubled servant spent the night in his master's room watching over the sleeping man's bulk with several glass jars filled with flammable oils, torches, and a hand axe. As the Harvest Moon rose over the fields, Oswald saw a baleful light begin to flicker in each of the pumpkin heads he had carved for the scarecrows-as though a candle had been lit inside, though no man had done so. Each hideous figure lifted a softly glowing Jack-O-Lantern toward the house, straining against the twine which held it crucified. One by one, they lifted their upright posts from the dirt and began to clumsily stagger toward the house.

     "What do you see?" Silas asked, starting awake in the night.

     "Nothin', Mister Peacock, sir, nothin." Oswald replied.

     "Liar! Faithless hound!!" Silas shouted as he pulled his bulk from the bed, grabbed the shotgun, and headed for the stairs. "I'll see you rot in Hell, boy!"

     With sickening thuds, the scarecrows reached the front yard. They clumped and bumped up the stairs and then battered at the door with gloved hands stuffed with straw.

     "Don't go down there, Mister Silas! You can't hurt them no more, but they can sure hurt you..."

     "Coward! Stand back!!" The evil man shouted as he fired both barrels into the door. There was a burst of glass, wood, and straw after the dreadful concussion. Through the hole Silas had created in the door, seven scarecrows crawled in over the pulp-smashed pumpkin head of the one in the lead, though it too was rose again to join the pursuit. Silas screamed for Oswald to toss the oil on the creatures. Obediantly, the manservant ran to the bedroom, but instead returned with sacks of the tyrant's money. Silas screamed in dying agony as the coveted currency rained down upon the animated creatures tearing open his bloated body and unstringing his vitals. They grabbed up the money and stuffed it into Peacock's eviscerated carcass. Oswald silently watched the grisly puppets dragging their guresome human pinata from the house.

     In the morning, Oswald Hillus was found asleep in an overstuffed chair, mumbling deliriously to himself. The horrible remains of Peacock, a hellish scarecrow stuffed with money, stood in the field surrounded by more than a dozen empty wooden crosses.