Newberry County ScArchives News.....A CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO (Cureton, Broome) :
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Candace [Teal] Gravelle tealtree@comcast.net August 19, 2006, 12:53 pm

"The Herald & Advertiser" :
Newnan, Coweta Co., Georgia

NEWSPAPER Issue of Friday, September 17, 1909

A CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY FORTY-THREE YEARS AGO

Newberry S.C. Observer, the 31st ult.

Mr. and Mrs. Elisha C. Cureton left Newberry yesterday. Their home is at 
Moreland, Ga. Mrs. Cureton is a daughter of Mr. James B. Reagin of Newberry. 
Mr. Cureton himself once lived in this county. He has many relatives and 
friends here who have known and respected him for many years. Strangers have 
noticed a clean-shaven, handsome man of middle life, of a cheerful and 
intellectual face, propelling himself along the sidewalks in a wheel-chair. 
That was Mr. E.C. Cureton of Moreland, Ga., out here on a visit with his 
wife to her father's family. Mr. Cureton, though a man of affairs and the 
head of a large and prosperous business, has not walked a step in 
forty-three years.

Mr. Cureton's father was James Cureton, a native of this county. His mother 
was a Schumpert. In 1839 they moved with the Youngs and Carmicals to Coweta 
county, Georgia. In 1862 he moved back to his Newberry, S.C. county home, 
retaining ownership of his Georgia farm.

On the night of Dec. 25, 1865, a party of thirty or forty negroes went out 
from the town of Newberry, armed with rifles and muskets, shotguns and 
pistols. At that time the negroes had been free less than a year. There was 
no civil law in South Carolina and the administration of justice was in the 
hands of Yankee garrisons. The garrison stationed at Newberry was composed 
of as thorough a gang of scoundrels as ever wore white skins. They had 
undoubtedly filled the negroes minds with the notion of killing off the 
white men and taking possession of the country, as some of the negroes 
afterwards confessed, and had supplied them with guns and ammunition with 
the admonition to "return them before daylight."

Between 9 and 9:30 this gang of negroes, without any warning and for no 
provocation on earth, broke into the home of Mr. James Cureton, 8 miles from 
Newberry, the crashing of the front door being the first intimation the 
family had of danger. It was a large two-story dwelling. Downstairs in one 
room, were Mr. and Mrs. Cureton and their two little girls on a trundle bed. 
The fire had not burned out and there was a flickering light on the hearth. 
Outside the moon was shining brightly from the clear, cold sky. In the 
upstairs rooms were their daughter Mrs. Harris, the young widow of a 
Confederate soldier; their son-in-law and daughter Mr. and Mrs. George Broom 
who had been married six months; and their 13 year old son E.C. Cureton. The 
elder son Fred, who had been a member of the "Boy Volunteers" of Co. A. of 
the 4th Batallion, had been sent by his father to their former home in 
Coweta county, Georgia.

When the front door crashed in and the noisy half-drunken fiends rushed in, 
Mr. Cureton leaped out of bed and was fired upon by several of the party. An 
ounce ball from an Army rifle pierced his right lung and went clean through 
his body. He dropped down on a chair and fell over onto the bed. Mrs. 
Cureton caught up the two girls from the trundle bed and rushed upstairs 
with them. The negroes continued to shoot and yell like demons, demanding 
"Where is George Broom?" The wife and children had gathered at the head of 
the stairs where Mr. Broom stood with a five barrel pistol, determined to 
get as many of them as he could if they attempted to climb the stairway. 
Rushing from the yard into the house and then into the yard again, none of 
the negroes attempted to go upstairs.

Meanwhile, the 13 year old son, E.C. Cureton, unobserved by the others, 
slipped down the stairway and going to his father's room, picked up a 
double-barrel shot gun that stood in a corner and was turning with it when a 
negro raised his army rifle and fired at him. He felt a stinging sensation 
in the shoulder and fell over on the floor, the ounce ball having ploughed 
its way through his spinal column. He thought he had received his death 
wound but felt no pain, and never afterwards felt any pain from the wound.

