THE BATH MASSACRE

5/18/1927 - Hitting his enemies where they will feel it the worst, 59-year-old madman, Andrew Philip Kehoe, sets off explosives in Michigan township of Bath, creating a mass murder of 45 individuals (including the lunatic's own death), and as 38 are elementary grade children, initiating the still worst school massacre in United States criminal history.

Schoolhouse Ruins

Monster-to-be (his neighbors will one day call him "the world's worst demon"), Andrew Philip Kehoe, is born into the devoutly Catholic family of Irish-American farmer Philip Kehoe (the oldest son of one of the many families that flee to America following The Great Famine of 1847 that takes place in Ireland) and Mary McGovern Kehoe, in Tecumseh, Michigan on Thursday, February 1, 1872.  The first boy Philip Kehoe sires after his first two wives have six daughters (two will become Catholic nuns, and a third, becomes a practicing attorney at a time when there are only about two hundred in the entire nation) by the man.  The long sought "male heir" to the family, the boy grows up thinking himself special and burdened by the high expectations of his demanding parents.  Looking to make his mark on the world, Andrew Kehoe grows up fascinated by electricity, possesses exceptional mechanical skills, and is first student in his high school's physics class, while also being heavily involved in the activities of the local American Farmers' Club. This phase of Kehoe's life comes to an end when his mother dies when Andrew is 18-years-old and in 1898, his 65-year-old father remarries a widow named, Frances Murphy Wilder, who is 25-years Philip Keyhoe's junior.  Not liking Frances, Andrew soon leaves home.

Keyhoe

Little is known for sure about the next eight year's of Andrew Kehoe's life.  in 1900, he is in Michigan working as a dairyman.  He matriculates at Michigan State Agricultural College (now Michigan State University at Lansing) and majors in electrical engineering.(while also meeting his future wife, Ellen "Nellie" Price, at the school).  Using his "electrical" talents, he is in Iowa working as a lineman before moving to Missouri where he falls in an accident which seems to turn on a switch that will eventually lead to the man's descent into madness ... an accident which puts him in a coma and leaves him semi-conscious for almost two months.  By 1910, he is back in Michigan, working as a farm laborer while living with his father, step mother, new half-sister, Irene, and Irene's pet cat.  Scratched petting the animal, Andrew eliminates the creation.  And it will be wondered if he also doesn't play a role in the removal of his step-mother, Francis Murphy Wilder Kehoe, who in the presence of Andrew, dies on September 17, 1911 while making Sunday supper when her new gasoline stove explodes, covering her in burning oil.  Afire, Andrew makes the conflagration worse by throwing a bucket of water on Francis that only spreads the flames.  Eight months after the accident, 40-year-old Andrew marries into a wealthy Irish-Catholic emigrant family from nearby Lansing, taking 37-year-old spinster Price as his bride.  After the death of Nellie's uncle, the couple purchase an 80-acre farm in the township of Bath, a $12,000 property for which they make a down payment of $6,000, and take out a mortgage for the additional price of the land.

Kehoe And Wife

At first, Andrew Kehoe makes a favorable impression on his new neighbors and is considered to be a highly intelligent man willing to lend a hand to any villager needing one, while asking nothing in return.  A flashy dresser, while his neighbors do their farm work in dirty coveralls and work boots, Kehoe rides about his farm tractor wearing a business suit, vest, and highly polished dress shoes, changing his shirt anytime he notices a smudge or sweat stain.  After use, all his tools immediately go back where they came from after use, and his barn, is cleaner than most of his neighbor's home.  With his reputation for thrift and exactness established in the community, Kehoe is elected to the Board of Directors for Bath in 1921 (he will step away from the position after seven months, becomes treasurer of the Bath Consolidated School board in 1924 and in 1925, for a short period of time, is appointed as the Bath Township Clerk.  After getting rid of a swarm of bees plaguing the new schoolhouse at no cost to the community, Andrew is made the unofficial handyman of the school, giving him unlimited access to the building and allowing him to set up a workspace in the structure's basement.  But there are also signs that Kehoe is dealing with a profound case of mental illness.

