Bertie County NcArchives History .....Conner "Boss" James D. Killing 1904
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Gerald Thomas gerald_thomas00@comcast.net  August 25, 2013, 10:18 am

A FAMILY TRAGEDY:
THE KILLING OF JAMES DUNCAN “BOSS” CONNER
by
Gerald W. Thomas

About two o’clock in the afternoon on Friday, July 15, 1904,
thirty-seven-year-old John William Thomas walked into the woods of his property
situated along the Cashie River in Bertie County, North Carolina. John carried a
single-barrel shotgun loaded with bird shot. He reportedly carried his firearm
with him as he walked about his farm field and subsequently into the woods in
order to disperse crows which were feeding on his crop. The day, much like any
other mid-summer day in Bertie County, was peaceful, calm, and likely rather
warm. Within about an hour a most unfortunate tragedy would transpire in
Thomas’s woods as his boyhood companion and first cousin, James Duncan “Boss”
Conner, would lie dead on the forest floor. 

<<<<<----->>>>>

	John William Thomas, the son of William David Thomas and Amilia Jane Cale, was
born in Bertie County on January 9, 1867. The Thomas family resided in the small
crossroads community of Sandy Point, about a mile or so east of the town of
Windsor. William David, Amilia Jane and their family resided in a house
immediately situated along the road that led from Windsor to Edenton
(present-day United States (US) highway 17). 
	James Duncan Conner, commonly called “Boss,” was the son of James Richard
“Dick” Conner and Emeline Cale. Boss was born April 14, 1867—slightly more than
two months after John Thomas’s birth. The Conner family resided two miles or so
from the Thomas household, on farm land also situated along the Windsor-Edenton
road. 
	John and Boss, first cousins and essentially the same age, grew up together
while residing in the farming community that ranged from Sandy Point
(current-day intersection of US highway 17 and North Carolina highway 308, the
local segment of the latter roadway being the Cooper Hill Road) to Green’s
Crossroads. Their fathers had likewise grown up together in the area and had
been lifelong friends. Both Thomas and Conner had served in the North Carolina
Union Volunteers in the Civil War—albeit Conner after having first served a
stint in the Confederate Army. The two men had married sisters—Thomas to Amilia
Jane Cale (May 8, 1866) and Conner, to Emeline Cale (1864, in Washington, North
Carolina while a member of the Union Army)—the daughters of Duncan L. Cale and
Harriett Hoggard. By all family accounts, John Thomas and Boss Conner were close
associates.
	On May 11, 1892, John Thomas (twenty-five years old) married fifteen-year-old
Martha Frances “Fannie” Jernigan, the daughter of James Randolph Jernigan (a
Confederate Army veteran) and Mariah Catherine White. On October 4, 1900, John
and Fannie purchased from John B. Gillam and his wife a 250-acre tract of swamp
and “high land” situated along the Cashie River about three-plus miles downriver
from Windsor. John and Fannie, who by this time had two daughters (Lonie Jane
and Minnie Catherine) and two sons (John Alexander and William Guy), would
reside upon the tract and there make their livelihood by farming.
	John began laboriously clearing a field from the “high land,” felling trees
with an ax and digging up the roots and stumps and dragging them from his
soon-to-be field with a mule. Subsequently, John hired Boss, a logger, to cut
timber from the tract, drag the resulting logs to the river using oxen, raft the
logs, and float them down the Cashie River to Johnson Mill where the logs were
sawed into building lumber (boards, sills, and so on). The fresh-cut lumber was
transported from the mill back to the “Thomas Place” on wagons pulled by mules
or oxen where John and family members, including Franklin Pierce Cale and Dancy
Cale (John’s uncles), were assisting in constructing John and Fannie’s farm
house. By the early summer of 1904, a livable-size portion of the structure had
been assembled.
	 Sometime before July 15, 1904, John Thomas purportedly observed Boss “water” a
prime pine log in the Cashie River. In essence John had seen Boss roll the log
singularly into the river—not include it in a group of logs rafted together—and
allow it to float freely down the waterway toward Johnson Mill. In short, John’s
view was that Boss could later intercept the log and deliver it to the mill as
his property and receive payment. According to family members, John Thomas was
of the opinion that his cousin, or even his cousin’s hired workers, was stealing
from him.
	John, for unknown reason(s), did not approach Boss to confront him regarding
what he had seen at the river, but discussed the matter with Boss’s younger
brother, John Frank Conner (most commonly known as Frank). Frank was one of
Boss’s hired hands and was assisting in the harvesting and rafting of John’s
timber. Frank in relatively short order informed Boss of John’s comments. So, on
that Friday afternoon in July, as John Thomas walked into the woods with his
loaded shotgun, the stage was set for a potential verbal and/or physical
