Randolph County AlArchives News.....Newspaper Abstracts for JANUARY 1897 January 1897 ************************************************ 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: Candace Gravelle tealtree@comcast.net January 23, 2005, 10:23 pm The Randolph Toiler NEWSPAPER ABSTRACTS FROM "THE RANDOLPH TOILER", Wedowee, Randolph County, Alabama for JANUARY 1897 NEWSPAPER issue of Friday, January 1, 1897 LOCAL News Misses Cassie Dobson and Charlotte Traylor are visiting relatives near Bowdon, GA. __ Our friend Dr. Frank Reaves speaks of leaving for Texas next week. Many friends here will wish him a successful career. __ Miss Gertrude Sims of Ashland visited her sister Mrs. Holdridge and spent the holidays making many friends among our young people. __ Another of our oldest and best citizens, in the person of Mr. W.N. Clifton, has left us. He took his departure the first of the week with his family for Anniston where they will reside in the future. Mr. Clifton has been living here for 49 years and is known to nearly everyone in the county. He expects to be back among us frequently. __ DEATH OF DR. W.H. MITCHELL The Toiler, as it goes to press this New Years Day, is called upon to perform one of the saddest duties of its existence in the announcement of the death of Dr. William Herschel Mitchell, who breathed his last about daybreak this morning, after an illness of three weeks, of typhoid fever. Although it has been known to the physicians several days that his condition was critical, so early a fatal termination of his illness was not expected, and the announcement of his death this morning was a great shock to the community. Dr. Mitchell was about 31 years of age, was in the prime and pride of a robust manhood and at the noontide of usefulness and popularity as a citizen and a physician. His death will be mourned throughout the county, for all were his friends. He leaves a wife and three children, a boy and two girls, to mourn their untimely and irreparable loss. We trust someone competent for the task will prepare a suitable tribute to the memory of our departed friend. We understand the burial will take place at the Masonic Cemetery tomorrow at 2 o'clock. __ ANOTHER SHOCKING TRAGEDY IN WHICH A VALUABLE YOUNG LIFE GOES OUT On Christmas night, about ten miles southwest of Wedowee, near the house of a negro named Anderson Bolding, Richard Osceola Kent, aged about 18 years, son of Deputy Sheriff Kent, was found cruelly murdered by a negro named Anthony Hill. It seems "Bud" Kent, as he was familiarly called, was passing the Bolding house where a party was being held and stopped at a fire outside to warm. He and the negro Hill had some words but of no special significance, and no attention was paid to it, but while the young man was warming and talking to someone else, the negro drew a pistol and fired, the ball taking effect in the left lung above the heart and lodging in the backbone, producing a wound which was from the first pronounced fatal by Dr. Swann, who was called to attend him, and from which he died on Tuesday last, about 10 o'clock, after lingering most of the time in an unconscious condition. Hil, the murderer, made off, but was afterward found in a house in the neighborhood by Deputy Sheriff Kent and a possee, but ran out over them and made his escape and has not yet been arrested. He is represented as a desperate character with a record as a criminal. "Bud" Kent was carried home some three miles distant and his mother sent for and she and other members of the family watched over the unfortunate youth till he breathed his last on Tuesday. His remains were interred at Forrester's Chapel on Wednesday, a large concourse of people being in attendance. "Bud" had the reputation of being an excellent young man and was popular with all who knew him. He came conscious on Monday evening and talked rationally for a couple of hours to his parents and friends and the christian spirit manifested gave them much consolation. The sympathy of all our people goes out to the afflicted family, especially the grief stricken mother, who, being sick at the time of the terrible tragedy, is completely prostrated in her unspeakable sorrow. ___ CAMBRIDGE News Mr. David Camp and Miss Evalue Hadley were united in the holy bonds of matrimony. We wish them long and happy lives. __ NEWSPAPER issue of Friday, January 8, 1897 LOCAL News Mr. Harmon Gay, of Gay, Ala., will move to Wedowee in a few days. __ A white woman known as "Dock" Oaks died of pneumonia about two and a half miles from town, near the saw mill, on Saturday last. __ Monroe Runnels is having a hearing today before Judge Weathers on a writ of habeas corpus. He is charged with an assault with intent to kill. __ Jeremiah Hill, a young man about 19 years old, died December 21st of fever. __ Dr. Frank Reaves left for Anson, Jones County, Texas on Wednesday. He was accompanied by Mrs. Florence Barrett, his sister, who lives in Texas and who had been in her old home on a visit. __ Sheriff Harris spent Monday in town laying plans for the capture of Anthony Hill, the negro