At the earnest entreaties of the women, Mr. Broom consented to go for help, 
for the negroes had shouted up the stairs that if he didn't come down they 
would set fire to the house. He went to a back window, got on the roof of 
the shed-room and reaching the edge, leaped from the roof, passing right 
over the heads of the two or three negroes who were standing under the 
eaves. He struck the ground running. As soon as they recovered from their 
surprise,

they fired several shots at him and started in pursuit, but could not 
overtake him.

Mrs. Broom missed her little brother and in desperation went down to her 
father's room, where some of the negroes still were. She stood in the door 
leding into an adjoining room and while there saw three negroes, who were at 
another door, poke their guns through the crack of the door and fire at her 
father who was sitting on a chair with his body fallen onto the bed, and 
partly concealed by the open door. He uttered no sound and she suupposed, as 
they all had supposed since the shooting first began, that he was dead.

While she stood there searching the room with her eyes for her brother she 
heard him call to her. She went to him. He told her he was wounded and could 
not walk, and asked her to take him out of the room. She gathered him under 
the arms and half toting and half dragging him, was carrying him from the 
room, when a negro, with his army rifle, fired at her, the ball passing so 
close to her head that the concussion knocked her to the floor. When she 
came to herself, her mother was there and one taking the lad by his body, 
the other by his knees, they carried him upstairs to his bed.

The negroes left soon after that, and when the wife and daughters came 
downstairs, expecting to find the husband and father dead, they saw a most 
pathetic sight. His nightshire was on fire and his breast severely burned 
and he was bending over with his hand to the floor dipping up his own blood 
with which he was trying to extinguish the fire, which was burning his 
shirt, and also the blaze that had spread to his bed clothes. At this time, 
he told afterwards, he was perfectly conscious, but made no noise, hoping 
that when the negroes thought he was dead, they would go away.

George Broom, when he left the house, went first to Mr. Jacob Long's about a 
mile away and thence to Mr. Ellis Schumpert's and thence to Mr. George 
Schumpert's, where the young people of the neighborhood were gathered at a 
party. When he returned with assistance it was near 2 o'clock. The white men 
gathered rapidly. Physicians at Newberry and Prosperity were sent for. They 
found that, besides the wound in the lung, through which the air rushed at 
every breath, Mr. James Cureton had received a heavy charge of buckshot in 
his side and hip. The doctors thought it was no use to dress his wounds; 
that he must die very soon; but Dr. McFall insisted and his wounds were 
dressed. Strange to say, the wound through the lung began to heal at once 
and he would have recovered but for the wound in the side, which proved 
fatal, death occurring five weeks later on Jan. 29, 1866.

While the white men of the neighborhood had gathered at the Cureton home, in 
response to the alarm given by George Broom, and the doctors had been sent 
for, search was begun at once for the guilty negroes. By the early morning 
several had been caught and, their liquior having died down and being 
separated from their leaders, their courage failed them, they being seized 
with terror, began to confess and to reveal the names of their accomplices 
in the crimes.

The leader was a negro preacher who had belonged to Mr. Jacob Long. There 
were several others of the immediate neighborhood though most of them had 
come from the town of Newberry. One of them was a young negro named Dave 
Harris who had been give to Mrs. Harris by her father-in-law. He was a 
favorite of the family when a slave, and afterwards was very fond of the 
young Cureton children and they of him. That very Christmas Dave had come up 
to the "big house" and called out "Christmas gif', Mars James" and received 
his gift. He then told Mr. Cureton that he was going to town that day, and 
asked if there was anything he should do for him before he should go. Mr. 
Cureton told him to catch and saddle his horse for him and hitch him at the 
gate and he did so.

That night, in the midst of the pandemonium, even the children recognized 
Dave's voice as inflamed with liquor, he joined in the maledictions and 
curses against the white people. Not one of them had any grievances of any 
kind against Mr. Cureton who was a good, kind man.

Either of their own design or instigated by the Yankee garrison, they said 
the latter, they had set out to murder all the white men in the neighborhood 
and to take possession. Their plan was, after killing Mr. Cureton and Mr. 
Broom, to proceed to the homes of Mr. Jacob Long, Mr. Elisha Schumpert, 
Capt. Matthew Hall, Col. William Lester and others and to kill at the white 
men there; and they would have done so but they knew Mr. Broom had given 
them warning. Mr. Cureton had recognized several of the party and so had Mr. 
and Mrs. Broom.

