Madison County AlArchives News.....Items from The Huntsville Weekly Democrat August 23, 1882 ************************************************ 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: Kenneth Stacy klstacyfamily@aol.com January 2, 2007, 11:38 am Microfilm At Huntsville Library August 23, 1882 [Transcription Note: Editions of this newspaper for 9 and 16 August are not available.] PERSONAL MENTION Hon. Wm. J. Sykes, of Columbia, Tenn.; was in Huntsville last Saturday. He told us that he would be back next Saturday, August 26, to address our people on railroads. He predicts that three new railroads will centre at Huntsville within three to five years, from Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and Cairo. He has done much for railroads in Tennessee. Come and hear him. Mr. Geo. S. Scruggs, a native of Madison, now merchandizing at Durham, N. C., a great tobacco town, a bully place, is visiting relatives and friends here. Our Governor elect Gen. O’Neal, attended the M. & C. R. R. meeting yesterday and left for home to-day. He received many hearty greetings and gratulations from his friends here. We were pleased to meet E. Spot McClung of Knoxville, yesterday. He looks hearty and happy and his heft is 237 lbs. DIED: August 15th, after a long illness, at the residence of her husband, Mr. Willis Woodall, near New Market, in this county, MRS. SUE H. DOUGLASS WOODALL, in her 45th year. ALABAMA ITEMS Official Vote of Marshall ------------------------------- E. A. O’Neal for Governor, 1,067. Rest of the Democratic State ticket, 1,349. J. L. Sheffield for Governor, 827. Rest of the opposition State ticket, 517. Gus May for Representative, 742. J. G. Winston, Jr., 702. W. T. Beard, 272. W. H. Herron, 157. B. C. Scott, withdrawn, 2. O’Neal’s majority 246. Rest of the Democratic State ticket majority 832. May’s majority over Winston, 40. TUSKALOOSA, ALA., August 14.—Col. G. W. Hewitt was nominated for Congress from this District of the 576th ballot. Hewitt, of Jefferson, Clements, of Tuskaloosa, Stansel, of Pickens, and Shields, of Lamar, were in the field. After ineffectual efforts to make a nomination by the two-thirds’ rule, the majority rule was adopted, and Hewitt received twenty-eight and a fraction and Stansel received twenty-seven and a fraction on the last ballot. The Vote in Alabama -------------------------- Montgomery Advertiser According to law, returns of votes for Superintendent of Education are sent from each county to the Secretary of State and are opened and counted by the Governor, Attorney General and Secretary of State, within fifteen days after the election. This duty was performed yesterday and the result will be found in another column. The results from Baldwin were not received. The entire vote may be taken as the vote cast for Governor, as there was very little scratching of tickets. The result shows 104,170 votes for H. C. Armstrong, Democratic nominee, and 47,133 votes for Ira G. Wood, Republican Greenback coalition candidate, making Democratic majority 57,033. According to the census, the total vote of Alabama is in the neighborhood of 260,000, so that about one third of the voters remained at home on the 7th of August. The Opposition will have two members of the Senate. They do not profess to have any Democratic inclinations. In the House, there will be 79 regular Democrats—that is, Democratic nominees or Democrats elected in counties where no nominations were made. The members elect for Madison three, Walker one, Winston one, Cullman one, DeKalb one, and Colbert one, are avowed Republicans. Those from Jackson two, Limestone two, Lawrence two, call themselves Independent and Greenbackers, though they are, no doubt, more Republican than anything else. The other seven profess to be Independent Democrats. We believe that one of the House members from Madison, Cochran, calls himself Independent. The others are Radicals. Ed. Democrat. Jesse James’s Muscle Shoals Robbery. ---------------------------------------------- Chicago Tribune. What Charley Ford Says With a view to ascertaining further details of the Muscle Shoals robbery, a Tribune reporter last night called on the Ford brothers, Bob and Charley, who are responsible for the sudden taking off of the late lamented Jesse James, and interrogated them as to the part which Dick Little, their particular friend, played in the terrible deed at Muscle Shoals. It may not be generally known here in Chicago, that the Ford brothers have taken to the stage, and appear nightly to crowded houses at the Park Theatre in a sanguinary drama, wherein the killing of Jesse James is graphically depicted, and wherein Bob and Charley give exhibitions of their skill as marksmen. They received the Tribune representative in a subterranean dressing-room of the Park, and told very freely all they knew of the robbery. They expressed considerable surprise and regret to learn of Dick’s arrest, and stated at once that he was in no way responsible for the Muscle Shoals job. –As they tell the story of the robbery, it was like this: In January of 1881, Jesse and Frank James, Bill Ryan and Dick Little located at Nashville, Tennessee, with a view of doing some professional work in that locality.