Legends of the Old West - VIGILANTES Ep. 1 | “Baldknobbers: Frontier Justice”
Episode Date: November 13, 2024In 1883 in Taney County, Missouri, a murder case ends with an apparent lack of justice, and Nathaniel Kinney decides to take matters into his own hands. He forms a vigilance committee – nicknamed th...e Baldknobbers – whose goal is to punish criminals who escape the law. The vigilantes strike their first blow, but their seemingly righteous mission quickly turns to a campaign of harassment that spreads fear throughout Taney County. Join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: blackbarrel.supportingcast.fm/join Apple users join Black Barrel+ for ad-free episodes, bingeable seasons and bonus episodes. Click the Black Barrel+ banner on Apple to get started with a 3-day free trial. On YouTube, subscribe to LEGENDS+ for ad-free episodes and bingeable seasons: hit “Join” on the Legends YouTube homepage. For more details, visit our website www.blackbarrelmedia.com and check out our social media pages. We’re @OldWestPodcast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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See app for details. On April 15, 1885, a horse and rider delivered a message to Sheriff James McCaffey of Taney
County, Missouri.
The message told him two
fugitives wanted to surrender. The fugitives, brothers Frank and Two-Ball Taylor, had been
hiding in the woods nearby. In return for turning themselves in, the Taylors wanted
McCaffey to promise to protect them from vigilantes who were hunting them. After receiving assurances,
the Taylors allowed deputies to take them
into custody and Sheriff McAfee locked them up in the county jail.
At about 10 o'clock that night, between 75 and 100 armed vigilantes rode into the city
of Forsyth where the jail was located. Using sledgehammers, the men battered down the door
to the jail and broke into the
cell that was holding the tailors. The brothers begged for their lives as the vigilantes dragged
them away.
The next morning, roughly two and a half miles outside of town, a deputy and a friend discovered
the bodies of the tailor brothers. They were hanging from the limb of a scrub oak tree. A sign was pinned to
Two Balls' shirt. It warned that the hanged men were the first, but not the last, to get justice
at the hands of a new vigilante group. It was signed the Bald Knobbers. It was the first violent
and public atrocity committed by a terrifying group of marauders in a little county that was carved out of Missouri's Ozark wilderness. The leaders
of the group that called itself the Bald Knobbers started out with relatively
good intentions. They wanted to tamp down the crime that had been rising since the
Civil War. But along the way, they became a law unto themselves, threatening and attacking anyone
they deemed immoral or an enemy.
Over time, it began to feel like the vigilante group that had formed to fight crime was more
dangerous than the criminals.
Then, an anti-vigilance group emerged to fight the vigilante group, and the violence in Taney
County and the surrounding
area grew worse than ever.
At the height of their influence, their membership spread to adjacent counties.
Neighbor turned against neighbor, and sometimes family member turned against family member.
At least 13 people, and maybe more, were murdered.
Dozens more lost their homes or were chased out of the area.
And it all started with a mountain of a man named Nathaniel Kenny and the murder of his friend, James Everett.
From Black Barrel Media, this is Legends of the Old West. I'm your host, Chris Wimmer, and this season we're telling the story of Missouri's vigilante wars,
which were instigated by a terrifying group called the Baldknobbers.
This is episode one, Frontier Justice.
At the time of the Taylor Brothers lynching, Nathaniel Kenny was 40 years old. He was born in New York, lived in Virginia, and fought for the Union in the Civil War.
He never rose above the rank of private, though he sometimes told people he'd been a captain.
They believed him because
he was an imposing, confident man. He stood at least 6 feet 2 inches tall, maybe more,
and weighed about 300 pounds. Kenny had a colorful past before coming to
Taney County. In Kansas, he'd been a teamster and had joined militias in Topeka and Springfield,
and he'd been a saloonkeeper. But nothing
lasted long, and in early 1883, he decided to move his family to southwest Missouri.
He bought a farm a few miles from the town of Kirbyville in Taney County.
Soon, Kenny noticed the corruption, crime, and the county's staggering debt. It seemed
to Kenny that the problems
in Taney County rose out of nowhere, but in reality, they had been building for 20 years
since the Civil War. On the southern edge of Missouri, along the border with Arkansas,
the war devastated Taney County. The county desperately needed money to rebuild, and that opened the door to problems.
