Homicide
In 1827, a slave named Ambrose escaped from his owner Berryman Burger. Like most runaways, Ambrose did not make the dangerous trek north but remained in the area, a practice called ‘lying out.’ In most cases, such slaves kept a low profile, living off the land or from scraps gleaned from friends and compatriots in the quarter. Ambrose, however, took a different path, waging guerrilla war against slavery and local slaveholders. Over the course of more than a year he broke into barns, slaughtered hogs and poultry, pillaged smokehouses, burned outbuildings, destroyed cotton, and generally behaved like a local Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and returning to his fellow slaves. Within months, Ambrose had induced other runaways to join him, and he was regarded by local planters as a “desperate character ... capable of any act of villainy” who should be killed on sight.
Early in the morning of September 24, 1828, a local white man, Kirkland Harmon, surprised Ambrose in his camp and gunned him down as he rose. Ambrose winced as the buckshot “enter[ed] his back loins & hips,” and he bled out on the ground. His one-man rebellion was effectively over. Without the coroner’s inquest convened over his body, however, we would know nothing of his rebellion; the record of his death is the only record we have of his life. How many Ambroses were there? It is hard to know. To its credit, Ambrose’s band picked up his mantle and continued to operate in the area as a plague to local planters.
I was not surprised to learn that such local resistance was quashed and that slaves like Ambrose were routinely murdered. I was surprised to learn how often the coroner responded. In her WPA interview, the former slave Mittie Freeman remembered the coroner as “that fellow that comes running fast when somebody gets killed,” and the coroner is mentioned in quite a few of the most famous slave narratives, including those by Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown. The coroner was often the only magistrate mentioned because he was the only ‘outside’ law the slaves ever saw. We will never know precisely how many enslavers murdered their slaves and effortlessly covered it up. But in cases where the murderer was someone other than the enslaver, or where the enslaver failed to cover it up, there usually was an investigation, at the very least because property had been destroyed, and someone expected compensation.
Reflecting on the South he was forced to flee because of his Unionism, John Aughey noted: “Of course the laws which exist in every state against the murder or torturing of slaves are about as well observed as might be laws enacted by wolves against sheep-murder.” But in the coroners’ inquest there was actually a subtle game of community standards going on. Standing over the body of a slave and surveying the grim damage, a coroner’s jury was often perfectly comfortable recommending that a white be indicted. And at coroner’s inquests slaves were allowed to testify. The actual jury nullification came later, in the courtroom, when the mangled body was not actually present and the murderer was let off. But by then he had been held up to public scrutiny; his judgment and decency had been questioned publicly and legally. It is less than justice, but it is not nothing, a fact which slaves themselves recognized. When the coroner came a-runnin’, many slaves thought he might bring justice with him from some far off, saner place. And in his own Narrative, Frederick Douglass tells the story of an unnamed slave girl whose mistress “pounded in her skull” with a piece of firewood because she allowed a baby to cry uncontrollably and wake the household. “I will not say that this murder most foul produced no sensation. It did produce a sensation. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Mrs. Hicks, but incredible to tell, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served, and she not only escaped condign punishment, but the pain and mortification as well of being arraigned before a court of justice.” It is hard to believe that for all he’d seen of the institution of slavery, Douglass still thought it capable of any justice at all.
What does not make it into many of the slave narratives, including Douglass’s, is the violence that existed within the slave community. Enslavement does not magically transform all who endure it into savvy, self-sustaining freedom-fighters. If we are going to grant the enslaved their full humanity we must grant that, like any other group of people, they occasionally fought, fornicated, and got into petty disputes that sometimes took a murderous turn. To be sure, as historian Steven Hahn has noted, the slave quarter produced one of the most radical and transformative politics ever seen in America, a politics that produced Nat Turner and Frederick Douglass and finally brought down a $3.5 billion dollar interest. But in coroners reports we get a glimpse of the violence that existed within the slave community that we knew had to be there. Thus did the enslaved of the Haile plantation turn their children over to Tamer, the enslaved nurse, on their way out to the fields, little knowing that she liked to punish the children by tying them too close to a fire, a practice that was only discovered when she finally cooked one of them to death. Or take the case of an enslaved man named Dick who became so jealous that he pulled a log from a fire and murdered the man who was staying in the cabin of a woman he wanted to sleep with.
