township

Introduction | Where is Liberty Township? | Township-Scale Map

Township-Scale Map of the Murder Scene

This map of the murder scene is taken from Chas A. McConahy's Map of Mercer County, Ohio: From Recent & Original Surveys (1876).

Mary Secaur lived with the Citterlys, approximately two miles west of Liberty Chapel, where she attended church service and Sunday School on the morning of the murder. She walked with her friends and grandfather (Strouse May) along the road marked in red as far as her grandfather's house, where he remained behind, watching her as far as he could still see her. She continued on, in Strouse May's words, "three-fourths of a mile west of my house." Her body was found, again in May's words, " in a little open space within two feet of [a] thicket and behind it near south east corner of a wheat field, not far from John Citterly's house" (Day). The rectangle in red is as near as I can determine the murder site.

Jacob Leininger reported seeing the Kimmels and McLeod at his farm Monday morning, on their way west out of the township (and state).

Henry Kimmel and his family lived just around the corner from Liberty Chapel. The lynchings took place "in a small meadow or pasture lot, west, and almost immediately in front, of Kimmel's house" (Day). Though some reports of the lynching claimed the surviving Kimmel's were told to get out of the county, they remained in the neighborhood for more than fifty years. The 1876 map shows Henry, William, and "G & M" Kimmel all living in the neighborhood. Henry's lot to the northeast of the map is, in fact, where William ended up living out most of the rest of his life; my great-grandfather and grandfather both grew up on that land.