Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from March 30, 1872

• The Mississippi River was at its lowest levels in recent memory.
• The Hickman wharf continued to make progress under the chief engineer Fritz Hellner. The piling was near completion and was expected to be the best wharf on the Mississippi River when finished.
• The Hickman Cornet Band proposed to give an amateur minstrel performance at the Hickman City Council Hall on March 30^th.
• A grand ball was planned for April 1^st by the Deutschen Unterstuetzung Verein (German Assistance Association) at the McCutchen’s Building in Hickman. The committee organized to manage the ball included: J. Tapp Bynum, George Warren, J. H. Plaut, Otto Hertweck, R. E. Millet, and John D. Walker.
• The dry goods store of W. B. Benny was reported to have a large stock of spring goods and more arriving each day.
• W. Bain, the Grand Worthy Chief Templar of the State of Kentucky, planned to address the citizens of Hickman on the issue of Temperance on April 3^rd.
• Harriett Mills, a homeless person that resided in the “wildwoods,” burned to death after her clothes caught fire on the night of March 26th. She was said to have practiced a “disreputable avocation” and was “crazy.”
• George Mayes, the son of J. W. Mayes of Fulton County, passed away at age 23 on March 27th. He returned to his family home two weeks earlier after attending medical school in Louisville.
• An exhibition of stallions and suckling colts was to be held on April 13^th at Jordan’s Station.
• Four men by the names of Jackson, Weatherford, Coe, and Vaughn disguised themselves as Ku Klux Klan members and violently raped a mother and daughter by the name of Shelton near Clinton in Hickman County the week prior. The men were captured and arrested the next day.
• The Columbus Dispatch reported many fatalities during the past six weeks related to pneumonia and spinal meningitis.
• The legal case of the City of Columbus against the Iron Mountain Railroad was dismissed by Judge Bland Ballard and was sent to the Kentucky State court.
• Representative Ed Crossland delivered a speech before Congress on March 16^th on the negative aspects of the tariff and “its corruptions and extortions and lamentable calamities it inflicts upon the country.”
• The Paducah Kentuckian reported that James L. Jones of Eddyville may run as a candidate for Congress from the First District.
• The Elizabeth & Paducah Railroad line between the Tennessee River and Paducah was expected to be completed in the next thirty-five days.
• A. Tyler, President of the Mississippi Levee Company, was to address the people of Lake County in Tiptonville, Tennessee on the proposed Hickman and Madrid Bend Levee and railroad on April 1^st.
• Two men by the name of Barton and Taylor pleaded guilty in Union City, Tennessee and sentenced to five years in the State penitentiary for robbing an express train.
• The postmaster at Dyersburg, Tennessee, a Dr. Goshorn, was arrested for theft and was awaiting trial in the Memphis jail. He claimed his clerk was to blame for the stolen items.
• The Illinois Central Railroad intended to construct a line from Humboldt, Tennessee to Cairo, Illinois.