S2E5: Wilbur Underhill Jr aka Tri State Terror & the Underhill Brothers

This episode was sent to me by my long time friend Shannon, whose great-granduncle was the infamous outlaw Wilbur Underhill Jr. What a story it was! Wilbur wasn't the only one who was a troublemaker in this family. 

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Transcript

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The records don't lie, but your ancestors might. Welcome to the criminal genealogist, where true crime and genealogy intersect.

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Welcome to the Criminal Genealogist Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Bates. I'm a professional genealogist who loves researching ancestors, especially the troublemakers. And I finally have a story that involves my relatives. I know we have been waiting forever for this to happen. Though he was the victim of a murder and not the criminal, but I'll take what I can get. It's a really sad story and one I'm researching more, but I will bring it to you soon. Until then, I'm working on stories about the criminal ancestors you all send to me. More often than not, the family lore stories have some truth to them. So if you have your own criminal ancestors and want to feature them on the podcast, send me a message either via my website at the criminal genealogist.com or you can email us at the criminal genealogist at gmail.com. Now, don't forget to save the website to your bookmarks and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. TikTok is coming soon with content, but you can go ahead and follow us at criminal genealogist. Have you followed the podcast yet? We're on every major platform and would appreciate your support. Follow and share with your friends. You can also listen to us on our website. All the show notes and links are on the website too, which I'm updating this week as I'm a bit behind on that. I also put together a series of videos for our YouTube channel about how I put an episode together, so look for that in the next couple of weeks. One of the pieces of putting together an episode is my favorite podcast site, Allitude. They make it so easy to record and edit my podcast episodes and upload them directly to my host site. Allitube is a podcast maker like nothing you've seen before. Automate the sound engineering and get simple tools to do the rest, giving you more time to focus on growing your own show. Give it a try using my referral link in the show notes. This week's episode was sent to me by a friend I have known since middle school. We won't talk about how long ago that was. Shannon's great-grandmother, Grace Underhill, is one of the sisters to the infamous criminal, burglar, bank robber, and depression-era outlaw Wilbur Underhill Jr., also known as the Tri-State Terror. He was one of the most wanted bandits in Oklahoma during the 1920s and 30s and co-led a gang with Harvey Bailey that included many fellow Cookston Hills outlaws, including Jim Clark, Ed Davis, and Robert Big Bob Brady. Henry Wilbur Underhill Jr. was born on the 16th of March in 1901 in Joplin, Missouri. His parents, Henry Sr. and Nancy Almira Hutchinson, were born in 1864 and 1870, respectively. So Junior went by Wilbur, and he was one of seven children with three brothers and three sisters. His dad died in 1912 when Wilbur was only 11 years old. The Underhill brothers included two older brothers, Earl and Charles Ernest, and a younger brother, George. Now Wikipedia states the other brothers were lifelong criminals, and that when Wilbur was 12, his brother George killed a local peanut vendor and was sentenced to life in prison. Well, George would have been nine, so not sure that story is true. This is why we research and find proof since anyone can type anything, but it doesn't make it true. Now Wilbur's three sisters were Grace, the oldest child, Anna, and Dora. As I stated earlier, Grace is the great-grandmother to my friend Shannon, making the outlaw Wilbur her great-granduncle. Based on stories written about Wilbur, the boys in the family were troublemakers and the girls led lawful lives. I don't think all the brothers were criminals, but some of them certainly were. The justiposition of the family structure was comical though, because Grace was married to the sheriff. I'd have to imagine that Grace did not approve of her brother's antics. Any of them. Let's step back though before I dive into the children too much and talk about their parents. Henry Wilbur Underhill Sr. was born October 1st, 1864 in Montgomery County, Illinois, to parents Elijah Pearson Underhill and Sarah Sally Banker. Henry Sr. was one of seven children known to be born to Elijah and Sarah, but more on that coming up next. It gets a little complicated. Sadly, his mom Sarah died when Henry was three years old. This left Elijah to raise the children on his own. But the real question is how many children did he have? What I find out is that Elijah was married prior to Sarah to a woman named Mary Ann and had six known children with her based on the 1850 census. It is possible they had other children that were either living on their own or died young. And I am assuming they were children between them, as the 1850 census doesn't tell us about relationships. They married about 1826 and she died in 1849. This is where Sarah comes in, whom it appears he married about 1851. Sometime between the marriages, he moved from New York to Illinois. As of the 1860 census, they had an additional five children that we know about. After Sarah's death in 1868, Elijah was found in 1870, still living in Lichfield, Montgomery County, Illinois, and he was still a farmer. At this time there were seven children living with