Lum Harkins Bastardy Trial
Just before Christmas 1888, a sensational trial began in an Independence, Kansas courtroom. Rebecca Detre charged Columbus “Lum” Harkins with bastardy. To compel a reluctant man to pay child support, one had to file a bastardy case in court, bastardy being a legal term. Related cases were “seduction” and “breach of promise.” The latter was a promise to marry which, it was assumed, compelled a young woman to yield to sexual advances.
In taking this action, 17-year old Rebecca exposed herself to great shame and humiliation. Everyone who knew her already knew, of course, that she had given birth to a son in September. Having a child out of wedlock was one of the most shameful things a woman could do. To have a man charged with bastardy, though, meant facing a public display of court watchers and newspaper coverage as her most private life was publicly dissected. It also exposed her to questions about her actions and virtue, and gave the defendant an opportunity to talk about her. This is probably why these cases were fairly rare.
The previous year, 22-year old Lum was on trial on a larceny charge, accused of stealing a previous employer’s gold watch when he clerked at a hotel in Arkansas City. Then, the Coffeyville Weekly Journal vigorously defended him. He was “a most estimable young man and regarded by everybody as beyond suspicion as to honesty and integrity.” When he was acquitted, the editor wrote, “It was a job to frighten the young man into paying somebody something for “hush money.” But it would not work in the case of an honest, upright and conscientious young man like C.L. Harkins. We congratulate him on his escape from the clutches of the Arkansas City scallawags.”
Two things worked in Lum’s favor. The chief witness was a Black man, which in the racial climate of the times made him automatically suspect. Secondly, Lum threw in ugly accusations that the hotel owner was in an incestuous relationship with his own daughter. The hotelier ended up testifying that he didn’t think Lum had taken his watch.
It would be years of getting away with things before it would be definitively proven that Lum Harkins was anything but upright and conscientious. He was a very bad man, and he would die in prison, knifed to death by a fellow convict.
But that Christmas season of 1888, a young Lum went into court probably feeling pretty confident. He’d beat one arrest, and he could beat this one too - by totally dragging Rebecca through the mud. Destroy her character, the way he had cast serious aspersions on the hotel owner, and walk away free.
Only it didn’t turn out that way. This time, the Coffeyville paper excoriated Lum:
The bastardy case of the state of Kansas against Columbus Harkins occupied the attention of the court for several days last week. It is from Parker township and was one of the filthiest cases of its class in years and shows a deplorable condition of morals and virtue. It also shows the baseness and depravity of some young men, and how they sneak and try to get out of reach of the law, while pursuing their debasing course. How they resorted to base charges and insinuations against girls who would not associate with them; and it shows how quick society is to shield the vile wretch who ruins the life, character and happiness of a defenseless young girl and how anxious it is to put the girl down so low that she can not rise again and force her into a life of shame.
This state of affairs shows that parents should be more intimate with the thoughts and associates of the children and not as “white caps” but as parents, use the horse whip vigorously on a gang of low-down, foul-mouthed galoots who infest the community. Drive the wreckers of virtue out or they will ruin every home.
White Caps
White caps were groups of vigilantes who operated first in Southern Indiana, then spread elsewhere from the 1870s to the turn of the twentieth century. They started as enforcers of morality, committing brutal acts of terrorism against those who they believed to be a threat to the social and moral standards of the community - the “ne’er-do-wells and moral offenders.” They operated in secret and had elements of Masonic ritual in their organization. They were known to target men who didn’t provide for their families, men considered lazy, drunkards, men who were abusive to women, children or the elderly. Women were also targeted for not properly caring for their children or keeping their houses clean enough.
Their typical way of operating was to surround a house at night, burst in and drag out the offender, tie him to a tree and whip him mercilessly. Soon, a posting telling someone to get out of the county or they would face the wrath of the White Caps was enough to get someone to move. They were widely supported in the community for about three decades.
Lum’s Sentence
Although the Coffeyville editor wished it upon him, Lum didn’t face vigilante justice. He was found guilty of bastardy, and ordered to pay child support - $50 every six months until his son, Albert, turned 15. Lum was held in jail on bond until he could come up with the first $50 payment. (It was the equivalent of about $3,100 in today’s dollars.) Lum requested a new trial, which was denied. He stayed in jail till the end of January, when he transferred 25 acres of bottom land to Rebecca, all of his personal property, and his father and brother George guaranteed the costs.
