The Battle of Maddox Lane

The beginning of the end of KKK activities in Franklin Co (at least for a while) occurred at the “battle of Maddox lane,” There, it is said, “the Klan met their real Bull Run, Appomattox, and Waterloo.”

In the summer of 1875, the Klan was planning two Franklin Co “hits”—Capt. John Hogan and John B. Maddox. Hogan had earned Klan wrath because he had the audacity to prosecute Hiram Summers, a Klan member and liquor dealer in the village of Speakeasy, for selling Hogan’s son whiskey. Hogan had been ordered by the Klan to reimburse Hiram for his $100 fine and for costs. Maddox was on the Klan’s hit list because he had “been a little too free with women and with Rice’s wife.” We don’t know who Rice was, but he probably had Klan connections. A Klan member, William Washington Jacobs, turned informant and let Maddox and Hogan know of the Klan’s plans. They, in turn, asked authorities for help.

Very early the morning of 17 Aug 1875, a group of armed and masked men on horseback were caught approaching the farmhouse of John Maddox a few miles north of West Frankfort and just east of what is today Deering Road. A sheriff’s posse, waiting in ambush along the lane, opened fire with shotguns. One masked rider, John Duckworth, tumbled from his horse. The others, several also wounded, fled but were hunted down and eventually arrested.

Believing he was on his deathbed, the downed rider told all he knew about the Klan, continuing to spill the beans even after he survived. He had been initiated into the Klan by Hiram Summers, the Sneakout liquor dealer, at the farm lot of Elisha Summers. Some contemporary newspaper articles listed Elisha as Eli, but for a variety of reasons, we know it was probably not Eli. And who was the downed KKK rider, John Duckworth? It turns out he was John Wilson Duckworth, a son of Cassander Summers, Thomas Summers’s granddaughter! Hiram and Elisha Summers were brothers and Cassander’s cousins. It was all in the family. 

All in the Family

Were these members of the Summers family really KKK participants? Probably, though they may have just been ruffians, lawless individuals with a streak of cussedness. Let’s hope that was all it was because, as we will see, Summers participation was much, much more extensive than indicated here. 

Sneakout

Around 1865 Thomas Jefferson (“Jeff”) Eubanks, a farmer in Cave Twp, Franklin Co, Illinois, established a sawmill on the west bank of Ewing Creek, where it was crossed by the road from Benton to Thompsonville. Houses were built for the new mill workers, a store was started, and a jail was erected. Why a jail in such a small community? It was probably needed. In addition to a handful of houses, a mill, and a store, the village had six saloons! Men (and it was only men in those days) sneaking out of their houses to booze it up gave the community its name, “Sneakout.” Yes, that was really the village name.

Sneakout had a bad name and a bad reputation. The village was not only a source of excessive drinking, aided by Hiram Summers, who supplied liquor, it was notorious for its roughness. Worse of all, Sneakout was headquarters of the KKK (sometimes called the “Golden Ring”) of Williamson and Franklin counties. The location was ideal for the Klan. Cave Twp bordered "Bloody" Williamson Co, and the area was isolated and lawless.

It was in Sneakout that Aaron Neal organized the group of masked miscreants, many of whom farmed in Cave, Frankfort (particularly in the Crawford’s Prairie area), and Eastern townships. Aaron, who was designated “Grand Master” and who claimed earlier membership in the original Klan, was everything a KKK member was not expected to be. He had served in the Union Army during the Civil War, he was the son of a Primitive Baptist minister, and he had read law, entering into private practice. Come to think of it, being a Baptist minister’s son might not have been a detriment at the time.

Church or school, possibly at Sneakout, Mar 2007.

Little, possibly nothing, remains of Sneakout today. During a 2007 trip, a search for the remnants revealed an old Church or School, but nothing else. The village vanished when good timber for the sawmill was used up and when a new train track ended its isolation. And the loss of saloon clientele when the KKK was (temporarily) vanquished also impacted the community. But more on that later.

Many Franklin Co towns have disappeared over the years. Sheldon R. Jones has produced an informative map of Franklin Co, showing its towns, both extant and extinct, and has granted permission to use it in the Summers book.

Map of Franklin Co, Sheldon R. Jones. Some locations are estimates. Sneakout has been marked with an added red arrow.