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SNELSON-BRINKER PRESERVATION PROJECT

Show Me Paranormal, along with Pete Vannatta the property title holder, join together to form the "Snelson-Brinker Preservation Project" and have the project underway.

History of Snelson-Brinker Historical Site:

The Snelson Brinker log cabin, consisting of two almost identical rooms with separate exterior entries, was built in 1834 by Levi Snelson. Levi built, lived in, and held court in the larger room of the two rooms, as he was a judge. Crawford County had no court houses at that time. Later, Snelson sold the house and forty acres to John Brinker for $125. Adjacent to the cabin is a combination smoke house and spring house. The property also contains a family cemetery that extends some distance into the thicky wooded area beyond the graves that are visable to visitors. The cemetery is also noted by some to house the remains of buried early settlers from the Maramec Springs Community, Cherokee Indians who died while passing this way on the Trail of Tears, Civil War veterans, and several members of the Huston Family. The cemetery was recorded on October 14, 1996.

Most of the Cherokees leaving Georgia followed what is today called the Northern Land Route from Southeastern Tennessee across the mountains, through Nashville and Hopkinsville, Kentucky. They would cross the Ohio River near Galconda, Illinois, and continue across Southern Illinois to the ice-swollen Mississippi. After crossing the Mississippi, they would go northwest to Rolla before turning to the southwest to Springfield and enter northwest Arkansas. After crossing Benton and Washington Counties in Arkansas, they would disband in northwest Indian Territory.

The Northern Route continued on the road parallel to State Route 8 into Steelville. West of Steelville, the detachments followed the present-day alignment of State Route 8 to St. James. North of State Route 8, in the Woodson K. Woods State Memorial Wildlife Area, is the Snelson-Brinker Cabin, which was a stopping point for some of the detachments. The house was owned by John Brinker in the late 1830s when the Cherokee indians camped on the property. Four members of the Richard Taylor detachment died while at the Brinker residence and are buried in the family cemetery on the property. Although the dwelling has been altered in recent years, the site itself is significant for its associations as a known camp and burial site. Snelson-Brinker Cabin is the last Trail of Tears certified site in Missouri, certified October 12, 2006; and is considered by many to be a location of indian burial grounds because of this event, possibly more then just those known to be buried in the family cemetery, or these four are actually buried in a different location along the river area of the original property. More recently, the tribe council or bureau came to the property and wanted to remove their dead and return them to the burial grounds at the reservation. This request was denied and currently the remains of any indians buried at the cabin still remain intact.

John Brinker, in the year 1837, had two daughters by the names of Vienna Jane, two years of age, and Sarah, who was just an infant at three weeks of age as noted in some documentations. Little is known of a Mrs. Brinker, she is not mentioned in any historical documentation and no one even knows her first name or if a Mrs. actually existed at the time of the tragic event that struck the Brinker household. Brinker also had a young slave girl named Mary who cared for the children among other duties at the cabin. She was housed in the lower portion of the spring and smoke house.



One day in 1837, John Brinker hitched his cart and horse and went down into the very nearby community of Meramac Springs, an ironworks town back then and historical park today. He went for supplies. When he returned, he found that the eldest child Vienna Jane was missing. Mary would give no responses or recognition that she knew anything about where the child could be. The Sheriff was summoned and a search party set out to locate the child. She was discovered in a shallow riverbed behind the cabin deceased. Her head was bruised and battered as if she may have fell and been knocked unconscious and possibly drowning. However the Sheriff was suspicious of how the child met her demise.

