Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from December 16, 1871
• Fulton County Court met during the past week and appointed Levi Heath to oversee the Kirk Road section and Q. M. T. Salmon oversee the Upper River Road from the Hickman City limits to the county line.
• A topographer of the Post Office Department wrote the U. S. Postmaster requesting a map of the neighborhood of Reelfoot Lake with intentions to supply mail service to the region.
• Allen Pinkerton detectives arrived in Hickman on December 15th and were reported tp be on the trail of the men that robbed the Mobile & Ohio Railroad a few months earlier. Two days prior one of the captured fugitives was shot and killed when he attempted to wrest a pistol from a guard while on a steamer from Cairo, Illinois to Columbus.
• Young citizens of Hickman held a formal ball at City Hall on December 15th.
• City Marshal Gardner began construction of a plank sidewalk leading to West Hickman.
• Mary Rose exhibited Singer Sewing Machines at her store on Clinton Street.
• W. L. McCuthchen, a grocer from Hickman, was heavily engaged in the pork packaging business in Hickman and sought to purchase 50,000 pounds of pork in the upcoming year.
• An insurance agent from Cairo, Illinois was in Hickman collecting cargo found by salvagers of the Steamer Tom Jasper, which sunk near Wolf Island on November 24th. It was reported that parties along the river retrieved a large amount of bacon and that one man received $500 for a day’s work.
• Frederick Wehman, a cobbler from Hickman, planned to relocate his shoe store. He would be selling shoes from a pushcart until the move was completed.
• Preparations were being made by the Sunday school scholars to place a Christmas tree at the Hickman Methodist Church.
• Elder R. A. Coleman preached at the Baptist Church in Hickman on December 16th and 17th.
• The editor of the Hickman Courier remarked that the churches in Hickman needed more priests and ministers to preach in the city’s places of worship. He also stated that the city was deficient in places of amusement and recreation and did not have “enough concerts, clubs, debating societies, and other life inspiring associations.”
• The two-year-old daughter of Andrew Dow died a day after being administered “laughing gas” while having teeth extracted.
• Representative A. S. Arnold introduced a bill in the State Legislature to reestablish the Court of Commons in the Jackson Purchase.
• On December 13th, John Ryan was found guilty of the murder of Sarah Jane Owens of Graves County in 1863 and sentenced to be hung on January 26, 1872. The verdict was returned by the Grand Jury before the Circuit Court in Mayfield. Ryan claimed that a man named Fagan killed the widow and that “if you hang me you will hang an innocent man.”
• State Senator Jessie Gilbert of the Paducah District introduced a bill for the establishment of Lunatic Asylum in Western Kentucky and suggested Paducah be the location.
• Congressman R. P. Caldwell of Tennessee’s 7th District introduced a bill in the U.S. Congress appropriating 500,000 acres of Government lands for the purpose of constructing a levy from Hickman to Tiptonville.
• The Mayfield Democrat reported that a man named McCallum (possibly James Mcothem) was beaten to death by David McNatt with a “piece of plank” in Dukedom, Tennessee. The murder occurred a few minutes after the Magistrate’s court gave a judgement in favor of McCallum for five cents. McNatt paid the judgement, but chased McCallum about forty yards across the Kentucky-Tennessee State line, and struck him several times over the head. The murder was committed in Tennessee.
Jackson Purchase Historical Society