Today, the typical homicide in the United States involves one man shooting another, and this is equally true in the CSI:Dixie database. Comparatively speaking, the CSI:D sample has a higher percentage of male victims and a lower percentage of gun use. Today firearms are used in 68% of American homicides; in the CSI:D sample guns are used 52% of the time. Today 77% of homicide victims are male; in the CSI:D sample 88% are male (and virtually all of the perpetrators are men). Put bluntly, in the nineteenth century south, violent death was a more exclusively male province, and Death had more faces.
Interestingly, though, in the CSI:D database virtually none of the gun-related homicides are related to robbery. Most are the product of the highly combustible combination of anger and alcohol. The last words of J. Edward Sims were typical: “Shoot you damed cowardly son of a Bitch.” Or take this poignant exchange:
Tom Rutland (firing): “I will kill you, you son of a bitch.”
William Padgett (bleeding): “You have already.”
In the strange alchemy of the male brain, friends became mortal enemies in an instant, often over trivialities. “How in the hell did you Gap up My ax?” Gus Settler demanded to know of Allen Holmes in March 1882. I hardly know what a gapped-up axe looks like, but I do know that returning a borrowed tool in less than satisfactory condition is no grounds for murder. Settler disagreed and shot Holmes dead.
Infanticide
Life in the Faulknerian world of CSI:D was especially cheap for children. Catherine Berry, a domestic in the R. C. Poole household, was told that she would be terminated if she was indeed pregnant. In an awful feat of endurance, she continued with her chores until, doubled over with pain, she snuck away to give birth in the potato shed. Reeling from the loss of blood, she still managed to strangle the baby and fling it into the Pacolet River, where it washed up at the feet of some fishermen. When Peggy Bedenbaugh felt her first contractions, she went out to a corner of the yard, gave birth in a hole, and covered the baby over with dirt. Luly Collins threw her baby down a well. Nancy Owens swept hers under a brush pile. All had denied for months that they were in the “family way”; all had killed the evidence; all were indicted for murder.
Or take the case of Jane Arnold. On September 7, 1857, Brazeal Cox and his wife found sixteen-year-old Jane Arnold stretched out on the ground with a baby beside her, bleeding from its umbilical cord. When Arnold became aware of the couple she called out to Mrs. Cox, who wrapped the dying infant in Arnold’s apron and took it into the Arnold home. Mrs. Cox then returned and asked the girl why she hadn’t given birth indoors. Because her daddy was “doging” her, she said, and had cast her from the house. “She seemed to be grieving,” Cox told the coroner in a model of understatement, “but [I] don’t know what for, whether on the part of her dead child or the abuse of her father.”
Three years later, at four in the morning, a shivering Jane Arnold knocked at the door of a neighboring farm. She was cold and unkempt, but she couldn’t make up her mind to stay. Instead she returned to the abandoned schoolhouse where she had taken her latest baby, born in the middle of the road, to die of exposure.
The coroners’ office reveals a world where men force women into sex and women pay the price for it, in embarrassing pregnancies, social stigma, and the occasionally desperate attempt to cover up the evidence. In 1829 a fire in Thomas Welsh’s smoke-house revealed a small cubby in which a full term child had been secreted in a jar of lime. It is impossible to know whether this was an infanticide or a child who had been stillborn. Regardless the mother was covering up something. Occasionally that something was an interracial liaison. More often it was simply a pregnancy out-of-wedlock. Many of the cases reveal that the women had been trying for some time to induce an abortion. ‘Home remedies’ for pregnancy mentioned in the CSI:D sample include savin powder mixed with turpentine, red bark bay tea, and the ashes of dried corn cobs. In this sense some of the infanticides might be considered extremely late-term abortions. One unnamed mother, for instance, gave birth to a stillborn child who bore unmistakable marks of abuse en utero. M. Lipscomb was found doubled over a fence having apparently bled out in a botched, self-induced abortion.
Almost sadder is the number of women who were held to account for the ‘murder’ of infants who had most likely died of crib death or SIDS. Often sent back to the cotton field within days of giving birth, enslaved mothers were understandably exhausted, and they often slept with their infants so they could breast feed in a haze and go back to sleep. When they occasionally awoke to dead babies, they were unfortunately as susceptible as their doctors and enslavers to believe that they had smothered their children in their sleep, a phenomenon which only enhanced their reputation as uncaring and unnatural mothers.