The Sheriff set up with Brinker that he would once again go into the Springs for supplies, but this time they would take cover in the woods and watch the cabin. After Brinker was out of sight, they witnessed the slave girl Mary running out of the cabin with the infant, Sarah, and heading in the direction of the creekbed. They intercepted her before the infant could be harmed, and it is said that they tied her to the old tree to the right side of the cabin (if facing the cabin and the tree still remains but is dead now), and threatened to beat her if she did not talk. Mary then confessed to the killing of Vienna Jane. She stated that she tried to drown her, but the water was too shallow and she would not die, so in her words, she beat her in the head with a stick until she died. She also confessed that she was on her way to kill the remaining child, Sarah. There are different accounts as to her motive, one printed in a St. Louis Newspaper stating that she did so because Brinker was going to sell her. The other version is that she had been impregnated by and given birth to Brinkers child, and the elusive Mrs. Brinker made John Brinker sell the child. Therefore Mary committed this crime out of revenge for the loss of her own child. A news article of the times quoted Mary as being a shrewd girl, remarkedly fond of children, and that she exhibited no fear or compunction at the moment of apprehension. Mary gave her confession, signed it with an x, as she was illiterate, and was taken to jail to await her indictment and trial. The news article indicates that she spent time in the Potosi Jail, in Washington County, while awaiting trial. I am not sure why this would be however since her trial was held in Crawford County, Steelville, MO.

Mary was indicted on the first day, a jury of twelve white men were seated on the second day and by the end of the day she was convicted of first degree murder, the day being August 18th, 1837. The very brief trial consisted of witnesses testifying against her, those being Thomas Shirley, William Blackwell and John B. Brinker himself. Mary's confession was deemed admissible as evidence but caution was given to the jury, by the judge, that it could only be admissible as legal evidence if Mary had given the confession of her own free will without the influence of hope, fear, pain or torture. The defense offered up no evidence on behalf of Mary according to summurizing court records, such as the Sheriff posse tying her to the tree and coercing the confession from her and the fact of if this event really did take place remains questionable today, as no one presented such an event at Mary's trial. I believe it is safe to say that this event most likely did take place, one due to the era and it just being the way things were done when it came to slaves who were owned property and essentially such actions were common. Also, to this day there have been falsehoods in the case that have stood the test of time, such as Mary was hung from that tree in the cabin yard when found guilty of the crime. The tree has forever played an integral part of the story of Mary's case, and we know she was not hung from this tree, therefore the tree's stigma and true involvement in this case is very likely the case of it being a part of the coerced confession of Mary. Unlike most trials of today, Mary's was pretty much one sided completely. This is not to say that Mary was innocent of the crime, but I do believe it has been the basis of somes speculation of if she was truly guilty.

On August 19th, Judge Evans, the presiding judge on the trial, sentenced Mary to death by hanging to be carried out on September 30th, 1837. Her attorneys did make a motion for a new trial that Judge Evans denied, so they filed for appeal with the Missouri Supreme Court. The Missouri Supreme Court reversed Mary's conviction and granted her a new trial based on two grounds, inconsistent mode of death were charged in the conviction, beating the child to death with a stick and drowning her, and the fact that the proscecution continued to examine witnesses after agreement was made in the court that the evidence be closed, which would thereby be inflaming the jury against Mary, I believe. Her new trial was delayed over arguments of change of venue, the trial continuing into 1838. She was once again found guilty with no appeal process taken this time, and she was then hung by the Crawford County Sheriff on August 11th, 1838, at the age of 16/17. She was buried in an unmarked grave on the bluff on the north side of Steelville. Marys execution made her the youngest known person ever put to death under Missouri authority.

There have been discrepancies in Marys true age, some listing her as young as 13 yrs. old when she committed the crime. Unlike most other cases in the same era, Mary's case still has in existance extant court records, census material and at least four contemporary news storys about her. There were three out of state newspapers that quoted her at about the age of thirteen when she committed the crime, but they had taken the story verbatum from the St. Louis newspaper at the time. Another out of state paper noted her as about the age 14 at the time of the crime. The county history, published in 1888, lists her as age 16 at the time of her crime and that has been the most reliable information yet to go by.

Vienna Jane died a brief year later, at the age of one years old, of the plague that swept the Springs community and took the lives of most of the children in the area. Both Sarah and Vienna Jane are buried in the most elaborate graves in the family cemetery. Both of them having raised tombs, whereas the other graves are regular in ground graves with a headstone. There is also a pulpit like stand centered between, and at the bottom end, of the girls tombs..why I do not know.