Albert and Rebecca
Little Albert was two when Rebecce Detre married Franklin Fields. He took on the Fields last name, and it’s possible that he never knew who his biological father was. Rebecca had three more children and lived the rest of her life in Coffeyville. Albert became a dentist who served as a U.S. Army dentist, then taught at dental school.
Lum’s Aftermath
Lum eventually moved to Indian Territory, where he applied for citizenship in the Cherokee Nation. Although from this distance of time he cannot be proven to have no Cherokee heritage, he would not have been the only white man attempting to get the payouts given to the tribe. No one else in his family applied for membership. The tribe rejected his claim in 1896.
He managed to stay out of court until 1901, when he was charged with assault with intent to kill. He’d had a dispute with another man over hitching a horse to a small tree and attacked the man. He managed to get off on the charge.
In 1912, Lum was accused of the murder of three young people. By then he was 48 and hanging out with 15-year old Elsie Adams, a girl whose mother struggled to support her, and who spent time in the county poor farm. Elsie, and a young couple who felt sorry for her and took her in, died in a suspicious fire. Lum had dropped Elsie off about 15 minutes before their house burst into flames. Elsie’s autopsy showed that she was pregnant. Few doubted that Lum was the father; he said they were engaged to be married, but no one heard anything about an engagement until he was charged with her rape and murder. While out on bond he married 22-year old Mary Rockwood, who had visited him in jail. Lum was acquitted on all charges after two trials.
Mary was a good cover for Lum. He bought a large boarding house and would get mothers with daughters out of the county poorhouse by employing the mother as a housekeeper, or the county paid him for their room and board. That was how he met poor little Inez Greenleaf. The Greenleafs were no longer living with him when he had his wife write a letter to Inez’ mother, asking permission to take the little girl on a picnic. Inez was 12 years old and weighed only 70 pounds. She was said to be a favorite of Mary’s and spent a great deal of time with Lum and Mary. Testimony in the case showed that Inez saw the Harkins as another set of parents, trusting them completely. She would “willingly comply with any request he [Lum] made of her.”
A 51-year old Lum took Inez on a picnic at a park, leaving his wife, who was eight months pregnant, and their three-year old daughter at home. Lum took Inez into the woods near the park and raped her. She managed to get away from him and asked some women for help, as she was in great pain.
This time - finally - Lum was found guilty. The community was outraged by his actions, and vigilante justice would have been imposed on him had a quick-thinking sheriff not anticipated it and had him secretly moved to another county. When Lum was convicted and given a 50-year sentence, he sobbed in court and claimed that he’d been framed and hadn’t received a fair trial.
He served four and a half years of his prison sentence before being murdered by another inmate. His brother, John Dilling Harkins, came to collect his body. Lum was buried beside his parents at the Elmwood Cemetery in Coffeyville.
Note: John Dilling Harkins married Mollie Patchett. Mollie’s brother Andy Patchett married Nannie Robertson, who was Lum and John’s niece. Mollie and Andy were my great-grandmother, Melissa Patchett’s, first cousins. So Lum was not a member of the family, but he is tangled in its branches, so to speak, through these two marriages - he was the brother and uncle of two Harkins family members who married two Patchett siblings. (I wrote about Andy earlier in "Andy and Charlie's Cattle Stealing Trials.")
Sources:
Arrested for Larceny: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 24 Feb 1887, p. 2.
Defended by Newspaper: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 24 Feb. 1887, p. 2.
Acquitted of Theft: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 14 April 1887, p. 3.
Opinion Piece: South Kansas Tribune (Independence, Kansas), 26 Dec 1888, p. 2.
Child Support: Independence Daily Reporter, 31 Dec 1888, p. 4.
Appeal: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 3 Jan 1889, p. 2.
Settlement: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 31 Jan 1889, p. 3.
Released from Jail: Coffeyville Weekly Journal, 24 Jan 1889, p. 3.
Other:
Isaacs, Charles C., “The White Caps: A Case Study of Violent Resistance to Social and Moral Change in the United States,” 26 April 2021, https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/26436/Isaacs_Charles-Knights_of_the_Switch_A_Study_of_the_White_Caps_and_Their_Violent_Resistance_to_Social_and_Moral_Change-Paper.pdf?sequence=2&isAllowed=y
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