An Uncivilized Time
On the warm Monday evening of June 15, 1925, two young boys ran down the street, passing a black man named Robert Marshall and yelling “n****r, n****r, pull the trigger.” Little did they know that a few minutes later Marshall would really pull the trigger.
About 7:30 p.m., night watchman J. Milton Burns was making his rounds at the Utah Fuel Company at Castle Gate, Utah. Burns approached the bridge at the west end of the tipple, and stopped to lean over the railing to enjoy the beautiful quiet of the night.
Down the road, Robert Marshall a black man and miner could be seen walking on the railroad tracks in the same vicinity, carrying a paper sack.
The two young boys that had passed by a few minutes earlier saw Burns and said “Hi, Mr. Burns!” Burns replied by saying “Hello, boys, isn’t it late for you to be out?”
“Yes, but we were just on our way home.”
They walked on and were hidden in the darkness of the night.
Robert Marshall then approached the bridge. Burns turned around from his position on the railing and spoke in a friendly voice.
“Hi! What are you doing out this way?”
With that piece of conversation, Marshall put his hand into the paper sack and pulled it away to reveal a pistol. Without showing any preliminary signs of such intentions, he proceeded to fire two shots in rapid sequence.
Off in the distance, the two young boys turned to see where the noise had come from.
Burns slowly fell to the ground and Marshall fired three more shots into Burns.
Marshall then began to kick him with his foot and hit him with the butt end of the pistol, allegedly yelling “Take that whitie!”
Marshall then took Burns’ gun and robbed his purse containing $40 in currency and a post office money order for $100, payable to the North Sanpete Bank of Utah. He added one more grind of his knee into Burns’ face; he then took possession of Burns’ six-shooter, unbuckling its holster.
Marshall then ran down the railroad tracks and around a point of the hill about 200 yards, crossed the Price River on a foot bridge and then made his way up the mountain through a steep and narrow draw located about 200 feet from the bridge on the highway where the pavement ends as the road enters Castle Gate.
After witnessing the whole event, the boys ran for help, panic-stricken. One of the boys, Delbert Wilcox, confirmed this in 1978.
The escape and the lawmen who give chase
After the alarm was given Deputy Sheriff Henry East showed up to the crime scene, but not before Marshall eluded everyone into the wilds of eastern Utah.
In short order Sheriff Ray Deming gathered a posse for the chase. He spoke sternly. “Men, we are looking for that n****r, Robert Marshall. We want to bring him in alive. We’ll search ‘til we find the dirty dog, any questions?”
One man replied, “What if he gives us resistance?”
The sheriff broke out, “Then blast his goddamn head off.”
Sheriff Ray Deming located his men in locations he thought he Marshall might go.
Just before dawn Mack Olson, who was stationed in the area, caught site of Marshall “skulking” around. Olsen called out, “Halt, I’m with the sheriff’s office.”
Marshall turned and opened fire. Several shots were exchanged and Marshall worked his way along the trail of the hillside toward Kenilworth or Helper until he was lost in the cedars and pinion pine trees that butted up next to the sandstone rocks.
For a while an attempt was made to surround Marshall, but it was too late though.
Meanwhile, James Milton Burns was taken to the Utah Fuel Company Hospital in Castle Gate and Dr. C. E. McDermid and his assistants worked into the night trying to save his life. Upon examination it was determined that both thighs had been shot through, along with three wounds in his abdomen.
Burns was operated on for over an hour. It was discovered there had been 10 penetrations of the intestinal tract. There had been other lacerations which evoked excessive and quick bleeding and left him in a low state of shock from blood loss.
Dr. McDermid and his staff worked for almost two hours before they were able to stop the hemorrhages and the cuts were taken care of.
As soon as the posse was out looking for Marshall, Sheriff Deming went to the hospital in Castle Gate and asked the doctor what chance Burns had for survival.
Dr. C. E. McDermid replied, “Both thighs have been shot through, besides the wounds in his abdomen. And we have labored for two hours on him, and he is in no better shape than when he came in here. With the cutting of ten places of the intestinal tract, there’s not much hope.”
Hope for life and justice
Burns awoke after the operation, but lingered just a little more than 24 hours on Tuesday evening.
The entire county of Carbon was being turned upside-down to find the killer. It must be said that black people were not a very common sight in the mining towns of Carbon County, even though the towns were comprised of many different nationalities, Italians, Greeks, Poles, Mexicans and Native Americans.
Believing that Marshall had escaped the area by catching a freight car on the Denver and Rio Grande, Deming decided to travel to Green River, 80 miles away, to investigate the possibility.
Not since April 21, 1897 had Carbon County had such a large posse of men out searching the area. This was when it was reported that Butch Cassidy and the Robbers Roost Gang, had robbed the Castle Gate Mine Payroll of $7,000.
Milton Burns came to Castle Gate in February 1922 and had held a number of positions. He had been sheriff in Sanpete County and had lived in Mt. Pleasant. He and his wife lived in the first house south of the hotel in Castle Gate.
After several days of searching, Marshall was still at large. On June 17, 1925 in an old newspaper covered shack, about a mile away from Castle Gate, an elderly black man named George Gray was sitting down to dinner of corn bread and beans when he heard a knock at the door.
The old Negro went and opened the door. There stood Robert Marshall. He was exhausted and said plainly, “I need a place to stay and something good to eat. Can I stay here?”
“What kind of trouble you in, boy?”
“I…I…I’m not. Just need a place to stay for the night.”
“Come on in. I got corn bread and beans is all.”
Marshall gulped down the meal as if it would be his last. Afterwards, he walked over to the bed to rest, and fell asleep.