The memory of the tragic event, of little Sarah and of slave Mary, remains consistently alive and ongoing. Willard Rand even wrote a play about the event titled, 'The Trial of Mary, a Slave', and it was presented in the 100 year old Crawford County Courthouse in two acts on April 18th and 19th of 1990. Despite the crime being a heineous act against an innocent child, I think both the spirits of Sarah and Mary touch the hearts of man, as both were children in this event. All the circumstances seem deemably sorrowful, Mary's condition of slavery and living in a room under the smokehouse, the possibility being great that she was used to bear children at such a young age, and the likelihood that a child born could have indeed been taken from her and sold. She was known to be remarkably fond of children, which seems so contary to her ability to murder a small child, especially one that she herself had nurtured since birth, therefore one has to question what tragedy consumed Mary to the point of committing such a vile and out of character act. They say that she exhibited no fear or compunction at the time she was apprehended, but if true then what could that actually indicate? What young slave girl would not have fear if surrounded by angery white men who had the authority and ability to hang her on the spot if they had wanted to. There were only two sides that bore witness to the event, Mary and her accusers, and Mary was a young illiterate slave girl condtioned since birth to being in captivity and kneeling to white mans authority, conditioned to not rise up against that authority. I am sure the white men on the scene were very threatening to Mary. So if she truly showed no fear at the time they rallied her up, then I personally would have to question if she lacked fear because she did no wrong and was not expecting such accusations to be lodged against her. No one really knows what went on that day at the cabin, and only one side of the parties present were of mind and authority enough to give witness in whatever form they chose, truth or fabrication, possibly down playing their role or inflaming Marys. There was no one at that time that would stand up against their word on the event. We cannot know how it truly came down, and none live on to provide information to the 'whole truth and nothing but the truth' as our court systems of today uphold. The tragic deaths of two young persons, and then yet a third within a short time, seem to stain the grounds of the Snelson-Brinker property and leave behind a haunting sadness that blankets this historical site.

The Project:

The intentions of the project and current projects already in motion are outlined below:

Research Project: To thoroughly research the history of the Snelson-Brinker and sever the facts from the fiction, to locate the historical locations such as the indian burial grounds, the actual Trail of Tears location, civil war graves and the precise location of the tragic murder of Vienna Jane. To locate and obtain the copies of the actual trial transcripts, including the Supreme Court Appeal hearing, of the slave Mary which will help separate fact from fiction in the case. To secure any documentation copies related to any other historical events that may have taken place at the site. To collect and document the information of all or as many as possible, persons interred in the location cemetery.

Restoration and Preservation Project: To clear of trees and brush the other 3/4 of the original cemetery grounds and graves that exist. To maintain the grounds in a groomed manner. To complete the wiring installation to provide electricity to the cabin. To install security lights and systems in the cabin and property to cease vandalism. To establish a museum quality atmosphere and obtain or construct furnishing of the time period for display in the cabin museum, one section of the cabin furnished as replica of the Snelson period and courtroom, the other side furnished as replica of the Brinker home.

Funding Project: To establish the 'Snelson-Brinker Theatrical Society' to perform reinactments of the Brinker tragedy and trial of Mary, Civil War Battles, and the Trail of Tears. Performances becoming an active part of the historical museum, and other places within surrounding communities to raise funds for the preservation project. We have obtained full usage rights from the playwriters to perform their creative renditions of the trial of Mary. To initiate other means of fundraising for the project.

Grants Project: To establish proper historical activity leading to a status of qualifying for grants to assist with maintanence of the historical site. To research and make application for such grants.

The 'Snelson-Brinker Preservation Project' group welcomes volunteers in the areas of laborers, fund raising and the theatrical society. During the winter months we will be working on clearing the cemetery grounds, which must be done with caution and care for preservation of the graves within, and all volunteers to this particular project area are welcome to remove the fallen trees for fire wood.

You can visit our most recent investigation page on the Snelson-Brinker Cabin and grounds on our investigations page. The spiritual inhabitants of the property seem to be getting used to us being in their presense and have become comfortable with us possibly, as they seem to show off more and more for us as we go in the project.