Marauding Monroe

In 1867, at age 23, James Monroe Klinck (my 2x great grandfather) was arrested for stabbing Mat Flinn outside the Temple of Virtue on the corner of Washington and Main in Memphis. In 1869, at age 25, he challenged a police officer to a duel. Clearly, Monroe was no pushover! While the articles are brief, they offer quite a glimpse at the varied forces that were at work on the streets of Reconstruction Memphis.

The Daily Avalanche, 19Feb1867

The Temple of Virtue … was not a temple. My friends at the Shelby County Archives called it a “bawdy house.” They checked the Metropolitan Police recorder’s arrest record and didn’t find Monroe listed. But, they did find several instances of madams and their “inmates” (the term that referenced the prostitutes) being arrested.  The key phrase appears to be “female inhabitants,” which was the newspaper’s way of cleaning it up for their readers.

Esquire James Hall was a Justice of the Peace, so he probably served on the Shelby County Quarterly Court, the legislative body of the county. I investigated Hall to discover if he was good or crooked (was he fair to my ancestor?). Instead, I opened a Pandora’s Box of history involving Conservatives, Radicals, Confederate sympathizers, and mouthpiece newspapers. I’m intrigued enough by this side-story to dig deeper and report back in a future post; stay tuned.

What’s important for the sake this stabbing is that the political affiliation of Monroe, Esquire Hall, and The Daily Avalance probably all influenced the outcome of his trial and the manner in which the event was reported. According to Vincent Clark of the Shelby County Archives, “Newspapers at the time tended to be the mouthpiece of specific parties.  The Avalanche, at least leading up to the Civil War, had been a pro-secessionist paper.  With that in mind, attempting to understand what was happening with your ancestor, the story becomes even more complex.”

Keep the lack of neutral reporting in mind as you read about Monroe’s next “difficulty” on 5March1869:

The Daily Avalanche, 5Mar1869

An honest to God duel! Scrappy! What’s almost as interesting as the event itself is the unabashed editorial style of the writing. Monroe’s note is so polite – he calls his enemy sir and then allows said enemy to choose a time and place of his convenience. Southern manners even when picking a fight! Yet we read phrases like “blood-thirsty epistle” and the inferiority of Monroe’s writing utensil and paper are shown. Furthermore, we’re told nothing about the events of the night previous. In what way did Holleran “abuse and maltreat” Monroe? And who was Holleran? Monroe’s older brother, Hayne I. Klinck was the captain of the Day Police in the years before his death in 1864. Did Holleran know the Klincks before this event? Or – was he one of the Yankee cops that were brought in after Memphis fell to the Union on 6June1862? Questions. Questions. Questions for another day.