The Ouachita Telegraph - Albert Johnson Drowns

Date: Oct 2000
Submitted by: Lora Peppers <lpeppers@ouachita.lib.la.us>



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The Ouachita Telegraph
Saturday, July 21, 1888
Page 3, Column 2

His Life for a dollar and a Half.
 Albert Johnson, alias Bradley, a negro boy about 17 years old, living in
Trenton and employed at the Monroe Oil Mills, was drowned Wednesday evening
about 7:30 o’clock in the river near the company’s mills.  His death was the
result of perhaps a foolish fear that he was going to be forced to pay a
small debt of $1.50 due Mr. W.L. Morris of West Monroe, or in default of
payment have corporeal punishment inflicted upon him, a not uncommon method
of forcing the payment of debts now in vogue in this civilized community.
>From the best information the Telegraph can get it seems that Mr. Morris
went to the Oil Mills about 7:30 on the evening of the fatal occurrence for
the purpose of collecting the debt and Bradley seeing him coming attempted
to get away.  The river furnished the only avenue of escape and he
unhesitatingly plunged in with the evident intention of swimming the river.
His powers of endurance, weighted down as he was with his clothes, was not
equal to the emergency, however, and before reaching the opposite shore he
drowned.  At this writing his body had not been recovered.

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