The Murder of Ezekiel Pratt

In August of 1862, occurred the murder of Ezekiel Pratt, a Union man living in the northern part of the county, in the vicinity of Williamstown and Bunker Hill. The killing was attributed to John Baker and some men under him, and to his father, Willis Baker, who was a neighbor of Pratt.

John Baker had been in rebel service for some time as a bushwhacker, and had been for a short time under Joe Porter. He seems to have left Porter immediately after the Kirksville fight, and sped away to his father's house, at the head of a small band, although it is claimed that he was not at Kirksville at all, but had been in the brush, on the Fabius, all summer.

The circumstances of the killing are thus related by the widow of Mr. Pratt (who remarried a Mr. H. L. Sweet):

On the 8th day of August, 1862, John Baker came to our house with a band of men, armed with shot guns, and surrounded the house. He asked for Mr. Pratt; said he wanted him, and had come to kill him; he also wanted all the guns we had, and particularly a certain United States musket. Mr. Pratt was not at home. I refused them admittance, but John Baker ordered me to open the door or he would shoot me through the window. He ordered the men to set fire to the house and kill me, or get in somehow. My little girl, fearing they would execute their threats, opened the door and they rushed in yelling like Indians. I had concealed the musket and they could not find it. They rummaged the house, and found the box of cartridges belonging to it, and after cursing and swearing around awhile, road away. When Mr. Pratt returned, and I informed him of what had happened, he mounted his horse, and with two young men, named Tuttle and (I think) Bandruff, started in pursuit of the bushwhackers, sending word to the Union men of the neighborhood to follow him and assist in breaking up their camp and routing them. Mr. Pratt was exempt from military service, but he and the neighbors had agreed among themselves to put down bushwhackers and robbers if they came in, and if the men had rallied to his support they would have destroyed or captured this band. Mr. Pratt and the two boys were riding along the road past the thicket, near the house of Willis Baker, the father of John. Some one fired on them from the bushes, and wounded Mr. Pratt in the ankle; the saddle skirts were covered with blood. Not minding the wound he jumped from his horse, and rushed into the thicket from which the shot had came. In a few seconds the boys heard the voice of John Baker cry out, "Father, come and help me!" Willis Baker then came out of his door, and it is believed shot Mr. Pratt. The body had one wound in the back of the head, supposed to have been made by Willis Baker, one (a fatal shot) in the abdomen, one in the ankle, and one cut or stab from his own bayonet. One person, who claimed to know, told me he lived several hours and requested to be brought home to die. All kinds of stories were told me to excuse his murder until I refused to listen to them. When the fighting was going on in the thicket, the two young men became alarmed and fled, spreading the news that Mr. Pratt was killed, etc. I knew nothing of it until it was all over, and then I had great difficulty in getting anhone to go and get the body; all were afraid. I have given what I believe is the truth.

Mr. Pratt was a native of Cohasset, Mass., and at the time of his death, was forty-six years of age. He had been twice married; his second wife was a daughter of Judge Charles Hequembourg, of St. Louis, where Mr. Pratt had married in 1847, and where he pursued the occupation of architect and builder for some years. He came to Lewis County in 1854, and purchased the farm where-on his widow and sons continued to reside.

Willis Baker was arrested some time after the tragedy, charged with assisting in the killing of Mr. Pratt. He was taken to Palmyra, and was one of the ten Confederate prisoners executed by order of General McNeil, on the 18th of October following, in retaliation for the murder of Andrew Allsman, by some of Porter's men. It must be borne in mind that his friends always denied that he participated in the murder, which was attributed to his son, John Baker. He was an old settler of this county, and was about sixty years of age at the date of his death. He died very bravely, implacable in his hatred of his executioners.

(extracted from History of Lewis County, MO, History of Lewis, Clark, Knox and Scotland Counties, Missouri, 1887)