The New Bath Schoolhouse

Along with the positives his neighbors note in Kehoes' personality, they also notice that Andrew scorns those that don't meet his own exacting standards of conduct, he drops out of attending Catholic services when a $400 contribution is requested of him to help build a new church (throwing the local parish priest off his property), he kills a neighbor's little fox terrier for burying a bone on his property, and beats to death an overworked horse that has the audacity to stop working.  Money being the catalyst that unleashes his demons, Kehoe fights against the local tax that is levied for building the new schoolhouse, constantly finds himself in arguments with Emory Huyck. the superintendent of the Bath Consolidated School, and is personally embarrassed when his overbearing manner causes his party not to nominate him to continue on as town clerk, and he is roundly defeated running for justice of the peace the following year.  Rejected for office, his farm not making enough for his mortgage payments (the local bank sends a notice of foreclosure), school taxes taking money he already doesn't have, and his wife now amassing bills that can't be paid from hospitalizations and treatments at the St. Lawrence Hospital of Lansing for tuberculosis, something snaps inside Kehoe and he begins buying hundreds of pounds of pyrotol (eligible for a thousand pounds of pyrotol, roughly 3,000 sticks, the inexpensive explosive is made from leftover military gunpowder and is sold to farmers for removing tree stumps and helping with other agricultural projects) and dynamite, and begins playing with the materials in his basement workshop at the Bath schoolhouse..

Kehoe Farmhouse

Explosives Discovered After

Built to consolidate numerous rural schools under one roof, the Bath township schoolhouse, a handsome two-story white brick edifice crowned by an elegant cupola, is officially dedicated and opened for business on Tuesday, November 14, 1922.  Teaching grades 1 through 12, there are 236 students in various classes when the school opens.  Five years later, on Wednesday May 18, 1927, there are more than 250 students at the school for it's final examination day and closing for summer.  At 9:45 in the morning, as students are just beginning their day, a hidden alarm clock in the school's basement goes off, followed a split second later by a huge explosion the destroys the schoolhouse's north wing.  At approximately the same time, explosions rock the Kehoe farm and in moments, the farmhouse, sheep barn, north barn, toolshed, corn crib, and hog house are all ablaze, and driving his truck through the smoke of the death of his farm (sometime between picking her up on Monday from a two-week stay at her sister's house in Lansing and the Wednesday destruction of the Kehoe homestead, Andrew has murdered his wife, Nellie), Andrew is seen by neighbors headed into Bath.

Schoolhouse Destruction

Farmhouse Remains

Walls demolished, roof collapsed, ground floor rubble, the blown apart schoolhouse serves as a magnet, drawing most of the entire community to the structure, where the town immediately begins digging through brick plaster, broken wood, and twisted metal for the students and teachers of the school's youngest classes, while 17-year-old switchboard operator, Lenora Babcock makes the proper connections for Bath to call for help from nearby Lansing and other neighboring villages.  Exhumed from the ruined building, the dead, wrapped in blankets and tarpaulins are placed on a little grassy knoll that will come to be called "Hospital Hill," while others still living are taken to nearby homes for emergency treatment.  Detached limbs, broken bodies, blood, screaming, moans, crying, whimpering, and prayers, the scenes at the schoolhouse are something no one that is there will ever forget.  As men are trying to wedge a heavy pool under the collapsed roof, Kehoe drives up to the carnage he has created and the final act of destruction for the day takes place.  Truck converted into an infernal machine of explosives and farm junk mutated into lethal shrapnel, Kehoe calls his nemesis, Emory Huyck over to his truck, gets in one last argument with the man, and then detonates the bomb device in the back seat... more carnage, Kehoe and Huyck are torn apart (the remains of will land over 100 feet away) and killed instantly, standing nearby, Glenn Smith has his left leg blown off at the thigh and dies in an ambulance on the way to the hospital on his 33rd birthday, while his father-in-law dies instantly, his body coming to rest beneath a tree after being flung through air.  A block away, Mrs. Anna Perrone, holding her baby daughter Rosie  in her arms, has shrapnel from the blast take out one of her eyes and blow off part of her skull while leaving the baby untouched (Mrs. Perrone will survive the day's carnage, but only after coming through an hours-long surgery that removals 62 pieces of bone from her skull and a portion of her brain.  Francis Fritz, a father of three, whose oldest daughter is a victim of the initial explosion, is digging children out of the rubble when a steel bolt from Kehoe's truck strikes him in the chest and comes to rest in his shoulder ... he survives, but his left arm will be permanently disabled   A one-inch steel automobile screw hits 6th-grader Steve Staviski in the arm, and knocking him off his feet, causes a fall in which the youth breaks both his legs.  Two teenagers nearby, Thelma Medcoff and Perry Hart, are badly wounded in the legs, and 8-year-old Cleo Clayton, having coming through the first detonation unhurt, is hit in the midsection by a large bolt that rips his stomach open, splinters his spine, and causes him to perish seven hours later.

