Statewide TX News: A Brutal Murder December 23, 1876
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Pattie Snowball http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00017.html#0004072
January 13, 2008, 12:37 am

DALLAS WEEKLY HERALD
Dec. 23, 1876

A Brutal Murder

Four Highwaymen Shoot Their Victim Through The Heart,
Rob the Dead Body and Flee Into the Night…..

The HERALD is again called upon to chroniclate one of the most appalling and
cowardly murders that ever stained the name of this great Commonwealth. On
Tuesday evening Mr. Adams, an elderly and Well-to-do farmer of some sixty-five
years of age who resides in Sandflat neighborhood, Johnson County, completed
the sale of his cotton in Dallas, made all necessary purchases, and crossing
the Trinity River, camped among a number of other teamsters one mile east of
Ten Mile place on the Cleburne and Dallas Road. After disengaging and feeding
his team, Mr. Adams and his little son, 10 years of age, lighted a fire,
cooked supper, spread it upon a box and were in the act of eating when four
armed strangers quietly dismounted at their side. Stepping up to the old
gentleman one of the robbers demanded that he lay out all of his money on the
little box upon which he meal was placed. Mr. Adams made some angry retort
about the rascals thus openly robbing him, and reached out for a stick of wood
lying near. He was immediately shot through the heart twice, and fell forward
exclaiming to his son, “Run..Son..they’ve killed me!” In an instant he was
dead. The highwaymen fired several shots at the boy as he fled terror
stricken, and turning over the body, hastily robbed it of about $100, and
showing great haste fled into the night.

The neighboring teamsters hearing the shots sped to the scene and when our
informant past, there were some fifty or one hundred men all frantic with rage
and vowing vengeance upon the brutal and cold blooded assault. Up to the
present moment one of the murderers have been captured. The little boy is the
only witness, and as the night was dark and the murder so swift and terrible,
he can give out but an imperfect description of the men. The body of the
murdered man was carried to the residence of the widow Horne’s near by.

The old gentleman was carrying home Christmas presents for his expectant
family, but alas there can be no happy Christmas for them, but a suffering and
senseless horror as the dead body of father and husband is carried for the
last time across the threshold.

Additional Comments:

Lorenzo Dow Adams
Born: 13 OCT 1809
South Carolina
Died: 19 DEC 1876

Burial:
Sand Flat Cemetery, Johnson Co.,TX
Description: Located off Hwy 4 between Cleburne and Grandview in the Sand Flat
community

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