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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
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 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Aaron McMahan | October 14, 1872 | at Eden, Laurens County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the said Aaron McMahan came to his death by means of a dirk knife in the hands of John Kellett at or near Eden |
|
Sam Howard | Freedman | August 6, 1866 | at L. L. Halls, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon there oaths do say that Sam Howard Freedman Came to his death. . .by a stab with a knife or some sharp pointed instrument in the hands of John Daniel Freedman |
Jim | negro boy | July 23, 1855 | at Wade Holsteens, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Jim a negro boy. . .was there killed by a knife in the hands of Tom a negro boy belonging to James D Watson and as the knife belonged to Philip a negro boy belonging to the estate of A. J. Padget which said boy Philip was in compnay with the said Tom at the time |
Louisa Laudon | October 11, 1869 | at Dorns Steam Mills near Rocky Creek, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say That Louisa Laudon came to her death by a knife in the hands of some person or persons unknown |
|
Nelson Right | September 6, 1873 | at or near...Darm Creek, Anderson County, SC | knife |
do say that the said Nelson Right . . . [came] to his death from a wound in left shoulder in . . .knife or some other sharp instrument. The wound was in between the sholder blade and in a downward direction towards the heart?the said wound was inflicted by the hand of Robert Robertson |
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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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Andrew Trapp | December 4, 1869 | near Trapps Mills, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
That the deceased came to his death from a Knife in the hands of a colored boy named Sam formerly the property of John Trapp and now living on his premises . . . upon their oaths aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Sam Trapp in manner & form aforesaid Andrew Trapp then and there feloniously did kill |
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Willie Hampton | February 17, 1944 | at Cheraw, S.C., Chesterfield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that Willie Hampton received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by Knife wound in the hands of Willie Mae Hampton |
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Henry Burt | June 21, 1895 | at Henry Burts, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
Upon their oaths do say that Henry Burt came to his death from a knife wound n the hands of Jim Chamberlain |
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Elizabeth Mathers | April 18, 1851 | at Mathers' house, Kershaw County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that they believe Charles Kimball Brewer with a knife or some sharp instrument did feloniously kill the aforesaid Elizabeth Mathers alias Stapleton |
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Jacob | July 31, 1861 | at the residence of Dr. G.B. Pearson, Fairfield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that Jacob came to his death by wounds inflicted by a knife in the hands of John Murphy, overseer. |
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Lankin Suber | February 22, 1884 | at the Vance Place, Laurens County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the said Lankin Suber came to his death on the 21st day of February AD 1884 by cuts from a knife in the hands of Frank Jamison and so the Jurors aforesaid upon their oaths do say That the aforesaid Frank Jamison in manner and form aforesaid Lankin Suber then and there feloniously did Kill against the peace and dignity of the same State aforesaid. |
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Prophet Burt | freedman | December 29, 1866 | at E.N. Troys, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon there oath do say that the said Prophet Burt freedman came to his death by two stabs or cuts one on the side of his head the other on the back of his neck with a knife or some sharp pointed instrument in the hands of some person unknown |
W. F. Hunter | June 1, 1853 | at the residence of William Clyburn, Kershaw County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the said William Ferdinand Hunter came to his death by wounds inflicted by a knife in the hands of John Love, Junior, in the woods near the residence of William Clyburn, about twelve miles north of Camden, on the road leading to Lancaster, on the thirty-first day of May A.D. 1853 |
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Mastin Comer | January 6, 1862 | at Mastin Comer's, Union County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say . . .that the deceased came to his death by a wound inflicted in the forepart of the head by seaborn[?] woolbright with a knife |
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William | negro man, boy, slave | February 13, 1849 | at R. F. Barretts, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