them, three new children that he had with Sarah between 1860 and 1867. And you may have noticed that one child is missing. That is Isaac, who was six months old on the 1860 census, assuming that he died between census records. Okay, let's do some math. From what I have found in my short search, Elijah has had 14 known children. Based on some other trees on ancestry, it's possible he had a few more, but obviously I would need to do due diligence to thoroughly research and verify. Oh, but wait, Elijah got married once more in 1872 to Deborah Jarrett. Not sure if they had any children together, but note he would have been 70 in 1872, so not likely, but not impossible. Back to Henry Underhill Sr. We know he has a lot of siblings by this point, and that his mom died when he was three. Eight years after his death, four days after Henry's 12th birthday, Elijah died, leaving his children with no parents. Some of the children at this point were adults, but Henry and two other siblings would have been minors. So what happened to them? I hope to dig into this further by looking for probate records and court records, but for now, I can tell you that in 1880, Henry was living in Missouri with the Clary family, which doesn't appear to be related to him at first glance. The 1880 census doesn't tell us about relationships either. He's 15 and his occupation is laborer, likely helping the Clary family with their farm. This was an unexpected finding, as I really expected him to be living with an older sibling or an aunt or uncle. I found Henry's youngest sister, Dora Underhill, living with her older sister Rachel and her family in Newton, Missouri, the same town that Henry was found in. This actually made me feel better. At least his family was close, and interesting was finding another Clary family living next door to Rachel and her family. Perhaps this is how Henry ended up at the other Clary's family's house. Perhaps they are related somehow. I know, I know. Get to the criminals. The reason why I decided to go do the back research further on this one was to understand the family structure, to see what they may have gone through. Generational trauma is a real thing and has an impact even if we don't realize it. Now, I haven't talked about Henry Jr.'s mom yet, Nancy Almira Hutchinson. So I'll keep her information short for the purposes of time so I can get to the criminal underhills. Nancy Almira was born in 1870 in Missouri to parents Charles Hutchinson and Nancy Smith. Her father died the next year in 1871, losing a parent at a very young age like her future husband. Almira never got the chance to know her father. She had two older siblings, a brother and a sister, and one younger brother, who also lost their father. Her mother remarried to Jacob Bodenhammer and is shown together in the 1880 census. At 17 in 1887, Almira married Henry Underhill Sr. in Newton, Missouri. I guess Henry found a home there. Her mom lived until 1907 when Almira was about 37 years old. As I stated earlier, Almira and Henry Sr. had seven known children, four sons and three daughters. Charles Ernest, Earl, Henry Wilbur Jr., George, Grace, Anna, and Dora. According to historicjopplin.org, the family had a small farm in Newton, Missouri, but due to perpetual poverty, they decided to move to Joplin. After Henry Sr. died in 1912, the income stopped, so Almira moved her family from the house they were renting at 1218 Sgt. Avenue to the Blynville section of Joplin. They state on their website that the family continued to struggle and the children got involved in petty crimes. I think that general statement is not accurate, but let's see what happened to the other Underhill children, as we already know Wilbur was a criminal. One of the older brothers, Charles Ernest Underhill, who went by Ernest, was an inmate at the Missouri State Penitentiary on the 1920 and 1930 census. Remember that earlier story about the peanut vendor? That was Ernest. And the man he robbed and murdered in January 1913 was Philip Burton. At first it was reported that he was a popcorn and peanut vendor, but later reporting said he was a hot tamale vendor. Ernest and his accomplice, Earl Locke, both 18 years old, pleaded guilty in November 1913 at the Circuit Court in Joplin. Ernest was part of a gang of boy bandits who terrorized Joplin in January and February of 1913, according to reporting in the Martha's Vecord. They also reported that when the young men were sentenced for life, they both laughed. He was received into the prison on November 11, 1913, and is listed as five foot 10 inches and 163 pounds with blue eyes. The prison record has notes about his behavior while in there, and he's marked as using dope, shooting craps, and stealing state property. There is a note to see the merit card, so I guess he did good too, and the governor thought so because despite his life term, he was paroled May 22nd, 1936. Ernest didn't have much freedom though, because he died in May of 1937 of cirrhosis of the liver, and his death certificate states his alias was Charles Dean. He was born in September of 1894, so he would have been 42. Since he was in prison his whole adult life, he never had any known marriages or children. Now for George, the youngest brother, he was born about 1904 in Missouri, the baby of the family. In January 1923, George was arrested in connection to helping to aid his brother Wilbur escape from prison. But the exciting part of this was that Mrs. Almira Underhill, the boy's mother, was also arrested. The family lore was true. The Joplin Globe reported on January 11th that Mrs. Underhill, two days after the arrest, had criminal charges formally filed against her. George got away this time and no charges were filed against