Polk County GaArchives Obituaries.....Smith, William Anderson August 16, 1908 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Wendell Stephens wend901@charter.net April 29, 2005, 11:55 am Coosa River News, Centre, AL, Vol 31, #24 Coosa River News”, Centre, Alabama, Friday August 21, 1908: Volume 31, #24 GRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE DEATH OF W. A. SMITH Rome Tribune” Borden Springs, Alabama, August 17: After tying the horses on the station platform here, the body of William A. Smith slain by the hand of Will Chandler, has been removed to his home for burial. His slayer who emptied Smith’s own pistol into his body, after his brother, Dave Chandler had knocked Smith senseless with a rock fled, was captured and jailed in Heflin, Ala. The killing took place near the little church where there had been an all day singing and was witnesses by scores of people. Chandler, the slayer has a wife and several children. He lived in the same community as Smith and bore a good reputation. Accounts as to how the quarrel arose differ. The most reliable seems to be that a quarrel and fight arose between two boys over a shoe trade. A fight followed and Will Chandler rebuked the larger of the two boys for cuffing the smaller. Then Smith took a hand and it is said drew his pistol, forced chandler to his knees, and told him to pray as he had but a moment to live. At this moment, while Smith was pecking Will Chandler in the face with his revolver, Dave Chandler the brother, seized a rock, and felled Smith to the ground, with a well-directed blow. As he fell his pistol dropped from his hand, and Will Chandler, scrambling from his knees, seized the weapon, and fired three shots into Smiths body, one of which took affect and proved fatal. _____________________ The above dispatch and the news which it brings will prove of great interest in Rome, marking as it does the passing of a character well known to many residents of this city, and telling of the stormy close of a career in which good and evil were strangely mingied. BELL-TREE SMITH “Bill” Smith, the dead man, was a unique character and was known throughout all of this section as “Bell-Tree” Smith. Standing alone in the annals of illicit liquer-selling, was his scheme for disposing of mountain dew. His home was just on the State line, where Cherokee county, Alabama, joins Polk county, Georgia. A water oak stood by a little branch, and marked the geographical division. Nailed to the little oak was a common soap box, about three and a half feet from the ground. A pad of paper was nailed to the tree, and misspelled words directed the observer to “Rite your order and leve the muney.” Shere were no specification as to what the commodity was, but the fame of the tree was such that no one ever order Sunday School literature or sandwiches. Above the writing pad was another sign also misspelled, warning the purchaser not to remain there after ringing the cowbell which hung on the tree on penalty of being shot. Directions were given to “go down the road and wait, you can tell the place when you get to it.” The “place” was fifty yards down the road around a bend and here seats were provided. The purchaser could wait in comfort until still following directions, he heard the bell ring again. He was then to walk slowly back to the bell tree. There he would find any brand of whiskey, beer, wine or other liquor, that he might have ordered, left upon deposit of the regular price charged in any market. Should the establishment be out of the particular liquid ordered a note would so state, and ask tersely “What else?” A BIG TRADE There were many summer visitors to Bluff, Borden-Wheeler and other nearby resorts, who learned of the Belltree’s famous product, and the probation bench was rarely without an occupant during the summer days. But of all the people who patronized the tree, and there are some in Rome who admit it, none knew the manner in which the mysterious liquor appeared. And no one could swear that Will Smith was the man behind the scheme. He carried a United States liquor license, and was never molested by revenue officers, but has been under indictments scores of times, by county officials of both Georgia and Alabama. But he was never convicted, and finally the officers grew weary of fruitless arrests. Last March the operation of bell tree was suddenly stopped, and thirsty visitors might wake the echoes with their clamor, and wait for hours on the bench and no liquor appeared. WAS WEALTHY MAN Smith was a man of great wealth not all of it coming from the bell-tree. He inherited some money from his father, and purchased hundreds of acres of land, upon much of which mineral was found. He made lucky sales and was one of the few men in the County who had money when the Bluffton boom broke. This but served to increase his holdings and he was continually buying more land. At the time of his death he was said to pay taxes on $185,000 worth of property. He owned practically all of Signal Mountain, and had every inch of his farm under cultivation. He raised stock and supplied many Alabama hotels with meat during the resort season. WAS OF GENEROUS HEART The dead man was a frequent visitor to Rome, and was well known to many people here, who welcome him to their homes. He was a man of general disposition, except when crossed. He was of great physical strength, weighing more than 200 pounds and standing six feet two. He had a wife and seven children, and was very good to them, meeting their every wish. His generosity was not confined to his home, where he lived the life of a feudal lord, but extended to others. He paid the entire salary of the pastor of the church near Bluffton, and his home was the center for relief operations during the recent cyclone. THE DARKER SIDE But there was a darker side to this character. He is described by those who feared him, as domineering and insolent. Certain it is that “Marse Bill” had his own way, and that what he said “went,” or there was trouble, usually for the other man. More than one person had yielded up their life before the pistol that he always carried. At one time he killed two men on the porch of the old Etna Furnace near Bluffton, and at different times he slow two negroes, making four to his private cemetery. For all of these killings he was acquitted on the grounds of self defense. Smith also shot a white man, his brother-in-law, for beating his wife. His house was well provided with weapons, and he, in former years always carried a pistol. Such are a few of the interesting points in the career of a man who might well furnish the outlines for a drama of romance. Esteemed by some as a benefactor, a friend, a gentleman by nature, condemned by others as a bully, blackguard, desperado, and blind tiger keeper, unable to read a line, or write his name, yet of keen intellect and business acumen, this section well not again see his likes. Additional Comments: Son of George Melton and Catherine Elizabeth Peek Smith. 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