| Notes |
- MHR note:
Wm. M. Ringo served in the Mexican War and when he returned he appeared to have lost his mind. He charged a man with being his wife's lover. No one believed his wife had done anything wrong in his absence but he got his gun and went to the sawmill and shot his cousin "Strand" Pleak who wasn't even the accused man.
Stand's body well onto the conveyor belt and barely was saved by those standing by from going into the saw.
A posse was gathered to take Wm. M. Ringo who went home and barricaded himself in the house and sniped at anyone who came near. His gun finally ran out of ammunition and he tried to et a pistol in his pocket but he'd stopped in the orchard and felled his pockets with peaches and couldn't get the gun out.
One of the posse shot and killed him.
[1]
- The Horrid Tragedy in Fleming.
We published some days ago, an account of a bloody tragedy in Fleming, the facts of which were stated to us by a gentleman of that county, whose information was at second hand. We are advised by another citizen of that county, residing not far from the scene of blood, that the former account contained sundry errors which we now proceed to correct. We refer of course to the case of Wm. M. Ring.
It was not his brother-in0law whom Ringo killed, but his cousin, Wm. S. Pleak. Nor was it his sister whom he shot through the thigh, but a sister of Pleak; though he did shoot at his own sister, the ball passing through her clothes without wounding here. Nor did his mother die the next day, of the shot he inflicted upon her. She was alive on Thursday, but her recovery was deemed hopeless.
When it was attempted to take him next day, though he refused to surrender, he did not shoot till he had been shot at. His shot wounded no body on this occasion. He received three shots from as many different rifles, which caused his immediate death.
We are not yet fully advised of the circumstances of this mournful affair; but the results of it, as our corrected account now stands were, that Ringo first shot Pleak dead; then shot his mtoher, who is not expected to survive; then shot Miss Pleak, but the wound is not dangerous; then shot at his sister, but without hurting here; and was the next day killed himself, on refusing to surrender.
Melancholy and calamitous in all its incidents and results, we have no heart to comment on the affair, except to intimate that Ringo must have been the victim of a desperate insanity. - All the parties were highly respectable people, and we understand no quarrel had existed between them. Mausville Eagle, 12th.
The Louisville Daily Courier, Louisville, Kentucky. Tuesday, 15 October 1850, page 2. [4]
- Ancestor Hunting by Dr. William M. Talley
In an old clipping from the Flemingsburg Democrat, dated either 1925 or 1926, which I found in my files, Mr. Hiram Duley writes of a very unfortunate murder in Fleming county about 1850. The information in the clipping has much genealogical value:
"Some Ancient History: As we have heretofore said, the writer (Hiram Duley) was born on the 13th of September 1845, on a farm on Licking river, a short distance below the mouth of Fox Creek. At our earliest memory our nearest neighbors were the Ringo family. The family of the family, Henry Ringo, was never known to us, and we do not know the date of his death. The family at home consisted of the mother, four sons, James, Thomas, William M., and Joseph P. , and one sister, Miss Sarah, and we think an older sister the wife of Lawrence Triplett, of near Poplar Plains. In 1847, when the call for volunteers for the Mexican War was made, James, Thomas, and Wm. M. Ringo enlisted in Capt. Cox's company and went on that campaign. They returned in the fall of 1848. Wm. M. Ringo brought back with him an old-style (but then the latest style) weapon known as the pepper-box pistol, and he became quite an expert marksman with it.
"On April 1st, 1849, Mr. M. Ringo was united in marriage with Caroline Nealis, a handsome young woman of the neighborhood. They seemed very happy for a time, but within a few months Mr. Ringo developed an insane jealousy of his wife, accusing her of improper conduct with various men of the vicinity. On the 13th of September, 1849, he filed suit for divorce, Cox & Dulin and L.W. Andrews being his attorneys. I well remember that depositions were taken at the home of my father in December 1849, the late Wm. S. Botts being attorney for Mrs. Ringo, while L.W. Andrews represented Ringo.
"The case was continued from time to time in Fleming Circuit Court and about the last of August or first of September 1850 Wm. M. Ringo sought to take the life of his brother, James, but James was warned of his attention and made his escape. Wm. M. Ringo then shot his sister, Sarah, inflicting a flesh wound in her thigh, after which she escaped by running into a field of growing corn. He then went to the Ringo Mill, which was being operated by a man named Prindle, who had it leased, and finding there a cousin, Strother Pleak, who was head sawyer, he demanded that he tell him where James Ringo was hidden, and upon his refusal to do so, he shot him, inflicting a wound from which he died that night at his home just across the river in Bath county. The other man who was employed at the mill made his escape and spread the horrible tidings on the Bath side of the river. Wm. M. Ringo then went to the home no one being there but his aged mother, and demanded that she tell him where he could find his brother James, and upon her refusal to do so, telling him that she did not know, he shot her, the ball passing through the stomach and being afterward extracted near the spinal column. She recovered and survived several years.
"My father, Charles Z. Duley, had been hauling saw logs to the mill, and soon after the shooting of Mrs. Ringo he drove up to the mill yard with a load of logs. Finding the mill stopped and nobody sight he at once suspected something had happened, and about that time, Wm. M. Ringo came around the corner of the Ringo dwelling and coming in the direction of the mill yard. Knowing that Ringo had an ill feeling for him, he hurriedly cut loose from the log wagon, mounted his saddle=horse and escaped. By the time the neighbors were around it was dark. Some went to minister Mrs. Ringo, other to summon a posse to apprehend the crazed man, while others sat up through the night to guard their property in case Ringo should decide to burn them out. Early the next morning a posse of citizens in which were Elias E. Markwell, Dr. Riggen and my father, and perhaps others whose names we do not recall, found Ringo at the home of Benjamin Jones near what was then Republican meeting house, now Eden's Chapel there being no one at home but the women folks. They had complied with his demand that they cook breakfast for him, and after eating he had gone into the yard and gotten his pocket full of peaches. He wore a sack coat and his pistol was in his side pocket, and the peaches were on top of his pistol When the posse made its appearance and demanded his surrender he remarked 'I am as game a man as ever lived or died', and began to reach for his pistol but was somewhat impeded by the peaches, so that the leader of the posse, we think Elias W. Markwell, fired upon him and inflected a slight wound, not sufficient to disable him. The posse being armed only with cap-and-ball squirrel rifles, Markwell retired to reload and Dr. Riggen was the next in line. But, by this time, Ringo had gotten his pistol in hand and just before Riggen fired Ringo fired, his bullet cutting off a lock of hair just above Riggen's right ear. This probably deflected the aim of Riggen and he missed Ringo. My father was next, and Riggen wheeled and grabbed the rifle from my father's hand, wheeled again quickly and fired the fatal shot. My father always said that he was under a deep debt of gratitude to Dr. Riggen for taking from him the unpleasant duty, though at the moment he tried to recover the weapon.
"We have always understood that Elias W. Markwell was tried and acquitted of the killing, but the records of the county do not show that he was indicted by the grand jury, and we were unable to find the county Court record which would show if he had been acquitted on an examining trial.
"As a boy, I witnessed the shooting of Mrs. Ringo from the front yard of our home, through at the time I did not appreciate what was happening.
"The other members of the Ringo family were estimable citizens, good neighbors and true friends, and the insane acts of their son and brother never lessened the respect and esteem in which they were held in the community, for Wm. M. Ringo was certainly insane."
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1819 - 1850 (31 years)
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