This Week 150 Years Ago in Hickman – May 6, 1871

Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from May 6, 1871
• The City Marshal of Hickman was reported busy putting down culverts on Water Street and cleaning out the culverts in other parts of the city.
• It was reported that local butchers in Hickman may have sold “damaged beef.”
• Some residents of Hickman complained that there “cannot be less that one hundred worthless canines in the town” and “their only return for the privilege is to sleep all day and howl all night.” The city leaders were asked to address the issue.
• The old Commercial Hotel in Hickman received a new coat of paint, which gave it a “very handsome exterior,” and was re-christened the St. Charles Hotel.
• A passenger train of the Nashville & Northwestern Railroad leapt the tracks four miles from Huntingdon, Tennessee on May 2nd. A tree blown down the night before obstructed the tracks and once struck sent the locomotive fell down a six foot embankment. No fatalities were reported.
• Mrs. Rhodes, a former resident of Hickman, drowned near Point Pleasant, Missouri in a nearby lake on April 17th.
• John Davis, who shot and killed his father-in-law Reverend Benjamin Davis in Calloway County on May 4th, escaped to Tennessee.
• John A. Board of Hickman reported to the Hickman Courier the birth of his fifteenth child on April 23rd.
• The Directors of the Fulton County Agriculture and Mechanical Association notified its members that a meeting would be held on May 13th.
• The Radicals of Graves County nominated Holly Mays for Circuit Court Clerk and Billy Miller for the State Legislature.
• The Paducah Herald reported that a train was delayed in Graves County when a large number of caterpillars on the track made it so slick the locomotive could not gain traction.
• Bishop Holland N. McTyeire, of Nashville, declared he would preach the opening sermon of the District Conference in Hickman at the Methodist Church on May 18th.
• The Masons, Odd Fellows and Good Templars leased the hall over John Witting’s Store and made appropriate improvements.
• G. A. C. Holt announced he would run as a candidate for State senator for the counties of Calloway, Livingston, Trigg and Lyon.
• The election for magistrates and constables was held at Hickman on May 6th.
• The county court planned to hold a session on May 8th.
• The Paducah papers reported the First of May celebration was a huge success and that the procession was over two and half miles long.
• Continued cold wet weather in the region had caused farmers to suspend planting corn for several more days. Caterpillars were reported to be devastating the apple orchards but the peach crop appeared to be safe from the insects.
• It was reported by various farmers across Fulton County that the wheat crop was “looking fine.”
• Dyersburg, Tennessee was “increasing in population at the rate of four babies a week.”