NEXT: Suicide
Murder Cases Tried in South Carolina, 1887-1900
Year | Number of Homicides Tried | Not Guilty Verdicts | Guilty Verdicts | Cases Dismissed or Continued | Percentage Found Guilty |
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1887 | 79 | 54 | 11 | 14 | 13.9% |
1888 | 117 | 61 | 36 | 20 | 30.1% |
1889 | 120 | 69 | 30 | 21 | 25.0% |
1890 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1891 | 151 | 76 | 46 | 29 | 30.0% |
1892 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1893 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1894 | incomplete returns | - | - | - | - |
1895 | 210 | 112 | 67 | 31 | 31.9% |
1896 | 201 | 110 | 67 | 24 | 33.3% |
1897 | 215 | 120 | 64 | 31 | 29.7% |
1898 | 248 | 105 | 96 | 47 | 44.0% |
1899 | 205 | 83 | 97 | 35 | 47.3% |
1900 | 224 | 127 | 71 | 26 | 31.7% |
Credit: John Hammond Moore, Carnival of Blood: Dueling, Lynching, and Murder in South Carolina, 1880-1920 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 2006), pp. 130-131, taken from Reports and Resolutions of the General Assembly of the State of South Carolina
Homicide Inquests
Name | Deceased Description | Date | Inquest Location | Death Method | Inquest Finding |
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Archie Woods | February 8, 1937 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Archie Woods received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Pistol Shot in the hands of Marion Johnson |
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Arthur Jordan | at W.B. Dixon's place, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oathes do say, the said Arthur Jordan came to his death by a gun shot wound in the hands of Thomas Thompson on the night of the 24th day of Dec 1903 in the house of John [?] on D. Barns[?] Mobley place[.] |
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Arthur Morris | June 20, 1898 | at M. W Clarks, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their Oaths do say that Arthur Morris Came to his death by a pistol fired by and in the hand of Henry Jeff |
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Augustus W. Burt | March 25, 1847 | at the Plantation of A.W. Burt, Edgefield County, SC | axe |
upon their oaths do say that the said A.W. Burt was Killed by his own slave Toll with an axe |
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Azariah Butler | August 25, 1876 | at the Residence of Azeriah Butler, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Azeriah Butler in the manner and form aforesaid on the Night of the 24 Inst was shot by some Person or Persons unknown by us and Seven Shot Entered the Head arms and body |
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B. F. Stephens | September 27, 1875 | near Cross Hill, Laurens County, SC | shotgun |
upon their oaths do say That the said B.F. Stephens, was willfully, feloniously, and voluntarily, killed & murdered, at his house on Sunday evening, the 26th day of September A.D. 1875 by Tilda Stephens "alias" Norris, with a double barrel shot gun |
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Baby Boatwright | February 26, 1937 | at Jefferson, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Baby Boatwright received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by a stick in the hands of Gertrude Boatwright |
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Bacchus | September 28, 1840 | at the plantation of John Lowery, Fairfield County, SC | whip |
upon their oaths do say..that the believes the said negro Bacchus came to his death on the 26th day of Sept. Instant by Certain Blows inflicted on him by Wm L. Galloway with the but end of a waggon whip and by no other way |
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Barbara Milam | September 25, 1850 | at T R Milams, Laurens County, SC | axe |
upon their oaths do say that She came to her Death by violence inflicted upon her person and by burning, the bruises having been first inflicted. They find the bruises & cuts upon and about the head and face inflicted with an axe or other heavy weapon - from the circumstances they conclude the blows to have been inflicted by the negro woman Eliot, the property of Milam the husband of Deceased. |
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Barnett S. Langston | August 8, 1889 | at Lanfords station, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say; that the said Barnett S Langston came to his death by Pistol shots in the hands of Jno. W. Lanford |
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Baylis Edwards | May 30, 1864 | at the residence of Franis Edwards, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say ... that he came to his death by a blow from a [?] on the throat from an unknown hand |
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Baze | negro slave | March 31, 1863 | at the D. J. Howls, Edgefield County, SC | chop axe |
do say upon there oaths that said Baze came to his death. . .by reason of two blows from a chop axe in the hands of Anderson another slave belong to said T.D.J. Howl |
Ben | October 10, 1865 | at Abram Putnams, Laurens County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say that the freedman came to his death from a Gun shot wound in the head and the cutting of his throat with some sharp instrument, by persons unknown to the jurors |
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Ben Lowman | September 14, 1894 | at W.[?] L. Rawls Mills, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Ben Lowman came to his death from a pistol shot wound at the hands of Sam Shealy |
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Benjamin F. Jones | March 24, 1845 | at W B Griffins, Edgefield County, SC | shotgun |
upon their oaths do say that the said B F Jones was wilfully Killed by one Charles Price in the Store house of the above name W B Griffin . . .by shooting him the said B F Jones with a gun commonly Known as a shot gun in the left side of chest below the left Nipple |