The next morning as the sun began to rise; the sound of a lone rooster could be heard in the distance.
Inside the shack, old George was getting ready to start out the door when Marshall woke up.
“Where you goin’?”
“I need to get some bacon and flour so I can cook up some food.”
With that, Marshall fell back asleep.
A tip leads to an arrest
George Gray walked the mile to the Company Store to purchase his bacon and flour.
He was about to leave the store, when he overheard two ladies talking.
“I heard they haven’t caught that n****r that shot Deputy Burns yet. They ought to get rid of all the n****rs in the county so this will never happen again.”
After hearing what was said, George realized that Robert Marshall was the man they were talking about. He feared that if he didn’t turn Marshall in, the townspeople might even think he was involved in the murder.
Gray walked outside of the store and around the corner of the building and to the stairs to the Utah Fuel Company Office ascended the stairs and knocked on the door. A voice could be heard inside, telling him to enter.
Gray walked in and Joseph Parmley spoke, “What is it?”
“That Bobby Marshall you lookin’ for done stay at my cabin last night. He still there waiting for me to be back with breakfast.”
Parmley yelled with excitement, “Oh my god!” He then picked up the telephone (the old candle holder two piece type).
“This is Parmley—round up some men and get over here. We’ve found that n****r.”
Chief special agent for the Utah Fuel Company Joseph Parmley, John Daskalakis, night watchman, L.T. Davis Store Manager E.E. Jones, superintendent of the Castle Gate Mine, E. P. Beach, Jos Caldwell, Henry East and W. H. Broyles made their plans.
The group along with Gray got into a couple of cars and drove past the few buildings next to the coffee shop to the small tarpaper shack of a cabin and surrounded it. After a prearranged signal from Gray from the window east and Daskalakis crept forward to the side of the door.
When the door opened up and Gray stepped out, East and Daskalakis jumped inside and ran quickly to side of the bed where Marshall had been relaxing. They quickly pinned and controlled Marshall’s arms. The rest of the make shift posse came in, Robert Marshall was relieved of his gun and his hands tied. Two pistols were found, one belonging to Burns.
Marshall was fully dressed except for his shoes and his socks were loose on his feet from the elastic being worn out.
“This is Burns’ pistol and you killed him.”
Marshall was then beaten with the barrel of his pistol.
Marshall then weeping cried out “I’m the man you want!” I didn’t mean to do it, I’m sorry!”
“Shut up, n****r,” East bellowed.
Marshall was then bundled and dragged out of the cabin and placed in one of the cars, to begin the long journey into Price to the Court House.
East was the driver and Jones sat in the Front with him. Beach, Caldwell, Davis and Parmley were in the back seat with Marshall. The other two cars were filled with the parties involved with the search.
By the time the three cars got to Castle Gate, the number of cars had swelled to 15.
Word of the capture spread quickly throughout the county, and by the time the men reached Price, the procession had lengthened to over 40 cars.
Talk of a lynching
Many people rushed to gather up their families and to pack a picnic lunch, many were thinking there just might be a lynching.
Sheriff Deming had just returned from Green River when word reached him at 9:30 a.m. that Marshall had been captured. Deming knew that there would be trouble, but hoped he was wrong. Upon meeting the group he was assured they would take him in.
Marshall showed no anxiety and was sullen when he spoke to the men in the car about where he had been all of the time.
“I have been hiding in the hills near Heiner (about three miles from Castle Gate) I had hoped to catch a freight train or truck out of the area. I thought once I got out of the country I would be okay. If I hadn’t got hungry I would have been gone.”
East arrived at the Court House and then went inside to report and hand over Marshall.
It was reported that the mob had grown to about 150 by then.
In the crowd, a young boy could be heard, “Pa, is that the man?” “Yes, that’s the dirty, rotten n****r,” replied his father.
Former outlaw Matt Warner who had been with Butch Cassidy and the Robbers Roost Gang who served three and one half years in the Utah State Prison in Sugar House and later became a Deputy Sheriff and Justice of the Peace of Carbon County was with the crowd. He soon turned and headed home where he later told his wife Elma, “That mob was wicked. I have seen mobs before once they get started it is almost impossible to stop the fever of the mob.”
Mona Livingston Marshing remembered when she was 15 she was in Price Trading Company with her mother when a couple of men came in and bought rope.
Enough rope to hang 20 men
Former Governor J. Bracken Lee said, “There was enough rope to hang 20 men.”
By now, the crowd was starting to get a little out of hand. They were yelling “Kill the n****r!”
In the background, a rope could be seen in the form of a hang-man’s noose. About a dozen angry men reached East’s car, a man from the mob yelled out, “Get him and take his gun!” There was a brief struggle, and finally the sheriff’s deputies were overpowered. One jumped behind the wheel and the rest jumped in.
The mob leader yelled, “Let’s take that n****r outside of town and lynch him.”
The cars reassembled and then proceeded about two and one half miles out of town, halfway between Price and Wellington, turning to the A.W. Horsley Ranch (J. Bracken Lee former Governor of Utah said it was owned by Jeane Selme’s and a slaughter house near by.) and down a short lane into a grove of cottonwood trees. A tree was selected around thirty feet from the grown to where the lib or branch was, a rope was then thrown over a large branch, and Marshall was pulled out of the car. He was unties and lead over to stand beneath the tree.
The crowd had by now grown to 800 to a 1,000 by some accounts, with a mixture of men, women, and children.
The noose was put around Marshall’s neck, and he was given instructions by the mob leader.
“Don’t you dare put your hands up to your neck to loosen that rope. Just as soon as you make a move to do that, we will cut your hands off! You’re goin’ to suffer a long lingering death for what you have done.”