Bloody Benders

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Bloody Benders : biography

Three days after the township meeting, Billy Tole was driving cattle past the Bender property when he noticed that the inn was abandoned and the farm animals were unfed. Tole reported the fact to the township trustee, but because of inclement weather, several days lapsed before the abandonment could be investigated. The township trustee called for volunteers and several hundred turned out to form a search party that included Colonel York. When the party arrived at the Bender inn they found the cabin empty of food, clothing, and personal possessions. A bad odor was noticed and traced to a trap door underneath a bed, nailed shut. After opening the trap, the empty room beneath, deep and square at the top by square at the bottom, was found to have clotted blood on the floor. The stone slab floor was broken up with sledgehammers but no bodies were found and it was determined that the smell was from blood that had soaked into the soil. The men then physically lifted the cabin and moved it to the side so they could dig under it but no bodies were found. They then began to probe the ground around the cabin with a metal rod, especially in the disturbed soil of the vegetable garden and orchard where the first body was found later that evening, that of Dr. York, buried face down with his feet barely below the surface. The probing continued until midnight with another nine suspected grave sites marked before the men were satisfied they had found them all and retired for the night. Digging resumed the following morning with another eight bodies being found in seven of the nine suspected graves while another was found in the well, along with a number of body parts. All but one had had their heads bashed with a hammer and their throats cut, and it was reported in newspapers that all had been "indecently mutilated." The body of a young girl was found with no injuries sufficient to cause death and it was speculated that she had been strangled or buried alive. Scanned page of The Weekly Kansas chief. (Troy, Kansas) May 15, 1873. Kansas State Historical Society; Topeka, KS.

A Kansas newspaper reported that the crowd was so incensed after finding the bodies, that a friend of the Benders named Brockman, who was among the onlookers, was hung from a beam in the Bender inn until unconscious, revived and interrogated as to what he knew then hanged again. After the third hanging, they released him and he staggered home "as one who was drunken or deranged." (copy of Inter Ocean newspaper November 18, 1896) A Roman Catholic prayer book was found in the house with notes inside written in German, which were later translated. The text read "Johannah Bender. Born July 30, 1848" and "John Gebhardt came to America on July 1 18xx."

Word of the murders spread quickly and more than three thousand people, including reporters from as far away as New York and Chicago visited the site. The Bender cabin was destroyed by souvenir hunters who took everything, including the bricks that lined the cellar and the stones lining the well.

State Senator Alexander York, offered a $1,000 reward for the Bender family’s arrest. On May 17, Kansas Governor Thomas A. Osborn offered a $2,000 reward for the apprehension of all four.

Background

Following the American Civil War, the United States government moved the Osage Indians from Labette County, Kansas to a new Indian Territory located in what would eventually be Oklahoma. The newly-vacant land was then made available to homesteaders. In October 1870, five families of spiritualists settled in and around Osage township of western Labette County, approximately northeast of where Cherryvale would be established seven months later. One of the families was John Bender Sr. and John Bender Jr. who registered of land located adjacent the Great Osage Trail, which was then the only open road for traveling further west. After building a cabin, a barn with corral and a well, in the fall of 1871, Kate (Ma) Bender and her daughter Kate arrived and the cabin was divided into two rooms by a canvas wagon-cover. The Benders used the smaller room at the rear for living quarters, while the front room was converted into a "general store" where a few dry goods were sold. The front section also contained their kitchen and dining table, where travelers could stop for a meal or even spend the night. Ma and Kate Bender also planted a vegetable garden and apple tree orchard north of the cabin. Legends of America A Travel Site for the Nostalgic & Historic Minded The Bloody Benders