The situation was political and complicated. But in essence, taxes went up, and small farmers
like Nathaniel Kenney were understandably angry. To add insult to injury, crimes seemed
to be rampant. Even though the legendary James gang was gone, outlaws and troublemakers were everywhere.
Money from taxes wasn't enough to pay for more than two or three lawmen at a time, and
the lawmen weren't enough to expel all the bandits who roamed the county.
The bandits robbed citizens, stole horses and cattle, and started fights in saloons.
Nathaniel Kinney itched for a reason to start his own militia and bring his own brand of
justice to Taney County.
He got his wish on October 22, 1884, when a roughneck named Al Layton was acquitted
for murdering a saloon owner who was Kinney's friend.
One year earlier, Layton had gone to the bar of James Everett in Forsyth looking for a
good time.
Layton had a bad reputation for starting fights, and sure enough, he and a friend started to
argue after several rounds of drinks and billiards.
The argument turned into a fight.
Both men threw punches.
In the heat of the moment,
Leighton tried to draw his revolver.
James Everett, the saloon owner,
intervened and wrestled Leighton outside onto the porch.
Everett told Leighton he didn't want to hurt him,
but he didn't want any more trouble either.
Spectators warned Everett to take Leighton's weapon
before letting him go,
but Everett didn't heed the warning. Everett let to take Leighton's weapon before letting him go, but Everett didn't heed the warning.
Everett let go of Leighton, Leighton stood up, dusted off his clothes, and fired two shots at Everett.
James Everett died instantly.
Next, Leighton turned to Everett's brother and shot him in the shoulder.
Before anyone had time to react, Le Layton galloped away on his horse.
It's not clear where he went or for how long, but soon after the altercation, he surrendered
to Sheriff John Mosley.
A judge set a trial date for October 22, 1884, one year after the shooting.
Layton posted bond and was free to go about his business until the trial.
But just days before the court session, another killing took place that caused the residents of Taney County
to place even more importance on the outcome of Al Layton's trial.
On October 7th, 1884, three weeks before the trial of Al Leighton, a young man named Newton
Harrell went to speak to his mother who was living just outside Forsyth.
Harrell was upset.
His mother had a common-law husband named Amos Ring, who was a notorious horse thief.
It's not clear what Ring did that particular time to anger Newton
Harrell, but when Harrell arrived at his mother's house, he gave Ring a piece of
his mind. The argument escalated quickly. Ring took a piece of wood from the stove
and advanced on Harrell. It's hard to know if Ring meant to hurt his de facto
stepson or just scare him, but either way, Harrell quickly seized the opportunity to
settle the score. He drew his revolver and shot the older man dead.
The murders of James Everett and Amos Ring infuriated many of the residents of Taney
County, and they started to view the upcoming trial of Al Leighton as a test case. They
were anxious to see if the courts would uphold the law and punish
Layton and then later punish Newton-Herald. As the son of a bald knobber later recalled,
the community's feeling was this. Crimes like murder, robbery, arson, and horse theft
had been going unpunished for long enough. Law-abiding citizens needed to organize and dole out punishment themselves.
When the Leighton murder trial ended with a verdict of not guilty on October 22,
1884, three weeks after the murder of Amos Ring, a fuse was lit. Charges of corruption
and bribery on both sides flew back and forth.
There were two major reactions to Leighton's acquittal. First, it galvanized the opposition
to the Democratic group who ran the local government at the time. As a result, in November,
Republicans swept the elections. Second, Nathaniel Kinney called for a secret meeting in Forsyth.
Kinney's meeting was held at the bar that used to belong to James Everett and now belonged
to Everett's brother.
The exact date of the meeting isn't known, but sources place it no later than January
1885.
Kinney chaired the meeting, and he and 12 others discussed what they should do if Newton
Harrell was found
not guilty like Al Leighton.
Then they started drawing up resolutions for a vigilance committee.
The 13 men did not have a name for their vigilance committee yet, but they did each wear a small
badge.
The badges were made of red silk, approximately 5 inches by 2 inches.
Stitched onto the badges was the motto,
Stand up for Taney County and Law and Order.
