River City History: Merry Mann

In 1915, the nearly decade long war between Silent Silas and “Happy” Harry Murphy finally came to an end upon one of Murphy’s own riverboats. The explosion would rock the city for years to come and end the lives of both Silas and Murphy.

Silas and Murphy were dead, but as the twenties dawned in River City, crime rose to even higher levels. Prohibition ruled over the nation and with it came a wave of crime like never before. Meredith Mann remembered Silent Silas’s crusade. Still barely in her thirties, she set out to keep the new wave of criminals from ever growing as powerful as “Happy” Harry.

She took her longstanding column nickname of Merry Mann to heart as she slowly formed a network of operatives around her. Their job was simple, to report crimes and to act together anonymously to stop it. Each of her chosen protectors wore a hood and mask (and in at least one group, matching robes). Known simply as the Hoods, they quickly became the thorn in the side of any criminal that moved into the city. Only Merry knew all her operatives with each group maintained as a separate unit to preserve anonymity between units.

Her guerrilla tactics would be adopted by many in the decades to come, but unlike so many others, Merry used them as a force for good. While Chicago, St. Louis and dozens of other cities saw a sharp increase in violent crime during the time period, the Hoods worked at all times to keep violence out of River City’s streets.