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Benjamin Farmer | April 9, 1804 | at the dwelling house of Benjamin Farmer, Spartanburg County, SC |
do say upon their oaths [that] a certain Denis Crain with volence and force of arms ... did attack, wound & kill ... Benj'n Farmer |
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Bertha Evans | August 11, 1941 | at Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Farquer Ratliff & Bertha Evans received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Gun shot wounds in the hands of James Evans |
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Bill | September 29, 1861 | at HN Carters, Laurens County, SC | stick |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to his death at Clement Wells on the night of the 27th inst by means of a blow upon the head with a stick in the hands of a negro man slave named Lank the property of John G. Turner. |
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Bill King | August 9, 1881 | at H C Kings Residence, Edgefield County, SC | hoe |
upon there oaths do say that the said Bill King Came to death from the affects of a wound on the head the wound being inflicted with a Hoe on the hand of Tom Doorn[?] |
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Bill Reese | December 12, 1872 | at Pendleton, Anderson County, SC | knife |
do say that Bill Reese came to his death from a wound inflicted by a knife held in the hands of Sam Minse[?] |
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black child | black child | July 31, 1849 | at Morton's old place, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Harriot and Amy and Jenny did then and there feloniously cause the death of the said chile contrary to the peace and dignity of the state. |
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Bob | January 16, 1847 | at Francis Thomasson's, Laurens County, SC | stick |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Bob came to his death by a blow on his head with a stick by Henry Hill at Francis Thomasson's in the district aforesaid on the 15th Jany 1847. And do the Jurors aforesaid upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the said Henry Hill did kill the said Bob in self defence in witness thereof I C.G. Franks Coroner aforesaid and the Jurors aforesaid so this inquisition have interchangeably put out hands and seals the day and year above mentioned. |
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Bonnie Redfern | December 18, 1939 | at Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Bonnie Redfern received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Shot Gun Wounds in the hands of Rob Williams |
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Bookey | January 26, 1863 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the slave Bookey came to his death by a State of General Congestion through the internal organs caused bya whipping at the hands of Henry Mardy, Murphy Hughes N. A. McLeod and R G W Grissett Instruments a Strap & Paddle Justifiable in the punishment they inflicted |
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Boyd Cutner | December 21, 1937 | at Cheraw, S.C., Chesterfield County, SC | rifle |
We the jorors after considering evidence in this case conclude that Boyd Cutner came to his death from gun shot wound in the neck said gun 22 (caliber rifle) in the hands of Ben Ganzy |
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Bridgett Etheridge | June 26, 1893 | at John Etheridges Residence, Edgefield County, SC | hoe |
upon their oaths do say. . .that the said Bridgett Etheridge aforesaid came to her death from a blow on her head with a [?] Hoe thereby fracturing the scull bone at the hands of Bill Gasten |
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Britton McClendon | November 11, 1850 | near the residence of Henry C. Turner, Edgefield County, SC | large hunting knife |
upon their oaths do say, that Britton McClendon Came to his death by a wound inflicted by the hands of Felix Hubbard at the house of deceased . . .Said wound was caused by a large Hunting knife |
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C. Walker Arant | June 29, 1933 | at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid, do say that the aforesaid C. Walker Arant in manner and form aforesaid, Came to his death by gun shot wounds at the hands of his Wife Mrs Juanita Arant at his home near Pageland on the 28 day of June 1933. |
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Caleb Campbell | near Winnsboro, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased Caleb Campbell was killed and murdered by hanging by some person or persons to the jury unknown[.] |
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Can Abrahams | child | July 28, 1883 | at the house of Austin Scott, Greenville County, SC | board |
upon their oaths do say that said Can Abraham came to his death by the visitation of God |
Cane Garlington | March 19, 1877 | at C M Kellets Plantation, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths Do say that the afforesaid Cane Garling in the manner and form aforesaid was shot in the head on the Right sid [sic] & coming out on the back Part of the Head & Braken the scull [sic] by sum [sic] Person un known to us |
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Captain | slave | January 24, 1824 | at plantation of Captain John Boykin, Kershaw County, SC | knife |
do say upon their oaths that they are of opinion that the deceased was killed on the morning fo the 21st January 1824 between daylight and sun rise with a knife being cut upon the chin and stabbed in the upper part of the right breast near the collar bone and so jurors conclude that the deceased was feloniously killed by some person unknown |
Captain Andrew Feaster | February 6, 1808 | at the house of Abner Fant, Fairfield County, SC | rifle |