Each member had to swear a long oath that demanded the utmost in secrecy and loyalty to the order.
Any deviation was subject to punishment by the other members,
even if their decision was to have a member hanged.
The group probably earned its nickname, the Bald Knobbers, after its first large-scale
recruitment meeting on April 5, 1885.
The meeting was held on a treeless ridge near Kenny's Little Town of Kirbyville.
The ridge, with no trees, was known in local parlance
as a bald knob. The vigilantes selected the location because it gave them a panoramic
view of the surrounding countryside. It would be tough for anyone to spy on them or ambush
them.
The morning of the big recruitment meeting, Kenny went to the ridge alone to double check the security of the
location. Soon, a handful of men cautiously approached the meeting place. They kept their
guard up against being led into some kind of trap until they saw Kenny, who stood at the top of the
hill and greeted the men as they arrived. When the assembly reached about 100 men,
Kenny stood up to address the crowd.
There's no direct record of his words, but newspaper accounts tell of a fear-mongering
speech about the bloody shirt of James Everett and fears of losing life, liberty, and property.
When the crowd was whipped up and cheering, it collectively voted to form a vigilance
committee with Kenny as its chief.
In truth, the committee had already been formed by the original 13 men, and now one of those
members read the oath to the new inductees. The 100 swore to abide, and Kinney imposed a rule
that forbade the use of written records of any kind so their activities would be secret.
that forbade the use of written records of any kind, so their activities would be secret.
They also adopted a semi-military structure.
They organized themselves into companies,
which they called legions.
Each legion had a captain as a commander,
and they decided their first order of business
was to make sure Newton-Harrell faced justice
for killing Amos Ring.
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Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Late at night on April 7th, 1885,
two days after the first official meeting
of the Bald Knobbers,
a company of 70 to 100 armed men rode into Forsyth
for the first of two times in as many weeks.
They surrounded the county jail
where Newton Harrell was awaiting trial
for killing Amos Ring seven months earlier.
Harrell heard the commotion outside and knew something really bad was about to happen.
Harrell shouted for help.
The armed riders demanded the sheriff give them the keys to the jail.
The sheriff was no longer John Mosley.
He had been replaced by James McCaffey, which was significant because McCaffey was a charter member of the Baldknobbers.
But even McCaffey thought this was going too far. He refused to give his fellow vigilantes the keys to the jail.
The riders backed down this time, but before riding away, they entered the courthouse next to the jail.
On the judge's bench, they put a length of rope that was tied into a noose.
It was a clear and obvious warning.
If the court didn't punish Harrell appropriately, the vigilantes would do it themselves.
In response to the threat, a circuit judge had the good sense to grant Newton Harrell
a continuance of his trial and transfer him to another county for safekeeping.
Several months later, and still terrified of the Bald Knobers, Harrell escaped from the
jail.
He eventually faced trial elsewhere in Missouri, but in the near time, a member of the Bald
Knobers, who owned a newspaper in Taney County,
wrote an editorial in which he justified the vigilantes' actions with Harrell and warned
that the county could expect more. Before long, the group found its chance. On the same day
Bald Knobbers tried to get Newton Harrell, a criminal named Frank Taylor harassed a store owner
and set off a chain of events that led
to the first acts of violence by the vigilantes.
The Taylors were a big family, and brothers Frank and Two Ball lived about five miles
outside Forsyth.
They led a gang of young men who specialized in petty crimes.
The crimes were mostly brawling, stealing livestock or chickens, and burglarizing homes.
But they were not above robbing children and old women.
And over time, they graduated from burglary to armed robbery.
And as they became more brazen, the brothers loved to show off.
On several occasions, they rode into town and invited everyone to drink at their expense. To pay for the drinks,
they flaunted the cash they had stolen from around the county. The tailors were also cruel.
When a man named Alexander Kissi criticized them in public, they mutilated three of his cows.
The gruesome act committed against innocent animals placed the Taylor Brothers squarely
in the sights of the Baldnobbers.
After the perceived lack of justice in the Al Leighton case and the Newton-Herald case,
the vigilantes were not going to let the Taylor Brothers slip through their fingers.
