How a post-Civil War vigilante group still holds relevance for this Greene County, Mo. church

GREENE COUNTY, Mo. (KY3) - A church in Bois D’Arc is still active and holding services after over 130 years, but the story of the church’s donor is one not many Greene County residents may know.

On November 4, the Greene County Historical Society held a presentation and discussion about the Yeakley Chapel United Methodist Church. Connie Yen, the director of the Greene County Archives and Record Center, talked about Thomas Yeakley and the vigilante group, The Greene County Regulators, also known as the “Honest Men’s League.”

“This was originally the holdings of the Yeakley family. Thomas Yeakley and his father John came from Greene County, Tennessee, in 1839 to Missouri, and then they ended up down here in 1840. Relevant to the topic today, Thomas Yeakley was also a member of a group called the Regulators,” said John Schmalzbauer, the president of the Green County Historical Society.

The Regulators formed in the spring of 1866 due to a perceived lack of justice in the rural areas after the Civil War. Though their reign only lasted six weeks, the Regulators killed four men for livestock theft.

Yen says the Civil War led to a lifestyle of violence years after, and that’s what members of the Regulators had become accustomed to.

“They had become accustomed to the violence, and so that’s how they solved what they perceived as the problem,” says Yen.

According to Yen’s 2015 thesis on the Regulators, the men were identified as Green B. Phillips, Charles Gorsuch, John Rush, and James Edwards. After the first three murders of Phillips, Gorsuch, and Rush, none of the Regulators were not charged, and after some of them were released on bail, the Regulators released a statement about their actions.

We, the Regulators, organized to assist in the enforcement of the civil law, and to put down an extensive thieving organization, known to exist in our midst, having succeeded in arresting and committing to jail a number of persons charged with grand larceny, robbing and general lawlessness, whom we believe to be bad men; and finding several of them have been bailed out, thereby extending to them an opportunity of again putting into execution their diabolical purposed of robbing, plundering and murdering their neighbors: Therefore, we hereby give notice, that all persons bailing such parties out of jail will be regarded as in sympathy if not in full cooperation with such, and will be held strictly responsible for the conduct and personal appearance at court for trial, of all persons thus bailed out of jail.

“They were complaining about crime in the area after the Civil War. In Greene County and the surrounding area, they wanted to take extreme measures to try to prevent more crime. Their method of doing this was lynching four men who were accused of stealing livestock. His (Yeakley) connection was, by the time the lynchings were all over, two years later, recorded at one of the meetings as a member of the Regulators. Otherwise, we don’t know what involvement he may or may not have had with the group,” says Yen.

Yeakley was a land owner, donated the land for the church, and was a member of the church. We don’t know what his involvement with the Regulators was, but he has been confirmed as a member.

“The majority of the Regulators, the names that we know of, were prominent local citizens, and that is also common. They were the ones who, apparently, could get away with murder,” says Yen.

According to Yen’s thesis, toward the end of the Regulators’ reign, around 280 of them rode into the square in Springfield to hold an open meeting in front of the courthouse. Their goal was to “make a display of their force and an open defense of their actions.”

“The Regulators knew they could not legally justify their actions. They could, however, claim to be acting in the public good and in the “common interest,” a right afforded them by the tradition of popular sovereignty,” says an excerpt from the Missouri Patriot in 1866.

Members of the Regulators were not charged or arrested for murder that day, or at any time thereafter.

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