who brutually murdered Deputy Sheriff Kent's son on Christmas night. Gov. Johnston wired the Sheriff that he would offer $150. reward for Hill's capture. A private reward of $200. added to this makes it very probable that the murderer will be captured soon or later and received his desserts. He is a medium sized mulatto, thirty years old with two middle fingers on one hand half gone and the stubbs grown together. The Roanoke Leader ___ WEHADKEE News Mr. Frank Lewis who has been spending several days with relatives in this community, left last Monday for his home in Blount County. __ CAMBRIDGE News Captain Dennis took sail on the Polly Ann for the east side of the waters. In an interview today the Captain spoke of changing the Polly Ann into a cruiser. Certainly the Captain has no notion of going to Cuba. __ J.F. Dennis, superintendant of the Cambridge and Newell railroad, has been sick for several days. __ NEWSPAPER Issue of Friday, January 15, 1897 LOCAL News Mr. Sol Pate and Miss Missouri Clifton were married at the residence of the bride about six miles west of Wedowee on Sunday last. __ Uncle Isaac Willingham of Greene's Chapel has had a rough experience with la grippe. He has our sympathy. __ A GOLDEN WEDDING ANNIVERSARY, by G.O. Hill Your correspondent boarded the train at Roanoke on the morning of December 17, 1896, to attend the golden wedding of his wife's parents, Rev. Stephen R. and Sarah E. Grimes, on the next day. We reached our destination, Notasulga, at 6:30 p.m. and found the venerable couple hale, hearty and in jubilant spirits. The following day, the 18th, was a notable one to us. Their children living, two are dead, consist of one son, Hon. W.R. Grimes of Dadeville, and seven daughters, six of whom are married. One, the flower of the bevy, though importuned by loving swains, stolidly refused to launch on the matrimoninial sea, preferring to remain in the parental harbor. The grandchildren represented numbered fifty-one, and one great grandchild making fifty-two. Your correspondent bore the only honor of being "grandpa". The old couple were handsomely remembered by numerous presents from all. It is useless for us to attempt a description of the viands under which the table groaned. Sufficient to say it as only such as a well disciplined corps of farmer's daughters could devise. Even the most fastidious Epicure would have failed to criticise. The spread extended the entire length of the dining room. After a short talk by your correspondent, appropriate to the occasion, thanks were offered up for such provisions of his great bounty. We leave the reader here to his own comment on the relish of a keen appetite. Several of the near neighbors were honored guests at the festive boarq. The largest family of grandchildren, that of the son, numbered eleven. The smallest, the baby daughter, numbered three. The average of us all taken together numbered seven to a family. This scouts the idea that marriage is a failure. Each of the sons is a good representative citizen of the community in which he resides. Save one, all are christians. The seven daughters are each a member of the church in good standing. When we ponder on the life of a man and woman who have together for fifty years battled through life's tempestuous storms, four years of which the husband spent in the front ranks of a cloudy civil war, often wounded, and have raised a numerous family of children to fill useful stations in society, besides scintillating as lights in the church of the living god, our ideal of husband and wife is reached. We would not exchange such reputation with a Gould nor an Astor. May God spare them to a still riper old age! May it be the pleasure of your correspondent to attend their diamond nuptials. May their subsequent passage to the tomb be smooth and tranquil! When they reach the murky and turbid river of death may they pass over it safely and on the other shore, forever reast under the shade of the trees. The day was fittingly closed with song, service and devotional exercises, your correspondent officiating. The next day the solemnity of parting, perhaps never all to meet again, was the only sadness to mar the happiness of the reunion. G.O. Hill, Napoleon, Ala., Jan 13, 1897. _____ CAMBRIDGE News Mr. M.E. Kerr, on River street, will soon have his new residence completed. __ Rev. J.H. Dennis has purchased a large assortment of tobacco. I guess the boys will spit red now. __ Mr. Johnson speaks of retiring from the mercantile business and devoting his whole time to his farm. The Colonel is using his two-horse plow. __ The Rev. J.H. Dennis has built two new stables and T.E. Dickerson built one. __ NEWSPAPER issue of Friday, January 22, 1897 LOCAL News Mr. Hood Aderholt of Waco, GA is visiting his grandparents, Dr. and Mrs. Hood at this place. __ This week's Leader has a touching tribute to the mother of its editor, Mrs. Stephenson, who died on the morning of the 15th inst., after a protracted illness. She was a most estimable christian lady and much loved by her wife circle of friends. __ Mr. E.T. Strickland of Wedowee and