After twelve or thirteen of the murderous band has been caught by the white 
men of the community, the question came up as to what should be done with 
them. The younger men were for putting them out of the way without other 
formality of the law than their own verdict of their guilt; but the older 
men begged them to wait. They consented to wait until they could send to 
town and consult with the officers of the garrison.

The officers were induced to go out to the scene of the crime, where they 
might see the evidences of their fiendish work, the father fearfully wounded 
with guns and his head hacked with an old sabre, one of the ears being cut 
almost from the head; the lad desperately wounded; the door broken down, the 
window panes shattered and the many bullet holes in the walls of the house.

They went and saw, and expressed horror at the deed, and promised that if 
the negroes, whom the white men had hidden away to await the decision, were 
committed to jail they would see that justice should be stricly and speedily 
administered and punishment meted out to the guilty. Acting upon the promise 
of the officers of the Yankee garrison that the negroes would be brought 
speedily to trial and would have justice meted out to the guilty, the white 
men brought the negroes to the county jail.

Mr. James Cureton, before his death, knowing the horrible associations that 
would linger around the old home, advised his family that, as soon as his 
affairs could be settled up, they should return to Coweta county, Ga. and 
make their home there. In March they were ready to go; but the negroes had 
not yet been brought to trial. All the family except Mr. and Mrs. George 
Broom left Newberry county that month for Georgia. Mr. and Mrs. Broom had 
recognized several of the negroes on Christmas night and they remained in 
the county in order to testify against them, the garrison promising that the 
trial would soon come on.

In April the Yankee officers announced that it was necessary to carry the 
accused to "headquarters" in Columbia for a trial; that the trial could come 
at an early date and that Mr. and Mrs. Broom would be notified of when to 
appear in Columbus as witnesses. They waited until some time in the month of 
April and then learned that the negroes, every one of them, had been turned 
loose without any form of trial whatsoever. Most of them left the country, 
fearing to return.

The leader, Rev. William Long, who had belonged to Mr. Jacob Long, father of 
Mr. G.F. Long, disappeared entirely, going North, no doubt. Lewis, a negro 
that belonged to Mr. G.F. Long, remained in Columbia or near there and Mr. 
Long saw him some years afterwards in that city, and subsequently received a 
letter asking him for financial help, which he did not get. Lang Singley, 
who had belonged to Mr. Jacob Long, returned after a time to the 
neighborhood and on the night of Nov. 6, 1908, was shot and killed by Lou 
Singley, his daughter-in-law who was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced 
to two years in the penitentiary.

There was at least one of the gang that met his reward, though it is a pity 
that he could not have been hanged three times to pay for the three lives 
that he had, by his own confession, taken, one very close upon the other. 
His fate is best told by his own confession (in 1866) which follows:

CONFESSION OF LONDON JONES, FREEDMAN

By Rev. Samuel Leard, The Chester, S.C. Standard, 1866

In giving the following confession of the above named notorious robber and 
murderer, London Jones, freedman, it is necessary that I should state that I 
have given the facts as clearly as I can, in his own words, and that I 
assume no responsibility as to the truthfulness of his statements. They were 
made to me voluntarily on his part, and with the knowledge that it was my 
intention to make them public. He says:

" I was born in Newberry district, S.C. and am about twenty-two years of 
age. I have no children. I formerly belonged to Mr. Lambert Jones of 
Newberry district. I knew Belton Cline from a boy, and regard him as wanting 
in good sense. I joined the Methodist church, South, some years ago, under 
the ministry of the Rev. J.R. Pickett, but being hired out to persons who 
treated me roughly, I soon lost all religious concern and became reckless. 
In 1864 I went into the Army with my young master and remained with him 
until the close of the war. About the 1st of April, I moved to Columbia. But 
before that, on the Monday night before Christmas, I helped to kill James 
Cureton. My gun was near his body when I fired. He died some days afterward 
and if it was buckshot that killed him, then I am the man that killed him, 
for my gun was loaded with buckshot.