confrontation between him and Boss. Both men possessed short and fiery tempers.
	John entered the woods to the east side of his small field, a section commonly
called the “onion patch” by Thomas family members. Soon he encountered Boss and
Thomas H. Lawrence, another of Boss’s employees who resided in the same
community where Boss and John lived. Boss had just felled a tree and was
“topping” it (cutting limbs from the tree) with an ax. As John, Boss, and Thomas
gathered about the tree and its stump, they sat down and settled into relaxed,
non-stressed conversation. John sat on the stump of the felled tree; the time
was about two o’clock. For approximately an hour the three men interacted—most
surely as they had done many times before in their lives. About 3 P.M. John
announced that it was time for him to leave and go to his house to conduct some
work.
	As John was about to head out of the woods, Boss matter-of-factly queried him:
“John[,] what was that you been telling about my rolling logs over board[?]”
John quickly retorted, “I have not told any thing except what I told your
brother. I saw you roll it in[to] the creek [river].” Boss, with temper
instantaneously flaring, vehemently responded, “any body tells that is a damned
lying son of [a] bitch.” Boss, with an ax in hand, then abruptly moved toward
John who was only mere feet away. John instantaneously raised his shotgun to
within inches of Boss’s throat and pulled the trigger. The blast sent a load of
“small” shot and wad slamming into Boss’s throat, dropping him on the spot—dead!
	Thomas Lawrence, who was standing about twenty feet from Boss when he (Boss)
lurched toward John, later stated that “Duncan [Boss] started for him [John]. He
had an axe and had his arm crooked a little.” Lawrence, obviously startled by
the shooting, immediately asked “John what did you do that for?” to which John
replied, “I wouldent [sic] have done it for any thing in the world. “John
ejected the spent shell from the gun and instantly dropped in a fresh load and
closed the breech. He then headed out of the woods, “excited mighty bad[ly].”
	Fannie had been at the house when she heard the report of the shotgun’s blast.
In a few minutes John walked up to the house, shook up, trembling and crying,
and explained to his wife that he had just shot Boss and was “going to town” to
turn himself in to law enforcement authorities. He left his property and
travelled along the cart path from his farm to the George Eason farm, about a
mile or so away. (The “Eason Place” was located approximately a quarter of a
mile behind the present-day Windsor Motel. The Eason property adjoined John’s
father’s landholding.) As John approached the Eason field, Janie Pierce, John’s
niece and the daughter of his sister, Harriett Thomas Duke, and her step-father
(Andrew Duke) were in the field. They noticed John purposely coming toward them,
looking “upset.” John informed Duke of the distressing event that had occurred
in his woods and that he was headed to Windsor. Duke accompanied him to town.
Upon reaching Windsor, John “looked for the officers to deliver himself up.” He
informed Sheriff T. C. Bond and other officials that he “had shot his cousin,
James D. Conner.”
	   Within short order the sheriff, select other officials and various persons
assembled in horse-drawn buggies and carts and headed out of town to John’s
farm. Arriving at the “scene of the killing,” Boss’s body lay in a supine
position where he had fallen upon the shot. The wound in Boss’s throat was
encircled with powder burns—clearly indicating that the muzzle of the shotgun
had been very close when it discharged. Sheriff Bond reached into the wound and
extracted the load of shot and wad—still very much intact—and threw the bloody
mess on the ground. Eventually, Bond summoned someone to retrieve John’s horse
and cart upon which to load Boss’s body and transport it to Windsor. Fannie,
having remained at the house with her young children during the whole of the
activities occurring on the farm, recalled years later how sad it was as the
family horse pulled the cart by the house transporting Boss with his legs
dangling from the back of the cart.
	Dick Conner, Boss’s father, implored Dr. H. V. Dunstan—the Bertie County
coroner—to convene a jury to look into the killing. The next day, Saturday,
Dunstan empanelled a jury of six prominent county men—Edward L. Gatling, John
Wheeler Cooper, Robert J. Shields, Frederick M. Dunstan, James H. Evans, and
Henry Cowand—to gather evidence in the matter. The jury first viewed the body of
the deceased. Then they heard the testimony of Thomas H. Lawrence, the only
third-party witness to the altercation. John Thomas was present as the jury was
sworn in and Lawrence delivered his testimony.
	Lawrence explained that John and Boss had talked amicably for about an hour
when John “said something about going home [to his house].” According to
Lawrence, at that point Boss “started” for John “like he was mad.” Both men, who
had been seated, arose quickly and simultaneously. Lawrence stated that he only
stepped once toward the two, apparently intending to intervene, “when the gun