him. On a side note, some reporting states that George was the nephew to Wilbur Underhill, but based on everything I have found, he was one of the siblings. So what did mom allegedly do to get arrested? She visited Wilbur at the County Jail in Carthage, Missouri. He was in jail on a charge of highway robbery and was awaiting trial. After her visit, other inmates told Sheriff Meade that Wilbur had two new saws. Allegedly, she concealed the saws in a bucket of molasses. Yep, you heard that right. Is that a thing? Who brings a bucket of molasses to a prisoner? She denies that she did this and had nothing to do with his attempted jailbreak. She was arraigned on January 13th before Justice Edward McDonald and was released from city jail on bond. Her trial was delayed several times, but never found any word on what happened. More digging is required on this one, but I'll assume the charges were dropped eventually. We got distracted by mom, but let's get back to George. In 1926, the Greenville Sun newspaper reported about George and his brothers, stating they were finally under the same roof again for the first time in years. Unfortunately, that roof was the Missouri State Penitentiary. George and the last brother Earl were sent to the state pen with six other prisoners, where their brothers Ernest and Wilbur were serving time. We know Ernest was there for murder of the vendor and Wilbur was there for highway robbery. George was sentenced to five years for burglary and larceny. It states Earl was brought there as a witness to a case but was under a sentence, though it didn't say anything further. Well, I guess they all were troublemakers after all. George was sentenced to five years starting in March of 1926, but was released two years early in March of 1929 based on merit time, also known as good behavior. On his prison record, he is also five foot ten inches and 165 pounds like his brother and has gray eyes. On his prison record, it states under former imprisonment that he had three other instances. One in Joplin, one in Kansas City, and one in Newton County, Missouri. These would have been at the local county level, so would need to check with them directly to get those prison records if they still have them. He did have one discrepancy while in prison. He forged a check. George was back in the news in 1931. According to reporting from the Wichita Beacon from the November 6, 1931 issue, George escaped from the jail in Independence, Kansas, and they feared he would try to help his brother, Wilbur, escape from the state pen. George was found that day, but not alive. According to the Miami News record, his body was found in a rooming house in Garnett, Kansas, about two hours north of Independence. The coroner stated his death was due to an excessive dose of narcotics. The right arm of the body bore a tattoo that said, Kid Underhill, Joplin, Missouri. I talked about Wilbur and Earl a little bit, but not in detail yet. Wilbur is the best known of the brothers for his outlaw behavior, but we will save him for the last. Earl, the oldest brother and the second oldest child of the family, was born in 1889. The mention of him in the 1926 paper didn't make it clear what he did, but there was reporting from June of 1925 in the Neosha Daily News. It states that he was charged with larceny of $300 worth of tires from a garage in Neosha, Missouri. His prison record for Missouri State Penitentiary says he was sentenced to two years from June 22, 1925 for burglary and larceny. He wasn't received until December of 1925. He was released on a writ of habeas corpus ad testificatium February 23, 1926, and he returned on March 12, 1926. This was when he was brought from the penitentiary to testify as a witness in another case. His prison record shows that all the men in his family are the same height and build because he's also 5'10, 172 pounds, and has dark blue eyes. He was released early in July of 1926 and appears to have been a good boy in prison. I didn't find anything else on Earl to indicate the life of crime like his brothers. He married in 1911 but was a widower by 1917 with two children. He remarried shortly after that and had more children with his new wife Emma, whom he was married to when he was in prison. They spent time in New Mexico, Kansas, and Missouri. Unlike his brothers, Earl lived a long life, dying in 1974 when he was 75 years old. As for the last brother and the most infamous, Henry Wilbur Underhill Jr., also known as Wilbur Underhill, he was known as a tri-state terror because of his crimes in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Now, my friend Shannon mentioned that there were family stories that Wilbur was hit in the head while, I think, digging through trash bins and was never the same after. And this was actually reported in local papers as well, quoting his mom, who said that he was never quite right after that. The St. Louis Post Dispatch did a case history on criminals and used Wilbur Underhill as their example in an article from July 1935. Quote, the dangerous criminal becomes such by a process of education. In practically every instance, he begins in a petty way, slowly becoming more vicious, until at last he is classed as a mad dog. Perhaps a case history will illustrate. Wilbur Underhill, known as the tri-state terror, is a good example. Catalogued by popular opinion as an Oklahoma outlaw, he nevertheless was an excellent personification of crime as it exists today, for geographical boundaries have almost ceased to exist. End quote. Wilbur started out around 1918 with petty crimes, such as making and selling moonshine. He quickly realized that he could make more money by selling cargoes of moonshine instead of bottles, so he joined