—Leaving Little in Nashville to look after the two wives of the James boys, Frank and Jesse and Bill Ryan took a run down into Alabama on horseback to look the ground over. –The trio halted one day at Muscle Shoals to rest themselves and their horses, not intending at the time to do any robbery in that immediate vicinity. While they were hanging around a corner grocery, a man came up on horseback. It was a United States paymaster, and some loafer in the grocery observed. “There goes a d—n fool, who has about $10,000 in his clothes.” Of course this remark was not lost upon the robbers, who as soon as they could without exciting suspicion, mounting their steeds and started in pursuit of the paymaster, whom they overtook on a lonely road and deserted highway. The robbers came upon him so suddenly that he had neither time to fight nor run away. He had with him something like $4,500 in cash belonging to the government and about $60 of his own money. Uncle Sam’s money he was forced to turn over, but his own the robbers very considerably allowed him to retain. Then they made him abandon his horse and go with them a long distance into the woods, where he was left to find his way back as best he could, Jesse and his pals, meanwhile, riding away with all speed. Jesse killed his horse with hard riding and stole one from a farmer to complete his journey to Nashville. The paymaster was so long getting out of the woods that a party was not organized for the pursuit of the outlaws until too late to be of service. All this time, Dick Little was in Nashville with the women. Bill Ryan took his share of the “haul” and started for the home of old man Hite, the father of the notorious Hite boys, in Missouri. He got drunk on his way, however, and was arrested, not for the Muscle Shoals’ robbery but for the Glendale train robbery. He was tired and convicted, and is now serving a twenty five year term in the Missouri penitentiary. M. & C. Stockholders Meeting ------------------------------------- Some time ago, the stockholders of the Memphis and Charleston Railroad met in Memphis, Tenn., Gen. Jos. Wheeler presiding, and adjourned to meet in Huntsville, August 22. They met at the United States Court Room yesterday morning. The whole stock of the road amounts, we hear, to $5,325,000, of which about $4,000,000 were represented in person or by proxy. In the absence of Gen. Wheeler, Dr. Albert H. Jones, of Florence, was elected President. Vice- President Jere Baxter and A. S. Colyar said that Thomas, President of the Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road, lessees to the M. & C. Road, had said that a proposition of the stockholders of the M. & C. Road to pay $400,000 for the lease of the M. & C. R. R. Co., would be accepted. A committee, appointed to consider and report on the proposition, reported in favor of it, and a resolution was unanimously adopted to secure a relinquishment of the lease for the sum of $400,000, and the restoration of the M. & C. Road to its stockholders. Other resolutions to carry out the proposition were adopted, and the meeting adjourned. A Horrible Plot. -------------------- Discovery of a Conspiracy Among the Negroes of Choctaw County, Ala. To Murder All the Whites – One of the Ringleaders Hanged MOBILE, August 21.—In Choctaw county, Ala., on the 15th instant, a bundle of papers, disclosing a well-organized plot among the negroes to kill the entire white population of that county, was found near one of their rendezvous by two gentlemen, who laid the matter before the Solicitor. On the 16th-instant, a quiet meeting of citizens of Mount Sterling and Butler was called at Butler to consider the best mode of suppressing the intended outbreak and massacre. After discussion, it was agreed that the following ringleaders, Jack Turner, F. D. Barney, Jesse Wilson, Peter Hill, Willis Lyman, Aaron Scott and Range West, to whom had been assigned the duties of leading the respective squads to Butler, Mt. Sterling, DeSoto, and other places, and killing all whites at teach place, should be arrested and lodged in jail. Their arrest was effected on the 7th instant without disturbance or bloodshed. The same day a mass meeting of citizens of all classes was called for Saturday to decide the fate of the prisoners. The plot has been in existence since 1878. The conspirators now number 400. They have powder, shot and guns, and think themselves sufficiently strong to accomplish their fiendish design. Sunday night, the 17th of September, had been appointed as the date for its consummation. The papers further allowed that this day was selected, because, then, the white people would be at a camp meeting, unarmed, and could offer no resistance. The meeting called for Saturday brought together about 700 men, among whom were about 150 negroes, who, after hearing the reports read, by an almost unanimous vote decided that Jack Turner was a turbulent and dangerous character, a regular firebrand in the community, and the public demanded his immediate death. He was accordingly hanged about 1:15 0’clock the same afternoon, in the presence of the assembled multitude. The crowd then dispersed, and all signs of disturbances ceased. Everything was quiet Saturday night. The other prisoners are still in jail to await further development. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/madison/newspapers/itemsfro1233gnw.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/alfiles/ File size: 11.0 Kb