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 |
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Will | slave | November 18, 1854 | at William Nevitt's, Anderson County, SC | rail |
do say that the said deceased came to his death?from wounds inflicted on the 6th day of said month with the end of a rail in the hands of Robert C. Nevitt that Robert C. Nevitt the said slave [unkown word] misfortune and in self defense & contrary to his will in manner & form aforesaid did kill & slay |
white infant child, boy | white infant child, boy | March 24, 1858 | at John Thomas Boat Landing, Union County, SC |
the infant Came to it Death by it being Killed and throwed in the River |
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white child | white child | January 20, 1871 | at Wilson's Bridge, Anderson County, SC |
do say that it appears that the deceased was willfully killed, by some person or persons unknown |
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Whit Terry | October 19, 1894 | J.K. Corleys Place, Edgefield County, SC |
the said Whit Terry came to his death upon the plantation of J.K. Corley. . .from a gun shot wound inflicted by some one of the searching party, to the jury unknown inflicted in self defense |
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Wesley Smith | at Winnsboro, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, that the said Worley Smith came to his death on the sixteenth day of February A.D. 1900 from blows inflicted by one |
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Wesley Murrell | colored | January 6, 1869 | at Col. W. J. Reynolds plantation, Kershaw County, SC | spade |
upon their oaths do say that said Wesley Murrell came to his death by [?] spade inflicted by the hands of Morris[?] Corbert[?] |
Wesley Arant | March 12, 1915 | at Pageland, Chesterfield County, SC | rifle |
upon their oaths, do say: Wesley Arant came to his death by a Rifle shot in the hands of Shep West. |
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Wesley | male slave, child | October 5, 1857 | at the residence of Sophia A Tilman, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that they believe that the said male slave Wesley came to his death by blows given by Joe a slave the Property of F Oconner |
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Warren Kirkland | November 16, 1858 | at Benjamin Bartons, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Warren Kirkland did come to his death by means unknown |
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Warren | slave | July 13, 1859 | at Camden at the residence of John Workman, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Warren. . .came to his death from Lock jaw produced by a gun shot wound in the inner side of the right thigh discharged by John Workman and from his own impudence & exposure afterward |
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Walter Brown | November 26, 1943 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that Walter Brown received in Chesterfield County a mortal wound by _______ in the hands of Mose McKay. . . He came to his death by a gun in hands of Mose McKay. |
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Wallace E. Bland | July 4, 1880 | at Edgefield C. House, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said W E. Bland came to his death by a gun Shot wound in the hands of A. A. Elisby [Clisby?] |
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Wade Burnside | December 7, 1893 | at Wade Burnside's residence, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say. We do find that deceased Wade Burnside came to his death from a pistol wound, at his house in Waterloo the jurors aforesaid do say that the aforesaid Wade Burnside in manner and form aforesaid Semore Anderson then and there feloniously did kill against the peace and dignity of the State aforesaid. |
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W. S. Rodgers | March 8, 1866 | at Clinton, Laurens County, SC | pitcher |
fom the testimony befouse us, that W.S. Rogers came to his death by wounds inflicted upon his head on the 7th inst. By several blows with a metal Pitcher & the blow with a Decanter in the hands of W.A. Rose |
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W. H. H. Richards | February 1, 1884 | at Cheraw, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: That the said W.H.H. Richards came to his death by a pistol shot, received on 23rd July 184, at the hands fo W B Cash |
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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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W. C. Benson | October 25, 1889 | at the police station in Spartanburg City, Spartanburg County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the decased came to his death by a supposed fall from a trestle ... said fall causing concussion of the brain |
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W. Brooker Toney | August 12, 1878 | at E. C. House, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that W.B. Toney came to his death by Pistol Shots from the Hands of James Booth Benjamin Booth & Marion Booth |
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Vollney Powell | October 21, 1870 | on public highway from Laurens C.H. to Clinton, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say, We, the jury empannelled this day, to view the body of Volney Powell of Laurensville now lying dead before us, do find, upon making view and inquest, that the said Volney Powel - came to his death on public highway between Laurens and Clinton by gun shot wounds from guns in the hands some person or persons unknown to this Jury. |
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Viny Davis | June 1, 1872 | at Camden, Camden, S.C., Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the deceased came to her death by foul means at the hands of parties unknown to the jurors |
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Vincent Hanes | Fairfield County, SC | stick | |||
Van Hendrix | February 14, 1877 | at John Garmany's, Greenville County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the said Van B Hendrix came to his death from a gun shot wound made in his right breast[?] from a gun then and there fired from the hands of Herbert Garmany |
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unnamed infant | unnamed infant | January 21, 1868 | at Conwayboro, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say,--That they find the Said Infant to have dead some two or three weeks--that from the evidence before them they belie vethe Said Infant to be the offstriping of Emma Gallard a colored woman now in the Jail . . . and that they believe that the said Infant came to its death by Violence at the hands of the Said Emma Gaillard |
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unnamed infant | unnamed infant | May 18, 1870 | at and near Cools Spring, Horry County, SC |
upon their oaths do Say that the said infant came to its death by the Hands of providence |
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unknown Negro | unknown Negro | October 24, 1865 | at the plantation of Saml. Todd, Laurens County, SC |
upon their Oaths do Say that these two negroes came to there death by being shot by some person or persons unknown to us, from the evidence we think one of them is the boy Squire. . . |
