Tommie Mann to be Discharged Soon, Will Truth of Shooting Come Out Then? May 21, 1926

Mann to be Discharged from Hospital Soon

While pus continues to issue from the wound in his left lung, Tommie Mann, the Elizabeth City boy who was mysteriously shot on the Newland Road near Elizabeth City on Easter Sunday night, continues to improve. He is sitting up at his Elizabeth City Hospital, and his discharge is expected at an early date.

The shooting is still surrounded in mystery, the young Mann absolutely refusing to discuss the details. County Judge P.G. Sawyer is waiting for Mann’s complete recovery before quizzing Mann and others under oath.

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

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To read about the shooting, see: https://ruralnchistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Tommie+Mann

Federal Prohibition Agents Threaten Blockade to Stop Flow of Moonshine, May 21, 1926

To Starve Out East Lake’s Moonshiners.. . Federal Prohibition Agents Threaten to Blockade All Approaches to the Source of Eastern North Carolina’s Greatest Liquor Supply

And now it is proposed to bottle up East Lake, fast U.S. Coast Guard rum runners carrying machine guns and armed crews to patrol the outlets of East Lake and Mill Tail Creek in Dare County and stop and search every craft coming out of those waters. This newspaper has inside information that this is the next step in the government’s fight on the moonshine business of that wettest of all wet regions in Eastern North Carolina.

The spectacular raid on the East Lake distillers two weeks ago convinced Capt. McDuffie and his men that raiding the East Lake distilleries is not enough. Capt. McDuffie and 11 men armed to the teeth swooped down on East Lake with 31 warrants for the operators of 16 distilleries. They got only eight of the 16 stills and the moonshiners stole three of them back before the raiders got away from East Lake. They didn’t get any of the operators of the stills and came back with their 31 warrants unserved.

Thousands of gallons of liquor and tons of sugar and meal wee spirited away before the officers got on the ground. Let any strange craft appear at the entrances of either East Lake or Mill Tail Creek and word immediately goes down the line to every distiller to move out.

And so it is proposed now to put two fast U.S. Coast Guard rum runners in Alligator River, one to guard Mill Tail Creek, the other to guard the ne outlet of East Lake and South Lake.

There is no other way for liquor to move out of the East Lake region except thru one of the two outlets indicated. There is no way for the distillers of the East Lake region to get their supplies of corn meal, sugar and jugs except thru the mouths of East Lake and Mill Tail Creek. Transportation by mainland is impossible because there is no mainland; the whole country is one bewildering and boggy morass thru which men just do not pass.

It is the opinion of Federal prohibition enforcement officers that the only way to stop the wholesale manufacture of liquor in the East Lake region is to bottle the region up, forcing the distillers to give up their business and quit the country when they can no longer move and sell their product.

An authentic map of the East Lake region, reproduced in this newspaper to-day by courtesy of Capt. A.G. McDuffie, chief of the Federal prohibition enforcement division of Eastern North Carolina, shows the location of the East Lake distilleries and how effectively they may be bottled up; provided of course the Coast Guard patrol doesn’t sell out to the distillers.

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

You can see the map marked with locations of illegal stills at:

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Don't Believe Any Lie Told Under Cloak of Religion, May 21, 1926

“Baby With Horns” an Old Lie Come to Life. . . Thousands of Gullible Mortals Will Believe Any Lie Told Under Cloak of Religion

Marvelous tales of a child born with horns because its mother spoke irreverently to a bible peddler have been stirring the imagination of simple minded people in Elizabeth City for the past week.

The “devil” child was first reported to have been born to a colored woman in Camden County, but that was so near home that the lie wouldn’t stick, to the newspapers have changed the birthplace to Washington County.

Of course there is not a word of truth in the story. It is an old, old tale that never had any foundation in fact and which somebody revives about once every 20 or 25 years. Such tales gain currency because there are thousands of credulous folk who think that the Lord who upset all the laws of nature to work miracles in Judea thousands of years ago is due to come back and perform a few stunts for the benefit of us moderns. And the newspaper man who is keeping the lie going is having a lot fun, laughing up his sleeve at the gullibility of fool mortals who take the yarn seriously.

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

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Rev. Bowen Pleads for Modernity and Tolerance, May 21, 1926

Religion Made Ridiculous by Fool Defenders

Another Elizabeth City minister has the courage to raise a calm and dispassionate voice against the vicious and hateful howl of rabid Fundamentalism in North Carolina a plead for modernity and tolerance. Rev. Hilary T. Bowen, pastor of the First Christian Church of this city, says that the very life of Christianity is threatened today by ignorant defenders of the faith who are fighting for dead limbs of an ancient tree when they should be using the pruning knife.

