The Death of Simon A. Dean

The following newspaper clippings were provided by Kevin Kennedy, a Dean descendant.

In 1881, Alice Denty Dean's husband, Simon A. Dean, shot Thomas McGeehee over a disputed purchase of a mule.  Shot in the chest, McGeehee eventually died and was temporarily interred in Nesbitt, MS, where the incident happened.  Simon fled to Texas.  An unknown newspaper - and there must have been many - took up the story.

SUICIDED

A Mississippian Shoots Himself to Death to Avoid Arrest

On Tuesday morning of last week, and man got off an east bound train on the International and Great Northern Railroad at the first station out from Hearne, and calling to a farmer in a field nearby, stated that he wanted to hire a horse to go to Calvert.  Mr. Bishop was the name of the farmer accosted , and he readily agreed to let his little boy accompany the stranger to this city and return with the animal the stranger was to ride.  After this business was concluded the traveler became quite communicative.  He told Mr. B. that his name was s. A Deane, that his home was at Nesbit, Miss., and that he was a refugee from justice, having killed one of his best friends but a day or two previously.  He spoke of officers being on his track, and mentioned among other things, evidently the fancy of an overstrained imagination, that he had heard people on the train the day before talking of catching and tying him.  He was acquainted, he further stated, with W. L. Bailey of Calvert, and wished to visit this point to see him.  When the horses were ready Deane mounted, but the boy suggested that he had better ride the other animal, as the better of the two, and as the change was being made the little fellow started to go to the gallery of the house for something he had forgotten.  Deane dismounted, and muttering something about "giving no further trouble", drew two revolvers, and placing one to each side, fired that in the right hand first.  This not proving fatal he threw the weapon down and stamped it.  Then he discharged the other and larger pistol into his left side and fell forward, dead.  Judge W. H. Davison, of Hearne, was notified of the trajedy as soon as possible, and summoning a jury of inquest, he repaired to the scene of the suicide immediately.  Among the effects of the deceased were papers establishing his identity, $401 in cash, and a note _____ his remains to be returned to his family in Mississippi.  He had evidently determined upon self-destruction before reaching Bishop's home, as he wrote nothing at that place.

The wishes of the deceased were all complied with.

Another clipping, unfortunately incomplete, adds to the story . . .

  . . . he shot McGeehee in the left chest, just below the nipple, and fled.

McGeehee lingered in great agony until Sunday morning, when death came to his relief.  Dean, in the meantime had escaped the officers of the law, and found a refuge in Texas, that haven of the evildoer, and it was supposed that he would there, amid new scenes and new faces, find some relief from the pangs of conscience.  But with a right thinking man, who takes life in the heat of passion, such relief can be found nowhere.  As Daniel Webster said: "There is no escape from confession but suicide, and SUICIDE IS CONFESSION."

In Dean's case this truth was literally proven.  On Wednesday evening his friends at Nesbitt's received a dispatch from Calvert, Texas, to the effect that his body would be shipped home on the next train.  A coroner's jury had rendered a verdict of suicide.  No particulars in regard to his death were given -- only that the same hand that ended the life of his friend ended his own.  Thus were two mean, respected by the world and connected by ties of blood and friendship, taken from a sphere of usefulness by the too ready use of a deadly weapon.  Two widows and two families of dependent children are left to suffer the consequences of the rash and bloody deed. When Dean's body arrives in Nesbitt, McGeehee's body will be exhumed and brought to Memphis and reinterred . . . .

Simon's friends and neighbors, or at least some of them, disputed Sean's guilt and wrote letters to the papers defending their dead friend.  The following is representative.

NESBIT, MISS. March 13, 1881

EDITOR DESOTO TIMES

Sir, I notice through a column of the Cumberland Presbyterian, an article from the Rev. B. F. Griffin, relative to the deaths of Simon A. Dean of this county, and Thomas McGeehee of Pine Bluff, Ark.  Previous to the publication of this article in a former issue of your paper, I was also pained to see another article copied from the Little Rock Gazette.  The author of this article it seems, from the tenor in which it was written, was an eyewitness. I know not his name, for not a nom de plume was annexed to this vividly colored statement of this affair, which was not only unjust and even false, but altogether uncalled for on his part.  Now, I am not desirous of unearthing a matter that I have already looked upon as at a final end, but from the tone of what has been [the next line is illegible] deem it necessary that justice should speak forth, and not only vindicate the name of a man who has always borne the character of a good an estimable citizen, but also to state impartially the true and correct ______ of the case.

Tom McGeehee never purchased a mule from S. A. Dean, as the author of the article of the Gazette has asserted.  He was desirous of doing so, and had spoken to me relative to the matter, and instead of S. A. Dean "using coarse and vulgar epithets" to Tom McGeehee is concerned is not only false in the extreme; but this eyewitness perjured himself.  When he wrote these lines his mind was so poisoned against S. A. Dean, that he has resorted even to this low and nefarious method of attempting to drag down the name of one who, I am sure, never did him a wrong.  For Simon Dean's deportment towards his fellow man won friends instead of making enemies.  He was universally generous and a thorough gentleman, and the term "murderer" coupled with his name was uttered by one who knew within his own heart was false, for he did not have even the nerve to sign his own assertion.  Anonymous [several words are illegible] matters not through what channel they reach us, should be looked upon as unworthy of notice, and I would disdain to answer the writer to the Gazette, but that he has so maliciously attempted to spoil the pure and untarnished name of a man now dead and in his grave.  McGeehee's character I know nothing of whatever.  He was a stranger to me, and of this however, I am aware of, instead of being on the defensive, he was the aggressor in this difficulty that ended so disastrously for him., and as for his "untimely and unwarranted" death, I cannot say that I agree with this truth loving (?) eyewitness.  Whoever he may be, I would certainly be glad for him to come forward and have his deposition taken before a Justice of the Peace to see if he would have the nerve to swear  to what he had written without any signature.  Now, I have never written, nor have I caused to be written, one word about this affair, nor would I have had anything to state in reply to this letter to the Gazette, but since the Rev. B. F. Griffin has deemed it necessary that he - a minister of the Gospel and a peacemaker, to attach his signature to an article in religious  . . . .

 

 

 

If you have any additional information on this very tragic and interesting case, please contact me at nancy@nancysdeadrelatives.com

 

 

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