Obion-Davidson County TN Archives News.....He Supped With Negroes June 25, 1891
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Linda Blum-Barton http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000645 April 4, 2006, 8:43 pm

The Constitution, Atlanta, Ga. June 25, 1891
Coal Oil Inspector McDowell's Record Will Be Investigated.

Nashville, Tenn., June 24. -- There has been considerable kicking for sometime 

over the course of John H. McDowell, who was given the office of coal oil 

inspector at Nashville by Governor Buchanan.



This office is worth $8,500 per annum.  McDowell draws this, but has a cheap 

deputy who does the inspection, while the inspector himself occupies his time 

in traveling over the state organizing the alliance, of which he is state 

president, and making speeches in favor of the subtreasury.  He is now in 

Mississippi with National President Polk and others.



An American reporter has just returned from Arkansas, where he investigated the 

record of McDowell, and the result will be published tomorrow.  From about 

fifty signed statements it appears that McDowell went to Desha county, 

Arkansas, in 1873, where the negroes outnumbered the whites five to one.  While 

living at Red Fork in 1873 he turned republican and was elected justice of the 

peace on the republican ticket. He then joined the loyal league, the secret, 

oath-bound order in which there were only three white men.  He affiliated with 

the negroes, and on one occasion sat down to supper with a large party of 

them.  His offical career as justice of the peace was very unsatisfactory, as 

he caused planters much trouble by summoning large numbers of witnesses in 

trivial cases.  He made enormous sums of money out of the office.  In 1874 he 

served as depty to J. N. Grayson, the negro clerk of the circuit and probate 

courts.  He ran for this office two years later and was beaten by a negro.  The 

whites looked upon him with contempt, and he soon lost his negro following, and 

in 1877 moved to Obion county, Tennessee.



McDowell has since served as state senator, and was a leader in the prohibition 

movement.  He was elected president of the state alliance less than a year ago, 

succeeding Governor J. P. Buchannah.   

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