“There can be nothing more pathetic than the self-styled defenders of the faith,” declares Pastor Bowen. “They are not defending the faith at all; they are making it ridiculous in the eyes of intelligent men and embroiling religion in controversies where she does not belong and where, out of her proper realm, she is foredoomed to defeat. Scientific problems are not matters for faith; they are matters for investigation.” Mr. Bowen goes on to say:

“Conventional orthodoxy is a curse to profess. It is like the dead and fruitless limbs of fruit trees, which should be trimmed each year from the live and fruitful parts of the tree. Permitting these dying, fruitless limbs to remain only indebts the energies of the tree to a fruitless future and dishonors the best that is lying dormant within its powers.

“Whenever and wherever the church puts down its pruning knife to rust, there you will find inefficiency, self-complacency, and potentalities lying at ease in Zion, while the hungry and thirsty souls of men wander in darkness trying to find home. Every man longs for home, just as the energetic powers of every tree strives for the best, within its possibilities.

“Christ used the pruning knife more lavishly than any other and more wisely too. He cut from the energetic forces of the religious life of his age the clogs of dead categories, threw into oblivion the chains that bound them to his age and gave the world a pruning knife, that if used will forever keep us free. . . . “

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

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Editor Thinks Country is Turning Socialist, and Maybe Even Communist, May 21, 1926

Running to Socialism

I used to be something of a socialist, but I dropped my socialism several years ago. What use to dream and argue and fight for a socialistic State in which every fellow will be working for the common good when we are driving ourselves into just that sort of a State anyway?

Taxes will be higher next year. Yes, and they will be higher year after year. Evry year we are taxing ourselves more and more to build better roads, better school houses, more public buildings, and to provide better sanitation, better public health and better fire and police protection, etc., etc. Presently, when we are a little more enlightened and socially minded, we shall tax ourselves to build more libraries, more hospitals and adequate recreational facilities for all the people. Higher and higher our taxes will rise to maintain more and more public enterprises.

And so, whether we like socialism or not, we are very socialists in fact and it is already apparent that the greater part of our incomes will presently be taken from us and devoted to the greater public good and welfare. Such is the trend of our times. It is not inconceivable that we may at no far distant date throw up our hands, tell the State to take it all and to assign us sleeping quarters, give us meal tickets, and an order on the public commissary for tobacco and clothes. We shall yet show Bolshevist Russia the way to do its stuff.

From the editorial page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926, W.O. Saunders, Editor and Publisher

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Small Towns Hope High-Tension Power Line Will Bring Them Electricity, May 21, 1926

Power Line to Follow Route of Most Profit. . . Super Power Engineers Surveying Entire Territory—Materials to be Ordered at Once

While a score of small towns and villages in Currituck, Camden, Chowan and Gates counties are wondering is they are to be favored by the high tension power line of the Virginia Electric & Power Co., which is to serve Elizabeth City, Herford and Edenton with super-power, engineers of the power company are surveying the entire territory and making no promises.

Whether the line will come thru Gates County from Suffolk to Edenton, or whether it will come thru Currituck and Camden Counties from Norfolk to Elizabeth City will be determined by the amount of prospective business apparent to the power company after its surveys have been completed.

If the power company can foresee a greater possible consumption of electric current in Currituck and Camden Counties than in Gates and Chowan, it is a safe bet that the line will follow the Norfolk Southern R.R. thru the villages of Moyock, Snowden, Shawboro, Beleross and Camden. This would make super-power easily available for almost all points in Camden and Currituck.

In the meantime the purchasing department of the Virginia Electric & Power Co. is busy securing prices for all materials required for the new high tension power line and will be placing its orders for these material at an early date, Frank McLaughlin vice president of the company assures this newspaper that no time will be lost in locating and building the line. Super-power for Elizabeth City, Herford and Edenton will be a fact before the Christmas holidays.

From the front page of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

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According to AI, coastal communities wanted the large, high-voltage, regionally interconnected electric power system which promised more reliable, cheaper, long-distance electricity. This new generation of electric power networks was characterized by high-tension transmission lines, interconnected utility systems, large central generating stations that provided economies of scale. Thanks, Copilot.

Mrs. Nancy Tillett, 73, Returned to Her Old Home for Burial, May 21, 1926

Mrs. Nancy Tillett

Mrs. Nancy Tillett, 73 years old, died Sunday afternoon at the home of her daughter, Mrs. G.F. Hudgins on Burgess Street. Interment was made Monday at Manns Harbor, her old home, with services conducted at the family burying ground by Rev. J.R. Beasley of Manns Harbor. Mrs. Tillett is survived by two daughters, Mrs. Hudgins of this city and Mrs. L.R. Mann of Manns Harbor; two sons, W.C. Tillett of Manns Harbour, and C.T. Tillett of Elizabeth City; two brothers, Ed Mann of Hyde County and Daniel Mann of Manteo. Mrs. Tillett was a devoted mother, a loyal church woman, and highly esteemed by all who knew her.

From page 9 of The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, May 21, 1926

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