History can be hard to pin down, but once it’s written down, very hard to shake. So, it is with the tale of the first lady of Victoria who was said to be no lady but a witch. And whether she was or whether she wasn’t, her story is now a matter of history.
According to an article published in the Kansas City Star on Jan. 12, 1908, Jefferson County was a “stronghold” for witches, particularly in the town of Victoria and starting with the first family to settle there.
The first settler in the town was Thomas L. Bevis. In 1802, he left Georgia and traveled northward to Missouri and cut down the first trees to build the first home on the land where Victoria is now. Bevis died in 1826, but for 28 years after his death, his wife was thought to be a witch and blamed for every evil thing that happened to the town or its residents. Although her name was Prudence, for whatever reason, she was known as Queen Bevers.
When Judge John L. Thomas gave an address before the Old Settlers' Association of Jefferson County, he said the biography of Queen Bevers illustrated the beliefs and customs of the earlier generation, according to the article “When Witches Rode Broomsticks over Missouri Hills.”
“I am informed by persons who knew her well during that period that an overwhelming majority of the people really believed in witchcraft, and that 'Queen Bevers' was a veritable witch,” Thomas said. “In the immediate neighborhood where she lived, which was never far from Victoria, every ailment or misfortune happening to man or beast was traced to her malign influence. Cows gave bloody milk, guns failed to hit a deer, though true in every other respect; the people were sick with various diseases and oft times would have 'hair balls' in their flesh. These and many other abnormal conditions were by the people laid at the door of 'Queen Bevers.’”
Thomas went on to tell the stories he had heard from people who had known her.
A Mrs. Sullivan Frazier, the wife of a preacher, said that Mrs. Bevis visited her home in 1842 to purchase a cow from her family’s herd. Frazier’s mother refused to sell the cow. The next morning that same cow jumped the fence and ran away. It took a day and a half to bring it back and it gave bloody milk from then on.
Several sisters in the community became sick with a strange disease that also was attributed to Queen Bevers. A messenger was sent out to find “a witch doctor” who came, visited the sisters and found a “hair ball” in the arm of one of the girls. The disease was pronounced the work of a witch. The “doctor” gave a remedy to break the spell and the girls recovered.
A man named Zack Borum had a child who was sick, and he sent for a “witch doctor” named Jones. The illness was said to be caused by Mrs. Bevis.
“He placed a magic liquid and some needles in a small vial and hung it in the chimney,” Thomas said.
It is said that Queen Bevers became ill, but the child died anyhow. Jones received a side of bacon for his services.
One of the most told tales, however, is the one told by Aaron Cook, who was said to be formerly of Hillsboro, who declared that Queen Bevers turned him into a horse and rode him to a ball at Meredith Wideman’s home, across the river from Morse's Mills, where she hitched him to a plum bush and left him standing there all night.
"It would fill a book to recount all the stories afloat about this remarkable woman," Thomas said.
Although she was often told that people thought she was a witch, she just laughed.
It is said she moved to St. Louis in 1856 and died in 1858 or 1859, Thomas said.
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