Their mission: chase followers of hoodoo — another name for those who engaged in superstitions or the mystical arts. The Hoodoo Chasers later added prominent Marshalltown attorneys, businessmen, and physicians to their ranks.

Chapters — or “asylums” — as members preferred to call them — were established in Cedar Rapids, Iowa and Chicago, Ill. and in other cities nationwide.

Their activities – many frivolous and harmless – generated extensive publicity from Marshalltown and other newspapers nationwide. But disturbing and offensive were documented appearances in photographs of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) flag at some of their local parades, which attracted hundreds of onlookers — including school children.

Additionally, some club members were in blackface and costumes making it appear that they had been tarred and feathered as documented in a local newspaper photo taken during a parade on Third Avenue in 1922.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO — Members of the Hoodoo Chasers are shown on parade on Third Avenue in Marshalltown circa 1922.

Other Hoodoo Chasers are seen dressed in hoods and robes which directly resembled those worn by KKK members. The KKK — established by a former Confederate general in Tennessee in 1865 — was ostensibly a Christian-based but overtly white-supremacist and racist organization which was responsible for thousands of lynchings, beatings and harassment of Blacks in the south.

“The Hoodoo Chasers founders were prominent Marshalltown men active in civic groups and churches, but it is a mystery why they aligned themselves with the KKK … I do not have the answer,” said Dorie Tammen of Marshalltown.

She is a respected historian, journalist and Historical Society of Marshall County (HSMC) library assistant. Tammen — who previously managed Marshalltown’s iconic Riverside Cemetery — gave a compelling presentation about the Hoodoo Chasers Tuesday evening as part of HSMC’s monthly “History on Second Tuesday” (HST) event at the Mowry-Irvine Mansion.

She had extensively researched the Hoodoo Chasers from newspaper archives at the Marshalltown Public Library and Library of Congress as there is extremely little information on the group online.

She credited the late and prominent Marshalltown historian Jay Carollo, who had also thoroughly researched and written about the group. Tammen said there was no evidence in her numerous sources that the Hoodoo Chasers engaged in lynchings, cross-burnings, or other malicious acts carried out by the KKK as documented in historical annals.

The Hoodoo Chasers also placed ladders on Marshalltown’s Main Street, which required passers-by to walk under, and they were known for their obsessive use of the number 13 and dressing as clowns.

They held large gatherings of national “asylums” on Friday the 13th at Timmons Grove County Park located one mile south of Albion off Iowa Highway 330. Their logo was a scarab, and one newspaper report cited by Tammen said images of the scarab were “branded” on the arms and foreheads of 200 club candidates as part of a bizarre initiation rite.

Tammen said Carollo’s research showed the founders established their secret society during a semi-professional baseball game in Marshalltown between the Marshalltown Ansons and Burlington Pathfinders in 1915, according to Carollo.

“The Ansons had not won a game until they defeated the Pathfinders shortly after the club was founded,” Tammen said.

“Tammen’s program was informative and thought-provoking,” said HSMC board member Julie Lang of Marshalltown, who schedules HST programs. “Her presentation generated a number of questions from the audience.”

Tammen’s program is part of the HSMC’s monthly “History on Second Tuesday” events – part of an ongoing effort by HSMC to educate central Iowans about the significant contributions by Marshall County residents and of events which have shaped the county.

The HSMC was established by a group of women in 1908.

It is a certified 501(c)3 not-for-profit group whose income is derived almost exclusively from memberships, a small endowment and fund-raising activities. For more information, contact HSMC at 641-752-6664 or info@hsmcia.org.