The events of the next 48 hours unfolded quickly. On April 7th, 1885, the same day Newton-Harrell narrowly escaped vigilante justice,
Frank Taylor sauntered into John Dickinson's general store about five miles northeast of Forsyth.
Taylor wanted to buy a pair of boots on credit, but Dickinson refused.
He had previously extended credit to Frank, and Frank had never paid him. wanted to buy a pair of boots on credit. But Dickinson refused.
He had previously extended credit to Frank, and Frank had never paid him.
Frank became furious.
He cussed out Dickinson, wrecked the store, and left broken merchandise scattered all
over the floor.
He also threatened to kill Dickinson if the store owner charged him with vandalism.
Frank stormed out and rode back to Forsyth.
In town, he went to find his brother. Two Ball Taylor had just surrendered to authorities for
the crimes against Alexander Kissi's cattle. It's likely that Two Ball thought he'd get off
with a slap on the wrist, or maybe not even have to go to trial at all. When Frank found his brother, it certainly appeared as though the
law was going easy on him. Two Ball wasn't being held in jail. Instead, Sheriff McCaffey had placed
him in the care of a deputy, whose only job was to keep an eye on Two Ball for the time being.
At that moment, the deputy was standing with Two Ball on the veranda of the Everett Saloon.
The deputy was standing with Two Ball on the veranda of the Everett Saloon. Frank dismounted in front of the saloon, and as soon as he did, Two Ball jumped from the
veranda.
He leapt into Frank's saddle, and with a yell, he rode away.
Frank was arrested for aiding the escape of a prisoner, but he posted bail and rode away
as well.
The Taylor brothers were free, and based on what they did next, they seemed to be more
cocky than ever.
When they returned to John Dickinson's store, they made the last mistake of their lives.
After Frank Taylor had vandalized John Dickinson's store, Dickinson had filed a complaint against
Frank.
A grand jury had indicted Frank on a charge of disturbing the peace.
Frank had posted a bond and was free to go until he faced a court hearing.
And while all those things played out, John Dickinson had secretly joined the Bald Knobbers.
If Frank Taylor was stupid enough or cocky enough to show
up again, he would unknowingly deliver himself into a very bad situation.
Three days after Frank ransacked Dickinson's store, he showed up again. On April 10, 1885,
Frank walked in with his brother Two-Ball and a friend named Elijah Sublett. The three roughnecks
supposedly exchanged curt pleasantries with Dickinson. And then, Frank grabbed John Dickinson
by the throat. The two men struggled until Frank pulled out a.32 caliber revolver and
shot the older man in the mouth. The bullet knocked out several of Dickinson's teeth
and took off part of his jawbone, but
the wounds were not life-threatening.
The tailors and sublets started for the door.
On the way out, Frank fired at Dickinson two or three more times.
One bullet hit him and lodged in Dickinson's shoulder.
The gunfire drew Dickinson's wife out of the back of the store.
The intruders had no idea she was there, and
when she ran out to help her husband, she was hit with one of Frank's bullets. Frank
and the others fled, and left the Dickinson's bleeding on the floor.
Luckily, John Dickinson and his wife survived, and they could certainly identify the gunmen.
Their words reached John Dickinson's new vigilante friends, the Baldnabers.
As soon as the news of the attempted murder of the Dickensons reached Forsyth, a messenger
rode to Nathaniel Kinney.
A few hours after the attack, more than 100 vigilantes were in the saddle and on the hunt
for the Taylor Brothers and
Elijah Sublette.
Residents who were not sworn baldnobbers joined the hunt too.
According to the memory of one of the baldnobbers, they spread out in smaller groups to search
for Frank and Two-Ball.
They'd heard the Taylors and Sublette were heading south to Arkansas, and some raced
ahead as fast as they could to try to find the fugitives
on popular trails. Others went more slowly to scour mountains, ravines, and dense brush.
It was a daunting task to search for three men who could be hiding just about anywhere
in the vast lands of the Ozark wilderness. The vigilantes searched for five days. Then the Taylor brothers saved them the trouble of
continuing. Somehow, they doubled back to Forsyth without encountering any of the hunters and hid
at the home of either friends or family. Elijah Sublett managed to flee to parts unknown and
hide for several weeks. There are different accounts of why the brothers turned
themselves into the sheriff, but one says the pair were so afraid of the bald knobbers that they
decided to take their chances with the law, presumably without knowing that the sheriff
was a member of the vigilante group. Another version suggests that when the tailors heard
about the reward for their capture, they devised a plan to get some of it for themselves.
