The Ouachita Telegraph - Shooting Henry Kelley at Rayville

Date: Mar. 2004
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>

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The Ouachita Telegraph
Wednesday, August 19, 1868
Page 3, Column 1

  SERIOUS AFFRAY AT RAYVILLE.  On last Saturday, the 15th inst., there was
an affray at Rayville, Morehouse parish, which resulted in the killing of
Mr. Henry Kelley, a well- known citizen of the vicinity.
  As the circumstances have been related to us they are as follows: For 2 or
3 years there has existed a feud between a Mr. Haddox and Kelley, the
deceased, in reference to the price of some cotton purchased, about the time
of the surrender, by the latter of the former.  On last Saturday, Haddox
went to Rayville accompanied by some friends, all of whom were armed. 
Kelley who had a little store at Rayville was in town.  Anticipating an
attack he had loaded his shot gun and placed it convenient in the store. 
During the day, some time, Haddox had some angry words with Kelley, which
ended, however, without any blows.  Subsequently Haddox, with his friends,
went to Kelley's store and accosted him again.  During the conversation,
Haddox, it is said, began to draw his pistol.  Kelley, seeing the movement,
raised his gun and fired both barrels at the party, doing no damage. 
Several shots were then fired at Kelley, two of which took effect, one in
the shoulder and the other in the thigh, causing Kelley to fall.  Kelley
thereupon expressed himself satisfied, and it was thought that the matter
had ended, when a young man named Thomas Johnson, who appears to have been
of Haddox's party, fired his pistol at Kelley, as he lay wounded, killing
him almost instantly.  Haddox's brother, during the melee, was shot in the
neck by some one of the crowd gathered in town that day, but was not
seriously hurt.  Haddox and Johnson, we learn, have gone to parts unknown.
  These are the circumstances, as we have heard them from a reliable source,
of this bloody affray.  There are probably other facts connected with it we
have heard nothing of.  It will no doubt be fully investigated by the courts.
  Politics had nothing to do with the difficulty as all the parties were of
the same way of thinking politically.

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