Newton County GaArchives News.....Story of an Old Musket March 6 1874
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Phyllis Thompson mandpthompson@bellsouth.net April 30, 2004, 12:18 pm

The Georgia Enterprise
  A strange occurrence has just come to our knowledge. It seems that an old
man who served through the Revolutionary war of 1776, and who lived in 
Covington during the year 1801, and died in a fit of insanity on the 2nd of
April, 1803, in the lower part of Newton county, bequeathed to his youngest
son an old flint and steel musket. It was stated in his will that the gun
must never be fired, for if it was, a terrible judgement would befall the man
who shot it off. This gun was handed down from father to son and at last fell 
in the hands of a great grand son of the original owner. On Saturday, the 28th
of February 1874, this young man, who it seems was not as bright as he should
have been, yet having no superstition in his nature, took the gun from the 
rack and went down to the river with the intention of shooting some ducks. He
fired the gun, as the old man had predicted a judgment has fallen upon him.
After the smoke had died away he reloaded the gun and set down upon a hickory
log to pick some powder in the pan. When he endeavored to rise, he found to his 
horror that he was stuck fast to the log and the gun was fast to the log and 
the gun was fast in his hands. His hair turned a deep green, and he was unable
to speak for several hours. In this condition he was found by some of his 
friends. They secured a cross cut saw and having sawed the log in two, they put
him and his log on a wagon and carried him home. We learn he will be brought
to town next Thursday and placed in the hands of a carpenter who will devote
his entire attention to the wood department of the young man. It is thought
that it will be an impossibility to entirely remove the musket from his grip
unless his hands are amputated. Indeed this young man is entitled to the 
sympathy of the whole community, for if he should lose both hands he will
be an object of charity. Let young men who have their looms beware how they 
use them.

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