"A duel was fought at Calhoun, Tenn., between G.W. Carter and J.C.
Sherley. They used yaugers at the distance of 20 yards. The former was
slightly wounded, and the latter quite dangerously."
June 23d, 1838, Benjamin Shipley, of Hamilton co., Tennessee, shot
Archibald McCallie. (_Nashville Banner_, July 16, 1838.)
June 23d, 1838, Levi Stunston, of Weakly co., Tennessee, killed
William Price, of said county, in an affray. (_Nashville Banner, July
6, 1838_.)
October 8, 1838, in an affray at Wolf's Ferry, Tennessee, Martin
Farley, Senior, was killed by John and Solomon Step. (_Georgia
Telegraph, Nov 6, 1838._.)
Feb. 14, 1838, John Manie was killed by William Doss at Decatur,
Tennessee. (_Memphis Gazette, May 15, 1838_.)
"From the Nashville Whig."
"_Fatal Affray in Columbia, Tenn_.--A fatal street encounter occurred
at that place, on the 3d inst., between Richard H. Hays, attorney at
law, and Wm. Polk, brother to the Hon. Jas. K. Polk. The parties met,
armed with pistols, and exchanged shots simultaneously. A buck-shot
pierced the brain of Hays, and he died early the next morning. The
quarrel grew out of a sportive remark of Hays', at dinner, at the
Columbia Inn, for which he offered an apology, not accepted, it seems,
as Polk went to Hays' office, the same evening, and chastised him with
a whip. This occurred on Friday, the fatal result took place on
Monday."
In a fight near Memphis, Tennessee, May 15, 1837, Mr. Jackson, of that
place, shot through the heart Mr. W.F. Gholson, son of the late Mr.
Gholson, of Virginia. (_Raleigh Register, June 13, 1837_.)
The following horrible outrage, committed in West Tennessee, not far
from Randolph, was published by the Georgetown (S.C.) Union, May 26,
1837, from the Louisville Journal.
"A feeble bodied man settled a few years ago on the Mississippi, a
short distance below Randolph, on the Tennessee side. He succeeded in
amassing property to the value of about $14,000, and, like most of the
settlers, made a business of selling wood to the boats. This he sold
at $2.50 a cord, while his neighbors asked $3. One of them came to
remonstrate against his underselling, and had a fight with his
brother-in-law Clark, in which he was beaten. He then went and
obtained legal process against Clark, and returned with a deputy
sheriff, attended by a posse of desperate villains. When they arrived
at Clark's house, he was seated among his children--they put two or
three balls through his body. Clark ran, was overtaken and knocked
down; in the midst of his cries for mercy, one of the villains fired a
pistol in his mouth, killing him instantly. They then required the
settler to sell his property to them, and leave the country. He,
fearing that they would otherwise take his life, sold them his
valuable property for $300, and departed with his family. _The sheriff
was one of the purchasers._"
The Baltimore American, Feb. 8, 1838, publishes the following from the
Nashville (Tennessee) Banner:
"A most atrocious murder was committed a few days ago at Lagrange, in
this state, on the body of Mr. John T. Foster, a respectable merchant
of that town. The perpetrators of this bloody act are E. Moody, Thomas
Moody, J.E. Douglass, W.R. Harris, and W.C. Harris. The circumstances
attending this horrible affair, are the following:--On the night
previous to the murder, a gang of villains, under pretence of wishing
to purchase goods, entered Mr. Foster's store, took him by force, and
rode him through the streets _on a rail_. The next morning, Mr. F. met
one of the party, and gave him a caning. For this just retaliation for
the outrage which had been committed on his person, he was pursued by
the persons alone named, while taking a walk with a friend, and
murdered in the open face of day."
The following presentment of a Tennessee Grand Jury, sufficiently
explains and comments on itself:
The Grand Jurors empanelled to inquire for the county of Shelby, would
separate without having discharged their duties, if they were to omit
to notice public evils which they have found their powers inadequate
to put in train for punishment. The evils referred to exist more
particularly in the town of Memphis.
The audacity and frequency with which outrages are committed, forbid
us, in justice to our consciences, to omit to use the powers we
possess, to bring them to the severe action of the law; and when we
find our powers inadequate, to draw upon them public attention, and
the rebuke of the good.
An infamous female publicly and grossly assaults a lady; therefore a
public meeting is called, the mayor of the town is placed in the
chair, resolutions are adopted, providing for the summary and lawless
punishment of the wretched woman. In the progress of the affair,
_hundreds of citizens_ assemble at her house, and raze it to the
ground. The unfortunate creature, together with two or three men of
like character, are committed, in an open canoe or boat, without oar
or paddle, to the middle of the Mississippi river.
Such is a concise outline of the leading incidents of a recent
transaction in Memphis. It might be filled up by the detail of
individual exploits, which would give vivacity to the description; but
we forbear to mention them. We leave it to others to admire the
manliness of the transaction, and the courage displayed by a mob of
hundreds, in the various outrages upon the persons and property of
three or four individuals who fell under its vengeance.
The present white population of Tennessee is about the same with that
of Massachusetts, and yet more outbreaking crimes are committed in
Tennessee in a _single month_, than in Massachusetts during a whole
year; and this, too, notwithstanding the largest town in Tennessee has
but six thousand inhabitants; whereas, in Massachusetts, besides one
of eighty thousand, and two others of nearly twenty thousand each,
there are at least a dozen larger than the chief town in Tennessee,
which gives to the latter state an important advantage on the score of
morality, the country being so much more favorable to it than large
towns.