Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from August 19, 1871
• John A. Wilson, Hickman City Tax Collector, reported to the City Council that he collected $2044.32 in taxes for the present year.
• John C. Gardner, City Wharfmaster, submitted his resignation and was replaced by William Gwinn.
• Hickman City Finance Committee of Hickman paid C. A. Holcombe $45.35 for paints, oil and glass for the new market house.
• The Street Committee of Hickman paid the sum of $200 to B. C. Ramage for street repairs.
• T. O. Goalder presented the revised bylaws and ordinances to the City Council, which were voted upon and passed. The City Clerk was directed to publish the ordnances and Goalder awarded $50 for revising the city charter and ordinances.
• The Independent Order of Odd Fellows in Columbus, Kentucky had more members in proportion to its population than any other town or city in the State.
• The daughter of Thomas Bennet, of Hickman County, was allegedly murdered by an elderly black man that worked for the family on August 12th. The fourteen-year-old girl had been beaten, strangled and thrown into a nearby pond. The man was captured, reportedly confessed and was shot on the spot before officers could intervene. The shot was not fatal but the man later died in jail, either from the initial wound or additional wounds after his capture.
• A contract to build a bridge across the Bayou de Chien River near Hickman was negotiated and signed.
• The Bondurant & Drury tobacco warehouse was rapidly being constructed and close to completion.
• Many early pioneers of the Jackson Purchase were expected to attend the pioneer’s meeting in Mayfield on September 22nd.
• A Northern banking firm had sent an agent to Hickman to investigate the possibility of establishing a banking house.
• The Teachers Institute for all teachers engaged in teaching was to be held from September 4th to the 9th at the Rural Academy in Jordan’s Station.
• Thomas Corbett of Ballard County won his seventh consecutive term in the State Legislature.
• The Hickman & Madrid Bend Levy Company met in Tiptonville on August 14th to discuss creating a joint charter for both the Kentucky and Tennessee legislatures to call for a regional tax to fund the levy and railroad project.
• The trial of Richard M. “General” Darnell, of the Darnell-Watson Feud, for the 1869 murder of the Lane family on the steamer Bell Memphis had begun at the Lake County Courthouse in Tiptonville.
• An election was to be held on September 12th at Dyersburg on whether a $50,000 bond should be granted to build the Mississippi River Railroad through town.
• Crop prospects in Obion, Dyer and Gibson counties in Tennessee appeared “reasonably good” with the corn crop looked “especially fine.”
• Pastor L. I. Burton of the Baptist Church in Union City, Tennessee relocated to Central Kentucky.
• A man named Armstead Buqua was murdered by his son with an ax in Huntingdon, Tennessee.
• The Lunatic Asylum at Lexington was reported full with five hundred sixty-four patients.