Do say upon their Oaths that one Samuel Butler of the District aforesaid not having God before his eyes, but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the Devil . . .with force & arms at his place of residence . . .made an assault, and . . .with a certain Kinf & whip ... did inflict ... several wounds and bruses of which wounds & bruises he lingered and died |
Dorothy Mae Bowman | August 3, 1948 | at Cheraw, S.C., Chesterfield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say thatDorothy Mae Bowman received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by knife |
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Isaac Matthias Jones | October 14, 1858 | at the house of Lewis Jones (Sr) at Edgefield C.H., Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased I.M. Jones was kill by Thomas Markey, in the Public Square in front of Truman Roots store. . .by a knife in the hands of the aforesaid Markey |
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Patterson | slave | June 2, 1855 | Kershaw County, SC | knife |
agreed that the deceased came to his death by a wound inflicted with a knife by the hands of Daniel |
Green | negro boy | July 23, 1850 | at the house of John Cheatham, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their Oaths do say . . .that the said boy, Green . . . did come to his death by the infliction of a wound by the hands of Joseph Haluaker, on Turkey Creek . . .by a knife |
Thomas Smith | January 16, 1838 | at George Born's[?], Spartanburg County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that after examining the Body of the sd. Smith they believe that he came to his death by a wound in the throat which appears to have been done by the hand of some person with a knife |
|
John H. Kelley | December 21, 1882 | on the [?] Road near the city of Spartanburg, Spartanburg County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that said ... came to his death from a cut or stab in the left breast with a knife in the hands of Patrick Henry |
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William Leak | October 11, 1812 | at Brant Leaks, Laurens County, SC | knife |
do say upon our oathes that the said William Leak came to his death on the sixteenth day of October one thousand eight hundred and twelve when on his way home from his Fathers House to shoot near the House of Lewis D Yancys he then and there recivd a stab in his left thight with a large Knife by Samuel Yancy of which wound he instantly Deceased and we do further say that the aforesaid Samuel Yancy did notoriously and willfully perpetrate the said murder on the body of the said Decd against the peace of this state. |
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Harry | slave | May 20, 1863 | at Jesse Gomellions, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon there oaths do say that. . .the said Harry came to his death by a wound inflicted in the left side by a knife or some sharp Pointed instrument in the hands of Wilce[?] a slave belonging to James Neal |
John Agner | December 26, 1883 | at Mr. John Agner's, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say we find John Agner Jr came to his death by wounds in his body inflicted by a knife. . .By a knife in the hands of one of the following named parties. Washington Hamilton James Hamilton or Perry Hamilton. |
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Harry | slave | December 25, 1858 | at Col Arthur Sinkins[?], Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Harry a slave belonging to Mrs Mary Crooker in an affray at Col Arthur Sinkins. . .by a knife or sharp pointed instrument in the hands of Elbert a slave belonging to Col Arthur Sinkins |
Adeline Agnew | May 14, 1871 | near the residence of Ephraim R. Cobb, Anderson County, SC | knife |
do say that. . .the said Adeline Agnew was killed and murdered by a knife in the hands of Shadrack Webster. |
|
Prince | negro boy | December 23, 1849 | at Thos G. Lamars Mills on little horse creek, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their Oaths do say, by a stab in the breast with a sharp pointed knife, held in the hands of a negro boy named Robert, about nine years old |
Hezekiah Robbins | November 5, 1865 | at the house of Hezekiah Robbins, Spartanburg County, SC | knife |
upon there [sic] oaths do say that they are satisfied he came to her death. . . by a stab from a knife in the left thigh in the hand of Hubbard Cash |
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John Butler | October 23, 1850 | at the House of Mr Seth Butler, Edgefield County, SC | knife |
upon their Oaths do say that the said John A. Butler was killed & murdered by some person or persons to the Jurors unknown |
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James Hembree | September 24, 1835 | at the house of Jesse Hembree, Anderson County, SC | knife or dirk |
do say upon their oaths that the said James Hembree?was killed and murderd by Nancy Black and Samuel Black by striking with a club or stick on the neck and shoulders and stabbing with a knife or dirk through the muscular part of the left thigh |
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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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William Byers | December 30, 1837 | at William Z. Ford's blacksmith's shop, Spartanburg County, SC | large knife |