Huyck

The Remains Of Kehoe's Truck

Nearby Shredded Car

Lined Up Bodies

As with all events of this nature, luck and fate seem to guide death on who to take.  Fifteen members of senior class are missing from school having taken their final exams the week before.  Irene Dunham is kept home with a sore throat.  Because of their high grades, sophomores George Baird and Merrien Josephine are exempted from taking a final exam and skip school.  The fifth grade class Blanche Harte changes classrooms and floors with a sixth grade class taking finals.  This seat the person in it survives, but right beside it another student perishes ... and on and on it goes.  In all, the bombings kill 45 individuals, including Kehoe himself (in addition to wounding 58).  Of the deaths, four are men, three are women, and 38 are children ... the youngest victim is seven-year-old third grader Ralph A. Cushman, while the oldest is seventy-four-year-old retired farmer Nelson McFerren.  The total butcher's bill for Kehoe's madness is Nellie Kehoe (52), Arnold V. Bauerle (8, 3rd grade, survived by his parents, a brother, and a sister), Henry Bergan (14, 6th grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Hermann Bergan (11, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Emilie M. Bromundt (11, 5th grade, she is survived by both parents, two brothers and two sisters), Robert F. Bromundt (12, 5th grade, he is survived by both parents, two brothers and two sisters), Floyd E. Burnett (12, 6th grade, he leaves behind his father, five sisters, and three brothers), Russell J. Chapman (8, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a younger brother, Earl, who has an ankle smashed in the disaster), F. Robert Cochran (8, 4th grade, survived by both his parents who leave town to escape being so near the scene of their heartbreak), Ralph A. Cushman (7, 3rd grade), Earl E. Ewing (11, 6th grade, survived by both parents), Katherine O. Foote (10, 6th grade, had planned to become a teacher), Margory Fritz (9, 4th grade, survived by both parents who bought a farm in Bath so she could get a better education), Carlye W. Geisenhaver (9, 4th grade, he leaves behind his plans to go into farming, along with both parents, and two brothers, one injured in the head by the blast), George P. Hall Jr. (8, 3rd grade, survived by both parents and a brother), Willa M. Hall (11, 5th grade, dreamt of one day being a teacher, she is survived by both parents and a brother), Iola I. Hart (12, 6th grade, had planned to be a nurse or music teacher, she leaves behind both parents, a sister, and a brother), Percy E. Hart (11, 3rd grade, survived by both parents, a sister and a brother), Vivian O. Hart (8, 3rd grade, she leaves behind her dreams of being a singer someday and is survived by both parents, a sister, and a brother), Blanche E. Harte (30, fifth grade teacher, an educator for eleven years, she leaves behind her husband, both parents, a sister, and numerous other friends and family), Gailand L. Harte (12, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents and two brothers, one of whom escapes the building by jumping out of a second floor window and running two miles home), LaVere R. Harte (9, 4th grade, loved drawing and is survived by both parents and a little brother), Stanley H. Harte (12, 6th grade, leaves behind his mother, three brothers and four sisters), Francis O. Hoeppner (13, 6th grade, a born mechanic, he leaves behind both parents and a brother and a sister), Cecial L. Hunter (13, 6th grade, survived by parents, two sisters and a brother), Doris E. Johns (8, 3rd grade, home only a block away, she is found hanging upside down in the schoolhouse ruins by her own mother, along with her mother she leaves behind her father, two brothers and two sisters), Thelma I. MacDonald (8, 3rd grade, dreamt of becoming a teacher and is survived by both parents and two sisters), Clarence W. McFarren (13, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents, a brother and a sister), J. Emmerson Medcoff (8, 4th grade, survived by both parents), Emma A. Nickols (13, 6th grade, leaves behind both parents, a sister who has her face badly cut and almost loses a thumb in the explosion, another sister that suffers a fractured hip, another sister not involved in the tragedy, and two brothers), Richard D. Richardson (12, 6th grade, dreaming of being a father, he is killed instantly when a radiator falls on his head, he leaves behind both parents and two sisters), Elsie M. Robb (12, 6th grade, dreamt of a career in teaching, she leaves behind both parents, four sisters and a brother), Pauline M. Shirts (10, 5th grade, leaves behind her father), Hazel I. Weatherby (21, teacher, when found in the wreckage, she is cradling a child in each of her arms), Elizabeth J. Witchell (10, 5th grade, is survived by both parents), Lucile J. Witchell (9, 5th grade, a straight A student, she is survived by both of her parents), Harold L. Woodman (8, 3rd grade, he leaves behind his mother and father, a brother and a sister), George O. Zimmerman (10, 3rd grade, is survived by both parents and a sister who misses school with a cold), Lloyd Zimmerman (12, 5th grade, he leaves behind his parents and a sister), G. Cleo Claton (8, 2nd grade, survived by his two grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Gibbs), Emory E. Huyck (33, school superintendent), Andrew Kehoe (55, mass murderer), Nelson McFarren (74, retired Bath farmer), Glen O. Smith (33, Bath postmaster, he is survived by his wife, two brothers, and two sisters), Beatrice P. Gibbs (10, 4th grade, survived by both parents and a little brother, discovered in ten feet of debris, she perishes after three months of operations and suffering following surgery to remove a splinter from her hip).  A horrific tragedy for those taken and those that survive to live another day, and it could have been even worse ... digging through the rubble for survivors, rescuers discover 300 sticks of unexploded pyrotol, 10 burlap sacks of gunpowder, and 204 ticks of Hercules dynamite, over five hundred more pounds of explosives connected to wires and another alarm clock meant to take out the other wing of the schoolhouse and kill everyone in the building.