do say upon their oaths that on the night of the fifth day of February instant the said Andrew Feaster was killed and murdered by Shadrick Jacobs with a ball discharged from a Rifle Gun belonging to Randall Woodward near a path leading from said Randall Woodwards home to the house of the said Shadrick Jacobs. |
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Carey Ashley | October 11, 1879 | at J W Wises[?] plantation, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that the said Cary Ashley came to his death. . .from a pistol shot wound from the hands of Benjamin L. Jones |
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Certain Mail Bastard Child | Certain Mail Bastard Child | January 16, 1838 | at the house of Joseph McConathy, Laurens County, SC |
do say on these oaths that the said child came to its death either by being smothered or for the want of that attention which was necessary to sustain life and which was Intentionally withheld from it. And that the mother of the child (viz) Martha McConathy was the principle in the crime and that Isabelah McConathy Accessory to it. |
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Cesar | Negro, negro boy | July 7, 1843 | at the house of Elijah Watson, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their Oaths do say. . .believe said negro came to his death by a sever blow given him by Jerry one of said Watsons negroes not with the intention to Kill |
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Charity Norris | May 29, 1869 | at B. F. McGee's residence, Anderson County, SC |
do say that she was killed, and brutally murdered, in a most shocking & barberous manner by some person or persons unknown, by shooting her in diferent [sic] places, two of her fingers shot off of one hand, and one finger from the other hand, and a large wound on her right arm, with her throat cut from ear to ear |
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Charles | slave, boy | September 25, 1861 | at Elijah Watson, Edgefield County, SC |
upon there oaths do say that the said Charles came to his death. . .from the affects of a gun shot in the hands of Z.[?] P. Claxton the shot taken affect in the samll of the back |
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Charles | August 2, 1846 | [near the house of David L Milling], Fairfield County, SC |
the death of the afforesaid Charles was caused by a stab inflicted by a pocket knife near the joint[?] of the breast bone which wound is horizontal & about 1 1/4 inch in length 2nd That from the testimony produced they are fully satisfied that the wound was caused the death of Charles was inflicted by the hand of a negro boy Ned the property of Andrew [?] |
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Charles Cobb | March 13, 1893 | at or near Johnston, Edgefield County, SC | umbrella |
upon their oaths do say. . .that Charles Cobb, did come to his death. . .from injuries inflicted by the hands of one Thomas Cherry, with an umbrella |
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Charles Kelly | August 14, 1866 | at the town of Anderson, Anderson County, SC | razor |
do say that the said Charles Kelly came to his death?.from the effects of one mortal wound across the throat of him the said Kelly which wound was inflicted by means of a certain razor which one Thomas Berry, private of Company (I) 8th U.S. Infantry--then & there in his hand had and held and of which wound the said kelly did instantly die. |
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Charles King | October 10, 1869 | at Charles Kings, Laurens County, SC | rock or club | ||
Charles Little | June 11, 1934 | at Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: as the result of pistol shot in the hands of W. Lester Russell |
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Charles M. Creswell | August 5, 1869 | at Edgefield CH, Edgefield County, SC |
the said Charles M Creswell came to his death do say that . . .the deceased Charles M Creswell came to his death by a gunshot wound from a gun in the hands of some person or persons unknown |
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Charles Streater | September 13, 1943 | at Chesterfield, Chesterfield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that Charles Streater received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Knife in the hands of Cary Johnson |
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Charles Williams | July 5, 1885 | Laurens County, SC |
We find that the deceased Charley Williams, whose dead body is before us, came to his death from Gunshot wounds at the hands of Parties to the jury unknown on the night of July 4th 1885. |
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Charley Ryan | May 9, 1892 | at T. H. Ramsford Plantion, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say that the said Charlie Ryan Came to his death by the hands of Sam Nobles and it was wilful Murder |
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Charlie Prince | January 25, 1914 | at R. B. Laney's farm, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: Charlie Prince came to his death by knife wounds in the hands of Gus. Hubbard and that Charlie Williams is an accessory before and after the fact |
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Charlotte | February 22, 1862 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC |
Upon their oaths do say that Charlotte a slavey here lying dead before us came to her death by a wound inflicted by a six Barreled repeater in the hands of James J. Wortham on the 20th of February 1862 |
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Christopher Campbell | April 16, 1835 | Kershaw County, SC |
after hearing the evidence together with the opinion of Doctors DeLeon and Young are of opinion that the deceased came to his death from a disease of the brain hastened by blows on his head inflicted by some person or persons unknown |