Clay County AlArchives News.....Attack of Miss Julia Wilkins July 5, 1892
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/al/alfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 January 15, 2023, 5:59 pm

Alexnader City Outlook July 5, 1892
From parties who were in Alexander City Friday. The Outlook learned the details 
of a horrible crime and its speedy punishment which occurred in Clay County a 
Week ago last night. A young lady, dishonored, an aged mother prostrated from 
nervous excitement, the body of a fiend in human all rent bullet holes and a 
prey for carrion eating birds, and a little body of men who are satisfied that 
they have done what was right, without any necessary delay, are all that remain 
of the happenings of that nights. The details of the affair are as follows:  
Over in Clay County, within a few-miles of where Clay, Randolph and Tallapoosa 
counties join, there lives an aged widow lady whose hair is silvered by the 
frosts many winters... years, by the name of Mrs. Wilkins. 
Mrs. Wilkins lives in a small cottage and with her lives her daughter, Miss 
Julia. Miss Julia Wilkins is a remarkable pretty young lady, about twenty years 
if age. She was the only child of doting parents, and during her father's life 
her every wish, almost, was gratified. The result is that she is possessed of a 
splendid education, and of other accomplishments beyond the average. These 
facts, coupled with the beauty with which nature endowed her made the young lady 
quite a belle, and many are the hearts and hands which have been offered her in 
marriage, but she courteously declined them all, saying that she preferred to 
remain with her mother, to care for and comfort her in her old.
So, since the death of the husband and father, some three years ago, the two 
ladies have lived alone in the little cottage Mrs. Wilkins is very fond of 
raising chickens, and she has a large number of them. Monday night of last week 
the ladies retired as usual. They had not fallen asleep, however, when the 
chickens commenced quite a commotion. Mrs. Wilkins got up lighted the lamp, and 
taking the pistol which, she kept in the house went out to see what the matter 
with the fowls was. She left the door open and the light burning. 
Scarcely had she reached the ground when a burly negro slipped in at the door. 
The first intimation Miss Julia had of his presence, however, was when she felt 
his fingers tightening on her throat. She attempted to scream, but the fiend 
only bore down the harder on her windpipe, cutting off the sound. 
The negro threatened her with death if she gave the alarm, and deliberately 
proposed that she consent to marry him. 
The young lady, hoping every minute that her mother would return, met his 
proposal with the scorn it deserved. 
The brute, maddened by the prompt refusal his offer of marriage, had elicited, 
then overpowered and assaulted her. 
All this occurred in less time than it takes to tell it, and in a very short 
while he entered the room the negro had left it again. 
While all this was going on within Mrs. Wilkins was having quite an experience 
outside. 
When she left the house, she saw someone break and run away from the chicken 
house. She ran after the thief, but never got within shooting distance of him. 
A she turned to go back into the house she heard a scream. It was her daughter 
calling to her to tell her what had happened. 
Word of the terrible outrage was carried to a neighbor's house and the alarm 
spread rapidly. Miss Julia had recognized her assaulter as Ed Prater.
A negro well known in the community. Within an hour after the affair happened a 
small party of determined men were out looking for the perpetrator of the crime, 
within two hours he was caught. 
Prater owned up to what he had done. 
Scarcely half an hour more passed before the negro's body, with some ten or 
twelve bullets buried deep down in it, was laying out in a clump of bushes. 
Miss Wilkins is in a serious condition, and her mother is prostrated with grief 
and nervous excitement. 
There is no doubt but what the party who was at the hen house was an accomplice 
of Prater's. If he could be caught and identified he, too, would probably find 
Jordan a hard road to travel. 

File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/clay/newspapers/attackof1961gnw.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/

File size: 4.6 Kb