HISTORY OF CLAY COUNTY                      593

duties of the position in the absence of the commission, which he could
not have produced at any during his term, had he been asked to do so.
Some time after the expiration of his term and after his removal back
to Clay City, the incident having been practically forgotten, he received
the commission by mail through the Clay City office delivery. There
were no markings on the envelope from which he could decipher the
place of mailing, nor has he yet found out who sent it to him. The
county officers, when interviewed about it, all disclaimed having mailed
it or knowing anything further about it.

            The Origination of Some Official Usages.
    For twenty-five years past county treasurers have regularly visited
Clay City in their official capacity for the collection of taxes, affording
the people of the south end of the county the opportunity to pay their
taxes without incurring the expense and loss of time attending a trip
to the court-house for this purpose. The county treasurer who insti-
tuted this system by precedent was John W. White, of Harrison town-
ship. It was during his term of service, too, that the practice of noting
on the receipt issued on payment of the April installment the amount of
the November installment, a usage which thereafter- became general
throughout the state. The receipts which he issued during his four
years of service were of four colors, or tints, one for each year. Then
it was, also, that for convenience in reference and for preservation town-
ship assessors’ returns were arranged in alphabetical order and bound,
each township separately.

                        A One-Cent Boy.
    In The Constitution, a weekly paper published at Bowling Green,
under date of September 16, 1869, appeared the following notice to the
public:
    “ONE CENT REWARD.—Jesse A. Sumpter, fourteen years of age,
an apprentice to Samuel Stigler, of this county, on the 8th of August
last, absconded from said Stigler without good cause. Any one return-
ing said Sumpter will receive the above reward. Samuel Stigler.”

                    Man Shot by a Woman.
    On the afternoon of Saturday, December 23, 1899, Mrs. Mary
Hardin, wife of Lewis Hardin, shot and mortally wounded Adam H.
Wellman. The two families lived on adjacent premises in Sugar Ridge
township, about a mile west of Cherokee, The details of the homicide
and the provocation therefor, as announced by the press at the time,
were, that Wellman, having been given notice by the Hardins that one
or more of his hogs were trespassing upon their premises and that he
should come and make good the damage and drive away his stock, went
over to the Hardin place and proceeded to release the hogs and take
them away without saying anything in satisfaction of the demand which
had been made. In the absence of her husband, Mrs. Hardin took up
the matter in disputation with the neighbor, who, supposed to have been
under the influence of intoxicants, became somewhat boisterous and
demonstrative, which, as claimed by Mrs. Hardin, she believed to be
threats of personal injury, when she appealed to the gun, firing two
shots, the first barely cutting the skin of the hand, the second taking
effect in the vital organs, from which he died on the 29th day of the
month, six days later. At the first succeeding term of the Circuit court

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