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Unknown Infant, supposed to be of Amanda Simpson | Unknown Infant, supposed to be of Amanda Simpson | December 1, 1846 | at James Brewsters, Laurens County, SC |
upon there oaths do Say, That the said infant, came to its death by violence, unknown to us, (and from reports, supposed to be the Child of Amanda Simpson, against the peace and dignity of the same State afforesaid. |
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Unknown Infant at William L. Powers | Unknown Infant at William L. Powers | March 10, 1867 | at the late residence of Wm L. Powers Decsd., Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say - that the said Infant child came to its death by hand of Nancy A. Morgan formerly Nancy A. Powers by choking it with her drawers tied round its neck - the time unknown to the Jury. . . |
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Unknown Infant | Unknown Infant | April 8, 1873 | at Martins Depot, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths aforesaid do say, that the aforesaid Infant came to its death by the hands of Rebecca East, against the peace and dignity of the same state aforesaid. |
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Unknown Infant | Unknown Infant | October 17, 1873 | at Abraham Cooks, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the afforesaid infant child in manner & form afforesaid Edna Young Feloniously did kill, against the peace & dignity of the same state afforesaid. . . |
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Unknown Colored Man | Unknown Colored Man | July 5, 1892 | at Will Davis, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the unknown man came to his death from Gun Shot wound in the hands of A B Blakely in self defence. |
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Unknown | [?], Fairfield County, SC |
JUST A DISCHARGE PAPER |
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Unknown | at Pollete [?] Harrison, Fairfield County, SC |
upon their oaths that the said Child came to its death by premeditated[?] and criminal negligence and exposure on the part of the parents or others unknown to the Jury |
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Unknown | May 2, 1862 | at the house of Washington Hathcock, Fairfield County, SC |
upon examination of the Infant found its Skull Broken and other Marks of violence, Sufficient to cause death |
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Unknown | September 6, 1827 | near the house of James Walling, Fairfield County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that they believe the sd infant came to its death by being struck against a log which lay about four or five steps from the place of its birth on Tuesday morning the 4th instant by Letitia Vaugh, who they believe delivered the child |
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two negro children | two negro children | June 4, 1824 | at Ellis Palmers, Union County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that a negro woman named Sunaka Another of said children property of said Ellis Palmer did . . .choake the said children with a glove |
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Tom | slave | July 10, 1824 | at the plantation of Mr. Wm. W. Lang, Kershaw County, SC | shotgun |
do say upon their oaths that William R. Young . . . did by shooting with buckshot kill the said negro man named Tom and we the jury aforesaid find that the said William R. Young was justifiable in shooting and killing the said negro man Tom |
Tom | negro slave | December 18, 1858 | at Chlo Watsons, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that the aforesaid Jim in manner and form aforesaid, Tom then and there feloniously did kill |
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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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Timothy Spann | April 24, 1812 | two miles below Camden, Kershaw County, SC |
do say upon their oaths that they believe that said Timothy Spann came to his death in consequence of a wound received by a shot in a duel with a certain ---- Lowell |
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Thornton Nance | August 7, 1891 | at Milton, Laurens County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that he the said Thornton Nance came to his death by Pistol shot wound in the hands of Jim Young - & his accessories - Jno Adams - Perry Adams Jno Atkinson, Lige Atkinson - Tom Atkinson Jack Williams - Henry Suber, Monroe Young - Henderson Young & Allen Young. |
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Thompson | slave | April 1, 1863 | at Thomas Spencers, Union County, SC | axe |
upon their oaths do say that the said Thompson was felloniously and maliciously homicideed by some person with an axe by a blow on the head, and the evidence before us justifies us in finding that the boy Henry was at least accessory to the decd |
Thomas Waters | April 7, 1866 | on the plantation of Daniel McCaskill on Lynches Creek, Kershaw County, SC |
upon their oaths do say ... they do believe that the said Thomas Waters was killed ... by a gun shot in the head & that the said gun was in the hands of Elias McLandon |
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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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Thomas Styson | June 22, 1856 | at R. M. Fullers, Edgefield County, SC | hoe |
upon their oaths do say that he came to his death by a wound inflicted on the Right Side of the head with a hoe in hands of the boy Clem; slave of R M Fuller |
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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 |
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Thomas Phearby | September 1, 1882 | on the Mill's Gap Road, Spartanburg County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say that said Thomas Phearby ... came to his death from Pistol show wound in the back of his head received from a pistol in the hand of John H. Foster |
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Thomas O'Donald | September 13, 1869 | at Dr. John E. Padgetts, Edgefield County, SC | pistol |
upon their oaths do say That the said Thomas O'Donald came to his death . . .from Pistol shot wounds. . .having been inflicted by some person or persons to the Jurors unknown |
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Thomas Linder | November 2, 1842 | at Spartanburgh Court House, Spartanburg County, SC | pocket knife |
upon there [sic] oaths do say that the said T.Linder came to his death by a stab from a common pocket knife inflicted on his left breast about two inches from his left nipple by the hand of John Davis |
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Thomas Hoiston | August 13, 1907 | at Bethel, Chesterfield County, SC |
upon their oaths, do say: By a pistol Shot wound at the hand of Wes McDonald |
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Thomas Glover | August 2, 1893 | at Bill Werk[?] Residence, Edgefield County, SC |
upon their oaths do say that. . .Thomas Glover came to his death from Gun shot wounds in his left breast in the region of the hear. . .by Ed Williams alias Werk |