Mrs. Mary A. Arrington were married at the home of the bride, 11 miles east of town on Thursday night Jan 14th, E.J. Barton, Esq., officiating. Tom says a man living alone is no good on earth or anywhere else. __ Mrs. N.T. Handley died at her home in the northern posrtion of the county on the 15th inst., aged 84 years. The good old lady was the widow of the late John R. Handley and was the mother, grandmother and great grandmother of the numerous and prominent Handley family who have lived in this county from its earliest settlement. __ MRS. MITCHELL'S TENDER TRIBUTE TO THE MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND Only last New Year's morn the angel of death visited our happy little home and took from it, it's brightest and most prized jewel; took from me my life companion, my dearest and best and truest one, "Billie"; and took from my dear little children a kind and loving father; and while our little ones are sitting around our desolate hearthstone with wonder on their faces and in their hearts, too young to realize their great and lasting loss, a sorrow new and strong, I can hardly bear to think of them being left without a dear father to protect and guide and to love and care for them. And no papa to kiss us good morn nor good night. But I hope while we are passing under the great road, that the loving god of heaven will look down in pity and mercy on us and help us to bear this our greatest bereavement, sorest trouble and deepest loss, and help us to ever lean on the arm of jesus, the everlasting arm. But what a great hope and blessed thought of our loss being his eternal gain. What a sad christmas we spent, and yet little did we think of it being the last one we would ever spend together on earth. But that awful sad and lonely New Year was the worst and most heartbreaking. It wounded our hearts and left them melting and bleeding, to bleed until the great resurrection morn. What a sad New Year to us but a sweet and happy one to "Billie". It must have been a great meeting with him when he met his father and mother, his grandfather and grandmother and many other relatives and friends who had gone before. A meeting never to part, never to be disturbed or broken up by anyone. What sweet music, music that will never cease; not only a few to help him sing, but thousands and thousands to sing the everlasting songs of heaven. I have received many kind and sympathetic words which have been appreciated. No one knows how much and will ever be remembered and cherished by me; and I will always remember and thank those who were so good and kind to us in all our troubles and so good to "Billie" in all his sufferings and stood by him to the last. May the blessings of heaven ever shower around them that their lives may ever be blest and freed from all cares and not one cloud of sorrow come before them. It is so hard to give my dear husband up, but will have to submit to the will of god, remembering he doeth all for the best. "Oh fair and fresh the fragile flower that I so soon have lost, The bud that bloomed in shine and shower, and perished in the frost. Sad memory muses whilst I stand in this familiar place, I miss the clasping of a hand, the vision of a face. My life had sunshine years ago, but lost delight is vain, The bloosom dead beneath the snow, shall one day bloom again. Now in his grave he lies in deep unruffled rest, His eyelids drooping o'er his eyes, the quiet in his breast. Bessie Mitchell, Wedowee, Ala., Jan. 17, 1897 _________ NAPOLEON News Mr. Luther Langley has a baby boy two or three days old. __ Mr. Jim Rollins, widower, was married to Miss Mollie Holloway near Haywood, last Sunday. __ Tom Anderson, Jim Shaw, Robert Harris and Bob Coker from this community boarded the train Sunday morning at Roanoke for Texas. We heard that Dave Kirby went also. __ WEHADKEE News Mr. and Mrs. Shadrack Lewis who have been very low with la grippe and pneumonia, we are glad to note are better. __ Wehadkee is still on a boom. Mr. C.E. Seegar has erected a handsome dwelling on Rock Mills street which adds much to our town. __ CHRISTIANA News Mr. M.M. Gregg and two of his sons have been very sick but are mending slowly. __ NEWSPAPER issue of Friday, January 29, 1897 LOCAL News Mr. Samuel Fausett Sr. died in Roanoke last Saturday, aged about 78 years. He was one of the best citizens of the county and universally esteemed as such. __ Mrs. Beck, wife of Mr. Thos. Beck, living near Newell, died last Saturday, aged about 20 years, leaving one child, only a month old. Shew as an excellent lady and her death is greatly lamented. __ CAMBRIDGE News Mr. E. Kerr came in town yesterday morning with a drove of beef cattle. We learn they will be shipped to the Montgomery market on the Polly Ann. Luck for the Captain. __ OFELIA, Ala., News The happiest even of the season was the marriage on the 21st inst., of Mr. A.M. Yates to the beautiful Miss Stella Burrow. __ File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/randolph/newspapers/nw128newspape.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/alfiles/ File size: 15.7 Kb