This giant oak tree that stands on a dead end road near the Ambraw River on the Crawford-Lawrence County line was used to hang a man, named Billy Ray, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Billy Ray was lynched for the offence of stealing horses in the area south of Flat Rock. It should be noted that a few years earlier, Billy Ray had killed a man named Mason Goff who lived within spitting distance of this tree. He got away with that murder only to pay dearly for dealing in horseflesh. There was more killing and chicanery to come around the hanging tree during the Civil War, as folks in the neighborhood couldn't decide which side of the struggle to fight for.
SOURCE: http://rickkelsheimer.blogspot.com/2012/02/hanging-tree.html
"His name was Billy Ray." the old timer continued. "They hung him for stealing horses down on the Embarrass a few years ago. Doc always wanted a skeleton to look at when settin' broken bones and such, but they were so expensive from the medical schools back east, that he decided to go a different route. When Doc heard that nobody claimed Billy Ray's body, he had me hitch up my flat wagon and we went south to the county line and cut the body down, before anybody else claimed him. It was a might fretful sight, I have to admit. He was bloated something fretful and the buzzards had already started to work on him. I held my breath as best I could and loaded him in the back of the wagon. He smelled somethin' awful on the trip back home, but I managed somehow. The stink was so bad ----- folks know'd we was coming a half mile before we got there. It was a dirty job, but I wasn't about to turn down the Yankee silver dollar he was payin' me. When we finally made it back to the office here; it was time to pick the bones clean. Doc had me fetch a wooden barrel and set it in the woods behind this office. We soaked ole Billy Ray in some kind of acid for a week and he just kinda melted off of his bones. Then we took what was left of him and boiled him in a cast iron kettle of salt water over an open fire for a full day. After that we laid his bones out in the sun to bleach for a few days. Once Doc was satisfied with the color, we wired him back together and he's been in that window ever since."
Excerpts taken from South Union, page 130, a novel of the Civil War by author Rick Kelsheimer
Can you believe something like this happened in Lawrence County, Illinois? Let your GPSr lead you to The Hanging Tree and touch history that occurred during the start of the civil war in Illinois.
