Stories of Interest from the Hickman Courier from November 3, 1876
- On October 27th, the residence of W. T. Buckner of Hickman was broken into, and $104 and various other valuables were stolen. The robbers were discovered by Buckner’s daughter, who sounded the alarm. The thieves ran from the house and escaped into the night. Buckner briefly pursued them but never came close enough to identify them. Upon returning to the house, he found several cotton rags saturated with chloroform. Mrs. Buckner was reported to have been “suffering from the effects of it.” At the time of publication, the robbers had not been identified or captured.
- On the evening of October 29th, Hansel T. Yarbrough and Alice M. Sweeney, both of Nashville, were married by Reverend S. B. Love at the Fulton County Courthouse. The couple had been married and legally divorced in the State of Tennessee some months prior. The divorce was apparently encouraged by the mother-in-law, who found the groom unsuitable for her daughter. Yarbrough recently began employment in Hickman and had been secretly corresponding with Sweeney to rendezvous in the city and remarry. Her brother intercepted her at Waverly, Tennessee, but she slipped out from the hotel and traveled several miles along the track before flagging down the next train. At Frost (now Martin), Tennessee, she was “intercepted by telegrams ordering her arrest.” However, the conductor declined to confine the young lady at the rail stop and brought her to Hickman. A “large and respectable audience assembled in a few minutes by the novelty of the affair” to attend the wedding.
- A “beggar” panhandling in Hickman, who represented himself as deaf and dumb, was found to be able to talk by a few local boys on November 1st.
- Parson Divine, the Baptist minister of the Hickman Colored Church, was arrested and charged with stealing.
- Five prisoners were confined in the Fulton County Jail for petty larceny and hired out by the County Judge to pay for their board.
- The editor of the Hickman Courier reminded his readers that during “this election every Democrat who remains at home is one vote for the Republican ticket.” He also urged “that no man should stay away from the polls” and to let “Tilden and Hendricks carry Fulton (County) by the largest majority ever given any ticket.”
- During the Democratic Party primary, A. R. Boone received 5,881 votes and Oscar Turner 5,820 votes in the First Congressional District. The Republican Candidate, Henry Houson, received 6,079 votes during the Republican Primary. Lucien Anderson claimed that Republicans would poll 8,000 votes this election cycle.
- Oscar Turner, Congressional candidate, was reported to have spoke to “at least 1,900 voters” on October 19th in Hickman. He told of “rings, ring masters, of tricksters and conventions and frauds, etc.” He also stated that he was the “choice of the honest masses” and that he was “battling single handed and alone for the dear people.” His critics have pointed out his antics have split the Democratic Party in the District.
- The Murray Gazette reported that Oscar Turner had not cast a vote for a Democrat in sixteen years and refused to be sworn in to the 7th Kentucky Infantry Regiment (Confederate) when he was not elected Colonel. However, he did serve with the 9th Kentucky Infantry Regiment (Confederate) and was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel before the war concluded.
- Lucien Anderson, E. W. Bagby, and J. W. Mayes campaigned across the district to support the Republican Congressional candidate, Henry Houston. Meanwhile, Henry Tyler and Jesse Gilbert were doing the same for the Democratic candidate A. R. Boone.
- Lucien Anderson gave a speech in Caldwell County on October 30th to the “Republicans and the colored folks” to elect Henry Houston for Congress. If they could “stand up to the ticket” and “give him their solid strength,” the Republicans could win the First District.
- The Hickman Courier continued to support A. R. Boone. The editor also directed a call to the black community stating, “your welfare is involved with that of your white neighbors; their interest is your interest,” and that the Republican Party had “failed” them. “The colored vote is invited by the Democrats,” the editor concluded, and that it would be an “expression of good will on their part.”
- A Paducah man offered to bet $1,000 that A. R. Boone would beat Oscar Turner for the Congressional seat for the First District.
- D. Jones of Woodland Mills, Tennessee, reported that thieves attempted to steal S. P. Payne’s “fattening hogs” on the night of October 30th. The hogs, however, would not leave their feeding pens.
- Tom Neale, editor of the Dyersburg Gazette and former editor of the Hickman Times, received the Democratic nomination for the Tennessee State Legislature for Dyer County.
- On October 25th, at the Fulton County residence of Caroline Browder, Reverend J. M. Spence married James E. Fields and Eugene A. Browder.