Butts County GaArchives News.....A CLOSE CALL June 18, 1897
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Don Bankston http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00024.html#0005864 July 24, 2006, 11:37 pm

Jackson Argus June 18, 1897
Is What Henry Maddox, Col., Had From a Lynching

Henry Maddox, col., who has been in the employ of Mr. F. P.Cornwell, near 
Elgin, had a narrow escape from lynching on the 15th inst.

Henry is a boy 16 or 18 years of age and had been sleeping in the cook room.  
On the night of the 14th about 12 o’clock, he took a sharp scooter plow and 
removed the lock from the door which opened into the room where Mr. Cornwell’s 
two grown daughters were sleeping.   Entering this apartment he approached the 
bed from the foot and put his hands on one of the young ladies.  They raised 
the alarm and the Negro ran out the door through which he had entered.

The young ladies recognized the Negro by the bright light of the moon that 
shone through the window.

Mr. Cornwell responded promptly to the alarm of his daughters and ran out 
immediately in search of the Negro who fled to the woods.   There he was 
captured and early in the morning was carried before Judge George R. Ridgeway 
who remanded him to jail to await trial in the Superior court.

Before the preliminary trial the boy said he was preparing to run away and was 
prowling around looking for his hat.   His statement to the court was that he 
had entered the apartment of the young ladies and had approached their bed, but 
he denied that he had put his hands on either one of them.
It speaks volumes for the law-abiding spirit of Elgin community that the Negro 
was not lynched on the spot.

Jackson Argus – Week of June 18, 1897


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