upon the view of the body of William Byers we the jury say that we believe he came to his death by a stab in the abdomen at or near the navel with a large singl bladed knife inflicted by the hand of Nubell Johnson or Manly Johson at the dwelling house of William Z. Ford |
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Coleman | slave | September 30, 1849 | at the house of A.M. Smith, Spartanburg County, SC | large stick |
upon there [sic] oaths do say that the deceased child Coleman was filfully murdered on the 29th September 1847 in the woods with a large stick about 4 feet long by divers[?] blows being inflicted on its head & body by some person or persons unknown |
Adam | slave | December 29, 1828 | at the house of Jesse Crook, Spartanburg County, SC | large stick |
do say upon their oaths that on Saturday night 27 of this instant at the [?] house of Maj. J. Crook ... that Lewis slave of Capt. W. H. Dickee did strike said Adam with a large stick on the left side of the forehead |
Robert Parks | September 27, 1894 | at Parkville, Edgefield County, SC | lick |
upon their oaths do say, that We the jurors find from the evidence that the deceased came to his death by a lick from the hands of Tom Johnson |
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Samuel A. Geer | January 15, 1866 | at David Geer's House, Anderson County, SC | metallic instrument |
do say that the said S. A. Geer was killed by blows over the head producing five separate fractures of the skull, near the residence of David Geer. . .by some metalic instrument in the hands of some person or persons unknown. |
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Preston Sellers | October 26, 1912 | at Cheraw, S. C., Chesterfield County, SC | pick axe |
upon their oaths, do say: that Preston Sellers came to his death by a lick on the Head with a pick handle in the hands of Fred Buckhannon |
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William Stone | November 1, 1809 | at James Arnold's, Spartanburg County, SC | pine stick |
do say upon their oathsthat James Arnold [with] one pine stick [did] kill and murder against the piece [sic] of this state |
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Marten Lowery | January 20, 1913 | at Liza Lowery's, Chesterfield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said Mart Lowery came to his death from a pistol shot wound in the hand of Henry McKinzy |
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Thomas Booth | August 23, 1878 | at E. C. House, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do Say that the said Thos Booths. . .came to his death by pistol Shots from the hands of parties unknown |
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Henry Long | January 7, 1834 | Union County, SC | pistol |
do say upon their oaths that one Saml P Bailey of Said District not having the fear of God Before his Eyes But moved by the instigation of the Devil did . . .in the House or Store of James R. Nathens . . .with a Pistol wound & Kill the said Henry Long |
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Isaac Salter | June 7, 1872 | at the old Colemans Quarter, Laurens County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that Isaac Salter came to his death, upon their oaths do sayeth by a pistol shot in the hands of Amos Anderson |
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Tobe Woods | May 19, 1931 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths, do say: that Tobe Woods came to his Death By Gun Shot Wound in the hand of James Johnson |
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William Martin | May 24, 1891 | on the premises of W. E. Friday, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased Wm Martin came to his death from a pistol shot wound and that Augustus Dearing firered the pistol |
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Hattie Threatt McManus | February 1, 1934 | at Dudley, Chesterfield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths, do say: Hattie Threatt McManus came to her death by Gun shot wound in the hands of J. T. McManus |
|
Frank Burnett | colored | September 15, 1869 | at Spartanburg Court House, Spartanburg County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that Frank Burnett colored was killed at Spartanburg Courhouse in the rear of Thomson's blacksmith shop. . .by a pistol or gun shot wound in the heart given by the hand or hands of Henry Jones colored and Moses Young colored |
Daniel Lindsey | November 6, 1888 | at Gaffney City, Spartanburg County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that Daniel Lindsey came to his death ... by a pistol shot in the hands of John Petty |
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Thomas W. Harrison | November 23, 1860 | At Pendleton, Anderson County, SC | pistol |
do say that the deceased was killed by a pistol shot, fired by Francisco Tapapso[?], at Pendelton. |
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Nelson Davis | at Blythewood, Fairfield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say, that the deceased came to his death. . .the 6th day of April 1893 from a pistol shot wound at the hands of William Gilchrist, and that twelve of the jurors say justifiable homicide and two against. The last tow signing being against justifiable homicide. |