Ruins

McFarren

Ruins

Cushman

A magnet for first responders and looky-loos alike (even the governor of Michigan will show up, rolls up his sleeves, and begins digging in the rubble for victims and survivors), thousands flood into Bath, at one point creating a traffic jam two miles long on the road into town (Sunday sightseers to the crime scene will be estimated to be a host of 85,000 individuals), and not far behind are reporters of all shapes, sizes and importance ... the Associated Press sets up a makeshift office in a woodshed behind the local telephone office, photographers from the Chicago Herald and Examiner charter a plane to carry them to the scene of the disaster, and Pathe cameraman arrives to film rescue efforts and has his film shown in Chicago and New York theaters the next day.  Equally quick, the funerals for the fallen begin on Thursday with the burial of 8-year-old Thelma MacDonald in the town of Springport and are completed by Sunday (some featuring multiple victims, there will be seventeen funeral services on Saturday).  A story of state, national, and global interest, the Bath tragedy headlines fade from view, just two days after the explosions were set off and the funerals for its victims begin (with no mourners present, the pieces of Kehoe that can be found are buried in a simple pine box at an unmarked spot at the town of St. Johns' Mount Rest Cemetery, replaced by a bigger story with seemingly longer legs ... on Friday, 5/20/1927, 25-year-old American aviator, Charles Augustus Lindbergh successfully takes off from New York City for Paris, France on his solo, non-stop transatlantic flight in the single-engine Ryan monoplane, The Spirit of St. Louis, an epic adventure of 33 and 1/2 hour flight and 3,600-statue-miles in the air that captivates the world.

Teacher Hazel Weatherby

Headlines

Ruins

Ruins

Never the same again, the community eventually resumes a semblance of normality.  With pledges from the region (inmates of the state reformatory at Ionia donate $200) and national contributions (the largest donation comes from Michigan senator James Couzens, $75,000), the schoolhouse is rebuilt and becomes the James Couzens Agricultural School ... it is dedicated on August 18, 1928 and serves the community until 1975, when it is replaced by a $2.3 million high school in another location (where on Saturday, Mat 21, 1977, fifty years after the disaster, at the town's commencement ceremony, nine survivors of the Class of 1927 finally receive there graduation diplomas).  Demolished in 1975, the site of the schoolhouse is next transformed into the two-acre James Couzens Memorial Park which features where it approximately once stood, the cupola of the original schoolhouse, a picnic pavilion and benches, a Michigan State Historical Marker from the Michigan State Historical Commission (installed in 1991), a 2002 bronze plaque bearing the names of those killed in the tragedy near the entrance to facility, and a gazebo with picnic tables available for rental (also in town is Bath School Museum with many relics from the tragedy and the commemorative statue, Girl With A Cat, sculped by artist Carleton W. Angell and paid for from the pennies children of Michigan donate to the project.  Ghosts of the gone seemingly content, the location is now a quiet contemplation of the past and now a site for family picnics, the annual "Bath Days" festival, a farmer's market, family reunions, outdoor concerts and other town events.     

Rebuilt

The Cupola

Memorials

Rotting in Hell for his actions, the evil Kehoe leaves one last "message" for the people he hates in Bath ... his crime is all their fault according to the madman ... searching Kehoe's blasted farm, townsfolk discovery a wooden board wired to a fence at the edge of the property that the killer has stenciled with the message: CRIMINALS ARE MADE, NOT BORN.

Kehoe's Message

  

 

     

     
   

 

  

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