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Note: Gonce, William McClellan �Mack� Aug 1851 - 19 Jun 1930 CCR 26 Jun 1930 [Note: Son of Abraham Rudolph Gonce - his mother may have been Mary Frazier. He married 1 May 1870 in Stone County, MO Martha Ann Sims and moved to Baxter Springs, Kansas where he died; he is reported to be the father of James McClellan Gonce b 26 Aug 1871, 2 Carl Abraham Gonce b 7 May 1873, Clemons Gonce b Abt. 1875, Albert Anderson Gonce b 19 Aug 1878, Winfred Pendleton Gonce b 7 Feb 1883, Fred Harrison Gonce b 19 Mar 1885, Ellis Cleveland Gonce b May 1887, Doshia Ann Gonce b 19 Jun 1890, and William M. Gonce b August 1892] Mack Gonce of Highlandville died on June 19, aged 78 years, 10 months, and 23 days. He was a native of Tennessee but came to this county in an early day. Burial was made on June 21, 1930, at 2 p.m. in the Highlandville cemetery under the direction of B.C. Klepper of Ozark. ============================================================================= There is considerable data in the pension file of James W. Sims about a Dr. Gonce, who was convicted of killing a man and sentenced to life imprisonment. Served 10 years, was discharged. Gonce was not a trained physician, but worked as a doctor. After serving a ten-year sentence, Gonce was released because of ill health, released and bought a drug store in Kirbyville. This he converted into a saloon. The material on 'Doc' Gonce is of some interest as Martha Ann Sims, a daughter from the first marriage married a Gonce. Oral family history has a mixed up connection to this 'Doc' Gonce - I'm not sure that the husband and this person is the same - never ran it to ground. The great-granddaughter of Martha Ann Gonce (Barbara Logan email: dlogan@@alaska.net) writes: " In comparing my family outline to what I saw on your pages regarding Doc Gonce, I think Doc might be the father of James McClellan Gonce who married Martha Ann Sims. The age would work out ok." and " I have been told his wife was shown as divorced on the 1880 census and Doc was not on the census...He shows up later when he murders Charles Kaiser about 1884 and gets sent to the penitentiary. Then he gets out and marries my husband's widowed great-grandmother, Charity Logan, and it was her step son-in-law he had murdered! What a strange twisted tale!" I found this in the Davis Data that Judy sent: From Effie Davis Morrow of Springfield MO . "Hillard Davis (Tom Davis' son--Tom's parents were Willie and Elizabeth) told me that Doc Gonce killed great grandmother Elizabeth with some medicine that ate her stomach out. Hillard remembers his dad telling him. Also that Great Uncle King Davis married Aunt Salina Sims (?) and they were cousins to each other. Hillard (Tom's son) killed his wife by shooting her and spent 40 or 45 years in prison. He was insane at the time of the shooting..." Also ... "The Louallens were good looking people, all that I ever saw... Charley Compton (Boby Louallen's son, whose mother was Aunt Ann) was my neighbor across the street. His wife's name was Lovie. They had 12 children..." Ann would be Angeline, dau of William and Elizabeth Davis (nee Harp)." Posted by Roger Wilson <rwilson@@intermediatn.net> on Sun, 25 Apr 1999 GONCE!!!! I am interested in getting information on Abraham Gonce born in Hawkins County Tennessee in 1829. He went to Missouri sometime after 1850. He was in Jefferson City Missouri in 1891 either in prison or working at the prison as a Dr, but he died in Taney Ville in 1913 . He was a MD. He was the son of Vance and Martha Gonce of Hawkins County Tennessee. His first wife was named Mary, I don't know whether he had more wives or not. He also was a Cousin of Jo e Dodson of Green County Missouri who was Sheriff of Green County in 1891.Any info will be appreciated -----Original Message----- From: Don & Barbara Logan [mailto:dlogan@@alaska.net] Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 1999 12:58 AM To: MOCHRIST-L@@rootsweb.com Well, I will again mention the tale of "Doc" Abraham R. GON CE, who is not really part of our family ancestry, except that he was married for a very short time to my husband's widowed great-grandmother, Charity Elizabeth WIGGINS LOGAN. "Dr. A.R. Gonce Pardoned out of the Penitentiary to Die" "After years of weary, almost hopeless waiting, Dr. A.R. Gonce, once so well known in Ozark, is again free from the restraints of prison life, having been pardoned out of the penitentiary, where he was confined for nearly ten years for the murder of Charles Kaiser, who lived a short distance south of Highlandville in this county. The reader of the REPUBL ICAN remembers the history of the crime. A slight difficulty on the morning of the fatal day between Gonce and his victim seemed but a slight provocation for the bloody deed that followed. Gonce rode all the way to Ponce De Leon that morning after the little quarrel with Kaiser. There he borrowed a gun, as ugly a shooting iron as was ever exhibited in court, and loaded it with a heavy charge of shot. Putting the gun across his saddle front Gonce turned the head of his horse homeward and rode about eight miles before he reached Mr. Kaiser's place. Kaiser was plowing in the lane, through which Gonce aimed, and perhaps unmindful of the peril, without dismounting or checking the pace of his horse, aimed and fired and killed Kaiser who was at the plow handles. It was a shooting crime, and the jury had a strong leaning toward the gallows when the case went to trial in Greene County on a change of venue. Ninety-nine years in the penitentiary seemed a reasonable compromise to the jurors that urged the death penalty, and Gonce was sent up for life as everyone supposed. He had been in the penitentiary once before but had not learned to like the place. He longed to be out and kept fighting for liberty. He has written many graphic letters for the newspaper, detailing as far as a prisoner is allowed to go, the horrors of penitentiary life. The late convict is now a confirmed invalid, having consumption well defined. His son-in-law, Fayette Chrisman has agreed to become the old man's support during his last days. Chrisman and J. J. Burton (J. J. Bruton? well known lawyer and deputy sheriff in the county? Believe he also married second to a Gonce daughter) went to Jefferson City Monday to bring home the doctor. (The shooting happened about 1884.)" Now the craziest part of this is that Charity Elizabeth WIGGINS LOGAN was the STEP-MOTHER of Mr. KAISER's wife, Sarah Elizabeth LOGAN. Why Charity would marry Doc GONCE after he killed her step-son-in-law is just something I can't even imagine. Ella INGENTHRON DUNN wrote about her "Aunt" Charity in her book "Granny Woman of the Hills." She said that "he (Doc Gonce) wanted her (Aunt Charity) to deed him her river farm on White River and she refused, so she moved back to the farm." Now about this Mr. KAISER I came across some other interesting information about him in "The Kentlings of Highlandville" by Gene Geer. It says: "We do know that Frank (Kentling) had made a trip to the region around Springfield. We kn w further that he met there a man named Keysser from his own Rhineland. Keysser was a runaway from a German noble family who had acquired much cheap land in Christian County, in the hills below the village of Nixa. Kentling had explored the area on horseback and afoot and Keysser had agreed to sell him a tract upon which Frank proposed to start a trading post." Another thing about Doc GONCE... the news article says he w as so sick with consumption that they let him go home from prison a confirmed invalid. He gets home and first marries Charity, they are divorced, and he marries again. He is found in the 1900 census, Jasper Township, Taney County, Missouri; he is age 71, his wife is age 21 and they have two toddler daughters! I have been fascinated by this man's history, even though, as I said, he is not really related except by a short marriage.... Barbara Logan
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