Jackson Purchase Historical Society

Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from September 18, 1874

• The Beulah Baptist Association planned to hold its next annual meeting in Hickman.
• The German Seminary in Hickman announced classes in drawing, music, French, Italian, German, Latin, Greek, Natural Philosophy, English Literature, Mathematics, Bookkeeping and Civil Engineering. The school headmaster was A. W. Swanitz, an American educated in “one of the best European schools,” an engineer, and former United States Surveyor.
• The Hickman City Council met on September 14^th to pay the hardware store of Baltzer & Knoerr $25.90 for “repairing tools” and passed a motion that “all parties who may come forward within the thirty days from this date and pay their taxes for the present year will be released from paying the additional percent allowed by law.”
• George Martin, who stole J. T. Goaders horse two weeks prior, was apprehended at Bell’s Station, Tennessee and returned to Hickman on September 16th. Martin confessed and was housed in the county jail to await trial.
• The Fulton County Court met the past week to address the authorization to close the old route of the State Road that crossed the property of J. H. Dodds. Overseers of State roads were named and included Silas Boaz, J. H. Carpenter, Henry Johnson, and J. M. Caldwell. S. N. Steinberger was granted a merchant’s license to sell “spirituous liquors in quantities not less than a quart” at his store in Lodgton. The sheriff was ordered to condemn one acre of land from W. C. Brown near Lodgton to construct a schoolhouse. The following officers were sworn in: John A. Wilson, county court clerk, Peter George, coroner, Robert Y. McConnell, surveyor, George B. Prather, county attorney, William D. Taylor, jailor, and Jonah H. Montgomery, county judge.
• The first cotton of the season was brought to the Hickman market on September 14^th by J. W. Hester of Obion County, Tennessee.
• The semi-annual meeting of the Southwestern Kentucky Medical Association was scheduled to be held in Fulton on October 14^th.
• The Fulton County Democratic Committee called for a meeting of its members to be held on September 20^th to discuss a Congressional nominating convention.
• The Columbus Dispatch reported that petitions had been circulated in Ballard County to call an extra session of the State Legislature to enact “some kind of a stay law” to stall creditors from foreclosing on mortgages in the fall and winter caused by the seriousness of the drought.
• The Paducah Tobacco Plant stated that Oscar Turner, candidate for Congress, wished not to participate in the proposed Democratic Party nominating convention.
• The Paducah Kentuckian reported that the friends of John W. Blue, of Crittenden, were considering whether to submit his name as a candidate at the Democratic nominating convention in October.
• The details of the killing of fifteen black men in Gibson County, Tennessee was reported in the Cincinnati Enquirer. The article declared that a few days prior in Picketville, Tennessee that Joe Hale and four other citizens of Gibson County bought a roasted pig from Joe Webb, a black man. Hale and his friends ate to their fill and gave the rest to an unnamed black man. Webb and his friends disputed Hale’s right to give the leftover food to those not in his party. The men almost came to a fist a cuff, but Hale and his friends departed after a few angry words. The next day, three young men by the name of Munroe, Morgan, and James Warren were allegedly shot upon by “some thirty or forty negroes” while riding horses three miles from Picketville. The men abandoned their horses which were killed or badly wounded. A man called Jim Walker was considered suspect in the shooting and a posse sent to locate him. Once captured Walker confessed that a group of black men, chiefly from Humboldt and vicinity, were organized to protect Webb from the Ku Klux clan and planned to ride to Picketville to burn the town. Sixteen black men were arrested and jailed in Trenton for the plot. Later 86 armed and masked men surrounded the jail and demanded the prisoners. The jailer gave the men up and shortly afterwards the prisoners were marched out of town and murdered. The one man that escaped, Douglass Jamieson, managed to untie his hands, “jump into the underbrush,” leapt into a creek and swam for freedom. The governor of Tennessee offered a “reward of $43,000 for the lynchers.”
• Governor John C. Brown of Tennessee visited Trenton on September 8^th to attend the Democratic Party County Convention. He reportedly gave a “masterly speech” calling for the community to bring in the “guilty parties” and deliver a “speedy punishment.”