Ben, “The Hanged Nigger,” mentioned in “Villagers” (101), was a young slave who belonged to Thomas Glascock of Shelby County. He was accused in October 1849 of killing a ten-year-old white boy, then raping the boy’s twelve-year-old sister and slitting her throat. The Palmyra jail had to be guarded to prevent his being lynched. Although he reportedly claimed the law would not hang him because he was worth a thousand dollars, he was convicted and, after a full confession, hanged on 11 January 1850. Clemens was then fourteen and a printer’s apprentice for the Missouri Courier, which reported the crime at length. The Courier office also published a twenty-five cent pamphlet giving Ben’s “detailed confession” of “the manner in which he did the atrocious deed and his villainous transactions and adventures through life” (“Confession of Ben,” Hannibal Missouri Courier, 21 Feb 50). Clemens wrote in his 1897 [begin page 302] notebook: “Negro smuggled from Va in featherbed when lynchers were after him. In Mo he raped a girl of 13 & killed her & her brother in the woods & before being hanged confessed to many rapes of white married women who kept it quiet partly from fear of him & partly to escape the scandal” (NB 41, CU-MARK, TS p. 57). In 1901, contemplating a book on the history of lynching, Clemens wrote to his publisher, summarizing Ben’s crimes and requesting help in obtaining an account of his punishment to “be found in the St Louis Republican, no doubt—date, along about 1849” (SLC to Francis E. (Frank) Bliss, 26 Aug 1901, TxU, in Wecter 1952, 215; Holcombe, 298–99; Haines, 42–43; Missouri v. Ben; Hannibal Missouri Courier: “Atrocious Murder and Rape,” 8 Nov 49; “Trial at Palmyra,” 6 Dec 49; “Execution at Palmyra,” 17 Jan 50; “Confession of Ben,” 21 and 28 Feb 50).