a hijacking enterprise, splitting the profits with the driver. Then he decided he could do it himself and hijacked a truck by himself, moving up in his crimes. When Wilbur was 19, he was arrested in Joplin, Missouri for burglary. He was sentenced to two years and sent to the Missouri State Penitentiary. His prison records state he was received into the prison on November 5th, 1920, and was released December 13, 1921. Wilbur broke the mold with his brothers though because he was 5'11 and a half inches tall, but he was also 165 pounds with blonde hair and blue eyes. At least they're consistent with the light eyes. From selling moonshine to prison for burglary, his escalation started early. A year after his release, he was caught again and sent back for armed robbery, upping his criminal game yet again. This was the case of highway robbery in 1923, where he was in county jail awaiting trial when his mom was arrested for allegedly helping him to try to escape prison. Yeah, remember that. He was sentenced to five years for this crime and was released three and a half years later. At the age of 25, Wilbur escalated again by helping with a bank robbery in Oklahoma with three other bandits. Ray Carroll and brothers Matt and George Kimes met Wilbur back in his hijacking days. Wilbur had now become a bank robber and joined the others in several bank robberies until they had enough of Wilbur. The reason? They said Wilbur had a murder mindset and begged for the privilege of murdering someone. I guess some criminals have a boundary, as they did. There are a lot of stories about what Wilbur was involved with and with whom over the next years, often conflicting with each other. But he was involved with the robbery and murder of 18-year-old George V, a clerk at a drugstore in Upmulge, Oklahoma. The police in Tulsa arrested Wilbur and he was taken to the Upmulge County jail. His accomplice, Ike Akins and Wilbur, escaped the county jail. The authorities assumed he would head back to Pitcher, Oklahoma, and he did. In February 1927, he was identified on the street by a constable by the name of Fuller and told to put his hands up. Fuller asked a young boy, Eugene O'Neill, to help him, and as they approached Wilbur, he took a gun out and shot and killed O'Neill. Wilbur took off in the dark as Fuller shot at him, hitting him at least once, he thought. Wilber was eventually caught in April in Panama, Oklahoma, and sent back to the Atmulgee County Jail with some bullet wounds in the arm when he tried to fire upon officers. Ike Akins was later found in Missouri and was killed by officers. There was some debate at trial whether Ike or Wilbur shot the young boy, but ultimately the jury found him guilty and he was sentenced to life at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAllister, Oklahoma. At one point, the prosecutors wanted the death penalty. After several attempts to escape and trips to solitary confinement, Wilbur was allowed outside to work, where he escaped finally. Not real smart on their part. He ended up in Wichita, Kansas and hid out in a hotel when a robbery occurred and one of the hotel staff said that they saw stolen goods in his room. This was in August of 1931. When police officer Merrill Colver came to Wilbur's room to question him, he didn't even get a question out before Wilbur shot and fatally killed the officer. Wilbur's nephew, Frank Vance Underhill, was with him and had been with him while they traveled through Oklahoma and Kansas. Wilbur ran, but Frank did not, and was interrogated by the police, giving up his uncle as the killer. Wilbur was found and a shootout occurred, and Wilbur was shot in the neck, but nothing life-threatening. So Wilbur didn't want to go back to Oklahoma because he faced the electric chair since Oklahoma has the death penalty, and we still do, but Kansas did not. He was sent to the prison in Lansing, Kansas, and pleaded guilty to the murder of the Wichita office and was given another life sentence. So let's spring forward to May of 1933, and Underhill escaped another prison. Eventually, the U.S. government got involved because Wilbur committed federal crimes and they were determined to find him. In December of 1933, he then went to Southeast Oklahoma and entered Colgate, Oklahoma, which is a beautiful area for hiking. And shout out to my friend Abby, who lives there. He was with a childhood sweetheart, Hazel Hudson, who was from the family that created the Jarrett gang, well known for bank robberies. The couple married and then disappeared. Word got back to the FBI that the couple were in Shawnee, Oklahoma, and agents and police officers swarmed the property. A shootout started. Wilbur dropped several times, even coming outside to continue his shooting. Despite 15 guns shooting at him, he turned to the side of the house and vanished in the dark. Word got out that a man was staggering near the back door of a furniture store. When they got there, they found Wilbur with 13 bullet wounds, but still alive. He died a week later on January 6, 1934. So much. And that was not even all the little things that didn't get included in this episode. What a family to research, and we didn't even get to the curls. Mom Almira Underhill lost three of her boys from 1931 to 1937. I can't imagine the pain of that. It makes you wonder if their father had lived longer, would the boys have turned to crime? It seems there was a tragic plot of loss from generation to generation. Hopefully that loss stopped with this generation. Thank you, Shannon, for sharing your family with me. And I'm hoping to dig in further and find out if the girls were good or not. Until next time, our criminal genies, remember, the records don't lie, but your ancestors might