We went into the house after George Broom, who had married Cureton's 
daughter, intending to shoot him but he got away. We did not intend to rob 
the house or insult the females.

Belton Cline brought Morris to me in Columbia and through their persuasion I 
agreed to go to Chester to rob Mr. A.D. Walker. This was on Friday night 
before the murder of Mr. Walker. I never saw Morris until that night. It was 
not our intention to kill Mr Walker but only to rob him. We came on Sunday 
night on the train from Columbia. Morris gave us whiskey but I was not 
drunk. I knew all I was doing perfectly well. Morris laid the plan and we 
did just as we were told to do. I jumped on Mr. Walker first, while Belt ran 
after Mr. Estes. He (Walker) turned suddenly and asked "What do you mean?" I 
threw him down and by that time Morris and Belt both came. I then started 
after Estes and when I got about a hundred yards I heard a pistol fire. I 
believe that Belton Cline shot Mr. Walker, as Morris was very angry about 
his being killed and left us immediately. Belt and I then went to the house 
for the purpose of scaring Estes. We did not intend to kill Mrs. Walker or 
Estes as we easily could have done so if we wished. I cut the wardrobe with 
an axe. We got only $6.85 in money besides the watch and clothing. As we 
came back Belt ran his hand in Mr. Walker's pocket and got out two dollars 
more. This happened on the night of the 22nd of July.

On the following Wednesday we went into the neighborhood of Mr. Lane in 
Newberry and watched for a chance to murder and rob him, until Friday night 
when we accomplished it. There were six of us altogether. (Mr. C.G. Clinton 
in Chester has their names in an affidavit made by London Jones on Friday 
morning just before his execution.)

We intended to murder Mr. Lane and then rob the house. Morris waked him up 
in the yard when he was sleeping and by agreement made beforehand, while 
Morris was talking to him, I slipped around behind him and struck him on the 
head with an axe. The first blow killed him but I hit him the second time to 
make sure of it. Belt and I then went through the house, hunting the money, 
the most of which we gave to Morris, who put in in a carpet bag. We put some 
into our own pockets and that was all we ever got. I had some $800. 
afterwards and Belt gave me $100. more, in all $900. I have not seen Morris 
since that night. Belt and I went to Petersburg, Va. where I spent the most 
of my money gambling."

The above are the leading particulars of the crime as detailed by London 
Jones to me within a few days of his execution and we leave your readers to 
form their own judgment as to their reliability. The circumstances connected 
with the apprehension, trial and escape from prison and recapture are all to 
well known to need repetition here. Of one subject alone in connection with 
the prisoner we shall speak, and that is his repentance, and the apparent 
change in his moral character. Soon after sentence of death was passed upon 
him, I was sent for to visit him in prison. I found him in distress of mind 
and very desirous of religious instruction. He seemed to have an imperfect 
but real sorrow for the sins of his past life. He confessed his ignorance of 
all religious experience, that he did not know how to pray, and that he was 
afraid to stand in the presence of God with all his sins resting upon him. I 
asked him if he had not had misgivings of conscience while pursing his 
course of crime. He replied that he had been reckless and did not at that 
time care what might happen to him. But now he had time to reflect and could 
not think of the certain approach of death without alarm.

A large part of Friday morning, the day of his execution, I spent with him 
in his cell and left him at about an hour or so before he was taken out, 
with a humble hope that God has been merciful even to so vile a sinner as 
himself. He expressed great gratitude for the kindnesses shown him during 
his imprisonment; begged the forgiveness of all whom he had injured; sent 
messages to his young master, his mother and wife and relatives; and with 
much apparent calmness and firmness, went to his place of execution. Written 
by Samuel Leard

The Mr. Lane spoken of in the above confession of London Jones was Mr. 
Lemuel Lane, who was murdered at home in Newberry county in 1866. One of the 
murderers was hanged in this county. Mr. Lane was the father of Mr. J.J. 
Lane and of the late John C. and Wm. H. Lane and the grandfather of Messrs. 
Ernest and Olin Lane.

----

MORELAND News

Mr. E.C. Cureton Sr. has been ill but is convalescing.


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