Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from April 29, 1871
• Oscar Turner of Ballard County was seriously injured after being thrown from his buggy when his horse became frightened on April 28th. Mr. Turner broke both legs and was expected to be confined to home for several weeks.
• Mr. Patterson of Paducah was killed near Fort Smith, Arkansas after being dragged by a runaway mule the week before.
• The Hickman City Council granted a business license to Lane & Scharfe to operate a coffee house in the city.
• Thomas Strechum, an employee of the Mobile & Ohio Railroad, was murdered after a drunken brawl with Bryan Waddick and Pat McDonald in Humboldt, Tennessee on April 22nd. Waddick was charged with the murder.
• Laura D. Fair was acquitted of the murder of A. P. Crittended.
• A meeting of “messengers of the churches of Christ” planned to meet at Mayfield on May 9th. The object of the meeting was to organize a missionary district in the Jackson Purchase.
• Several new houses were being constructed in Gourley’s Addition in Hickman.
• On the night of April 23th, Sheriff Vincent of Weakley County, Tennessee and a black prisoner captured at Hickman departed by train for Dresden. The train was met at the Raulston Station, six miles from Dresden, by a large number of hooded men who stopped the train and removed the prisoner. The gang brought the prisoner to Dresden and then stormed the Weakley County jail to seize the prisoner’s brother who was imprisoned there. Both prisoners were dragged to woods nearby and hung to a tree. The prisoners were charged with “various stealing scrapes” and for threatening to burn down the town.
• Prisoners confined in the Fulton County jail attempted to make an escape on April 24th but the Jailer was aroused and halted their escape. An extra guard was employed to prevent further such attempts.
• On April 26th the Order of the Odd Fellows held their anniversary celebration at the Planter’s Hotel in Hickman but rainy weather conditions prevented many from attending. The Hickman Star Band performed, Reverend Steele addressed the audience and the “dinner was never equaled within our recollections.”
• The Cairo Paper reports that people of Paducah and Cairo are preparing for a grand May Day celebration.
• Reverend J. R. Graves and Reverend Samuel Watson, prominent Baptist preachers in the region, planned to address and debate the proposition – “do the Scriptures teach that persons who have lived here and died, have returned, and conversed with persons in the flesh.”
• Miss Florence Shaw was elected “Queen of May” at Clinton Academy. Her coronation was to be held on May 5th.
• Some wives in Hickman had been advised to serve legal notices to saloon keepers to prevent selling whiskey to their husbands.
• Reverend George D. Cummings, Assistant Bishop of the Diocese of Kentucky will preach at Hickman on May 2nd and 3rd.
• Delegates from Hickman and Fulton counties will participate in the Radical Convention which was scheduled to assemble in Frankfort on May 17th.
• The District Methodist Conference planned to meet in Hickman on May 18th and remain about four days.
• A recent cold snap visited the region with a devastating frost which destroyed vegetables in gardens, killed fruit and caused damage to the wheat crop.
• Caterpillars were reported to be ruining orchards in Fulton County.
• Farmers in the region state that the wheat crop will not be near as good this season as promised.
• The Jackson Whig and Tribune reports that a “strange and frightful being” roams in the area of Piney in McNairy County. He was described as being seven feet tall, “large and fiery eyes,” and “his hair hangs in a tangled and matted mass of jet below his waist and his beard reaches below his middle.”