They would enlist some of their friends to hand them over to Sheriff McCaffey.
Then when they posted bond, the friends would split the reward money with the brothers.
Whatever the tailors were thinking, they almost certainly thought they could win an acquittal
like Al Leighton, especially since the Dickensons weren't dead.
So on April 15th, they sent a message to the sheriff that said they wanted to surrender
in return for a promise of protection. Two sheriff's deputies took the brothers into custody
and locked them up in the county jail. That night at about 10 o'clock, 75 to 100 armed men rode to within 10 yards or
so of the jail. Nathaniel Kenny started to give orders. The jail was made of several
layers of logs and oak planks, so the tailors couldn't hear what was being said. But they
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connectsontario.ca. While the Taylor brothers cowered in their jail cell, someone began
battering the lock of the outer door. Supposedly, it was Kinney who delivered the final sledgehammer
blow that split the metal
and allowed the Baldknobbers to pour into the cell.
Dozens more surrounded the building.
No one interfered with their work, and the sheriff was nowhere to be seen.
The tailors screamed and cried, and tried to hide under their wooden beds.
They begged for mercy, but the vigilantes hauled them out. Once outside,
the bald knobbers tied the two with rope and threw them onto waiting horses like they
were sacks of flour. The next morning, a deputy and a carpenter
discovered the bodies of the Taylor brothers hanging from the limb of an oak tree on the
outskirts of Forsyth. Attached to two-ball tailor's shirt, they found a
placard that said, Beware! These are the first victims to the wrath of outraged citizens.
More will follow. The Baldknobbers.
A coroner's inquest was held to determine the fate of the Taylor brothers. Everyone
knew what had happened and who had done it. But the coroner's jury returned a neutral verdict.
It said, death was by hanging by 100 unknown persons.
In other words, the Bald Knobbers had the support of their community.
And with that support, the vigilante group was emboldened to begin purging Taney County of people they deemed undesirable.
After hanging the tailors and getting away with it, the Bald Knobbers started a method
of scaring away residents that they called warning out. Warning out involved a group
of Bald Knobbers riding out to a victim's house after dark. They would fire a few
shots into the air until they were sure the residents were listening. They'd yell a stern
warning to leave. After that, they would leave a bunch of hickory switches on the doorstep.
The number of switches represented the number of days the victim had to leave the county.
If they didn't leave, the vigilantes would pay a return visit and it would not be pleasant.
Among the first people to leave Taney County were, not surprisingly, the
parents of Frank and Two-Ball Taylor. Then dozens of other families followed
their example. No one knows exactly how many people left the county, but some
historians estimate that in the months following the Taylor's hangings, For example, no one knows exactly how many people left the county, but some historians
estimate that in the months following the tailors' hangings, hundreds of people moved
away.
Soon, it was evident that it wasn't just criminals or troublemakers who were warned
out.
Some were pushed out because of their political beliefs.
Some had simply annoyed members of the vigilante group.
One young man, who was a friend of the tailors, received a note to leave because he talked
too much.
One citizen received a warning that a fence he'd built near a public road needed to be
moved back.
The fence inconvenienced some of his bald-knobber neighbors, and they ordered him to adjust
it.
He refused, and
the next day the entire fence was torn down. Another man was in a legal dispute over some
land that was owned by a widow. The woman was in danger of losing the land to foreclosure,
and the bald-knobbers wanted her to keep it. The man received a letter that made it clear
that if he continued haggling with the widow,
he would regret it.
Besides enforcing what they interpreted as the correct application of the law, bald-knobbers
felt that their authority extended to matters of private morality.
If a man was proven to, or rumored to, abuse his wife or children, he could expect a visit
from the vigilantes.
By the summer of 1885, it was clear to many people in Taney County that the vigilante
gang had gone way beyond its original purpose of trying to punish obvious wrongdoers.
Members of the group were drunk on their own power.