fired.” Coroner Dunstan asked Lawrence: “Have you any thought in the world that
if Mr. Thomas hadent [sic] acted like he did that he would have been hewed
down?” Lawrence answered: “I can[’]t say. It was done so quick[ly]. … Duncan was
mighty mad and moved quick[ly]. He was not over 18 inches from the gun when it
fired and fell in his tracks.”
	 Next, Dunstan asked John if he would like to make a statement to the jury.
Dunstan advised John that he “need not do so unless he wished to, that the law
did not require him.” However, the coroner further noted that if John did make a
statement, it would be “with him” (and could possibly be used as evidence should
a criminal trial ensue). John assented to giving a statement.
	He noted that the situation “started from some logs” that were “watered” at the
Thomas Place landing. Frank Conner had reportedly asked John if he “knew who
watered the logs.” John stated that he told Frank that he had seen “Boss water
one log” and that someone had informed Boss that “I said he stole the log. …
Boss is my own cousin. Boss asked me what kind of mess I had been saying about
him. … I never accused him of stealing the logs or any thing of the kind. … I
saw him water one of the logs; one of the biggest.” Regarding the point of
flared emotions the afternoon before, John stated to the jury that when he
commented that it was “time for me to go to the house and go to work” Boss
abruptly asked “about the report” and “disputed my word,” emphatically saying
that “if I said he had rolled a log off my landing into the water I was a
g—damned [liar]. Then I said you are another one and he them made for me with an
axe and I asked him to stop one time. He was so near to me I couldn’t speak to
him any more. Then I shot him. He was [within] about twelve inches of the muzzle
of the gun.”
	During Lawrence’s testimony and Thomas’s statement, Coroner Dunstan asked both
men if Mr. Joe Freeman had “employed” John to “watch Mr. Conner.” Joe Freeman
was a lumberman in the area, and quite possibly may have been an employee or
supervisor at Johnson Mill. While no direct evidence exists regarding the basis
for Dunstan’s queries, the author is of the opinion that the context of the
question during the jury’s hearing of evidence regarding potentially stolen logs
likely indicates that Freeman may have been privy to reports or information
regarding stolen logs being delivered to the sawmill.
	The jury, after viewing Boss’s body and receiving Lawrence’s testimony and
Thomas’s statement, returned the following unanimous verdict. “That Duncan
Conner came to his death from a gunshot wound inflicted by one John Thomas; and
the said John Thomas was justified in so doing.” John Thomas, present during the
hearing and the rendering of the verdict, was free to return to his farm and
would not face prosecution.
	Naturally, the killing of Boss Conner inflamed emotions of the residents of the
community where he and John Thomas resided. According to several Thomas family
members, subsequent to the affair he seldom traveled from the farm, fearing
retribution from others in the area. Purportedly, rumors circulated that John
Thomas was a target for retributive murder. Fannie would “go to town” to handle
much of the family’s business and affairs, but reportedly was always embarrassed
and contrite about the traumatic event that had occurred on that summer day in
the Thomas woods.
	The killing of Boss Conner haunted John Thomas for the remainder of his life.
In late April 1918 John had become severely ill and had been taken to Sentara
Leigh Hospital in Norfolk, Virginia. There, surgeons operated on him for an
internal infection, apparently stemming from an ailment of his appendix or gall
bladder. The surgery was not successful and toxins spread throughout his body.
John Thomas was dying. As death became imminent, he began to hallucinate and
slip into unconsciousness while hysterically proclaiming that “Boss has come
back to get me!” John died in the hospital on May 1, 1918, at the age of
fifty-one. He was buried on his property. 

* * * * *

Author’s note: John William Thomas was my grandfather. His son, Joseph Duncan
Thomas (1909-1971), married Effie Geraldine Hoggard (1916-1996) on September 22,
1938—they were my parents. 

Sources
Biographical and genealogical information was obtained from the author’s
genealogical research files and records. Accounts of the killing of James Duncan
“Boss” Conner were obtained by the author in personal interviews with members of
the Thomas and Conner families. The author conducted the interviews in the early
1980s. Persons interviewed were: Effie Geraldine Hoggard Thomas, Nora Thomas
Rose, Willie Ann Asbell Cale, George Lewis Conner, Geneva White Conner, James R.
Conner, Carl G. Conner, and Janie Pierce Lawrence. The Windsor Ledger, July 21,
1904, contained a front-page article under the headline “BOSS CONNER SHOT By his
Cousin Jno. Thomas.” The article presented an account of the coroner’s jury’s
proceeding of Saturday, July 16, 1904, including transcriptions of portions of
Thomas H. Lawrence’s testimony and John W. Thomas’s statement.


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