They were taking land and stealing livestock under the guise
of upholding the law. Their first official act, the hanging of the Taylor brothers, had
happened just a couple months earlier. But the Bald Knobbers were already harassing people
all over the county and making plenty, some of the more bold residents of Taney County chose an unusual
venue to express their displeasure with the sanctimonious and dangerous behavior of the
Baldknobbers. Nathaniel Kinney was a prominent figure at a local church. It's a little
hard to understand, but it looks like he led regular Bible study lessons
and may have been the leader of the church's Sunday school program.
Even though he didn't conduct actual church services, it seems like his Bible study lessons
were well attended.
One day, as people started to arrive at the church for one of Kenny's lessons, they discovered
two ominous displays that seemed to be warnings for Kenny.
On the front door of the church, a miniature coffin was tacked to the wood. Inside the coffin
was a buckshot ball and a note that read, To old Kenny, pissing and death is his favorite role.
Then inside the church, there was a second display. A coat had been placed on a chair or a pew.
Near the coat, there was a sign on which someone had drawn a skull and crossbones,
and written the words, Captain Kinney's.
The two displays appeared to say that Kinney was marked for death.
But if they were warnings or promises of violence, Kenny wasn't concerned.
He left them up for everyone to see, and he used them to reveal the people who had placed
them there. When the Cogburn family arrived at church,
Kenny studied their reactions when they saw the displays, and he was convinced they were
the culprits. A tense rivalry was developing between
Nathaniel Kenney and the Cogburn family, and it would explode the following year. But months
before that happened, the bald knobbers went after other targets who were accused of disturbing
Kenney's religious activities.
In September 1885, local authorities issued a warrant for the arrest of two brothers named
Mercer on the charge of disturbing public worship.
On September 29, Deputy Sheriff Arder Kisse prepared a warrant.
Kisse was a bald knobber and a brother of Alexander Kisse whose cattle had been killed
by the Taylor brothers.
Deputy Kisse took the warrant to the Mercer family cabin.
Kissi entered the cabin through the back door.
Inside he found Henry Mercer, one of the two brothers named in the warrant.
When Henry saw the deputy coming, he grabbed his shotgun and ducked out the front door,
but he immediately discovered the shotgun was unloaded. Henry
ran around the back of the house so he could grab his other gun, which he had left leaning
against the rear wall of the cabin. Deputy Kissy spun around and met Henry Mercer at
the back door. Kissy shot Mercer in the chest and killed him instantly.
As for the other Mercer brother, whose name was probably Ephraim,
very little is known. Vague references in sources say he was, quote,
under heavy guard in Forsyth, but there's no further explanation.
Presumably, they meant he was being protected by anti-Baldnabr citizens. If so, it appears as though
he stayed safe.
But the killing of Henry Mercer, who was better known as Buck Mercer, made three killings
that could be attributed to the Bald Knobbers. Even though Deputy Kissi was technically,
legally acting in his official capacity as a lawman by serving a warrant, the warrant
was far more of a complaint by the vigilante group than a genuine criminal problem.
And that concept would only grow worse over the next few years.
By the end of 1885, it was clear the Baldknobbers no longer had any criteria for harassing people.
Neither political affiliation, nor a person's job, nor their social standing could protect them.
The group's initial purpose of serving extra-legal justice to unpunished criminals was gone. From now
on, a citizen was either one of them or not. The justice of the peace in a town in Taney County
simply packed up and left because he couldn't dispense any real justice while
the Bald Knobbers were terrorizing the county.
The situation in and around Taney County was in a downward spiral. There would be a huge
and suspicious fire and two more killings and the vigilantes would expand their membership
to neighboring counties. As the situation grew more desperate, a second vigilante group
would form to battle the Baldknobbers.
In the process, southern Missouri
returned to something like a war zone.
Next time on Legends of the Old West,
the Baldknobbers add new members
in new counties.
Their strength and power grows, and they're responsible for two more killings.
The Governor of Missouri tries to intervene with mixed results.
And then infuriated citizens form a second vigilance committee to fight the first vigilance
committee.
Total chaos descends on Taney County next week on Legends of the Old West.
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This series was researched and written by Julia Bricklin.
Original music by Rob Valier.
I'm your host and producer, Chris Wimmer.
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