From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C.,
Aug. 15, 1919
Photographs That Tell
the Horrible Story
The Gates County Home
for the Poor
A partial view of the
County Home of Gates county. In two ramshackle shanties of this type are housed
the indigent poor who have fallen in the battle of life and rely upon that
county for food, raiment and shelter.
This Photograph Does
Not Lie
Last week this
newspaper told the remarkable story of how A.S. Walker, keeper of the County
Home of Gates County, cut off the legs of Nelson Doughty, an inmate of that
institution using a handsaw and a butcher knife. The County’s Commissioners of
Gates paid Walker $5 for the operation. Here then is a true photographic copy
of Walker’s sworn statement in which he noted the charge of $5 “for cutting off
Nelson Doughty’s legs.” Photo by W.O. Saunders
Nelson Doughty
This is Nelson
Doughty, the victim of the barbarous “surgery” of the keep er of the Gates
County Poor Home. Nelson is just an idiotic, helpless, friendless black boy. In
the severe winter of December 1917 his feet froze, due to lack of clothing and
fuel provided at the County Home. He was permitted to crawl about with his dead
feet until they began to rot and fall off from the bone. And the keeper of the
County Home took a handsaw and a butcher knife and cut off the offensive
members, just below the knees. The Board of Commissioners of Gates County paid
the keeper $5 for his sorry job. This did not occur among the Bolshevik in
Siberia, nor among the Huns in Belgium prior to the signing of the armistice.
It occurred in the Christian county of Gates, famed for its robust Americanism
and its bald-headed piety. Only this newspaper has dared to get the facts and
give them to the public. Gates county will redeem itself in the eyes of the
outside world not until it has inflicted the severest possible penalties upon
the men in authority in that county who permitted this barbarous deed. The fact
that the victim of the horror is only an ignorant, friendless Negro makes the
infamy all the more damnable. The accompanying illustration is from a photo by
W.O. Saunders.
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NOT GUILTY--Yes, He Sawed Off Negro's Legs, But That's Not A Crime
From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Dec.
19, 1919
Keeper Walker Was
Acquitted. . . Cutting Off Negro’s Legs With Hacksaw Is Not a Crime in Gates
A.S. Walker, keeper of the Gates County Home for the Poor,
was acquitted of a charge of assault by a Gates County Jury last week. The
charge grew out of the fact that Mr. Walker had amputated the legs of a Negro
inmate of the County Home with a hack saw and a butcher knife. The gruesome
facts and photographic evidence of the horror were published in this newspaper,
issues of August 8 and 15, 1919.
Chairman S.I. Harrell and two other members of the Board of
Commissioners of Gates County were convicted in the same court last week on a
charge of neglect in the administration of the affairs of the County Home. They
were taxed with the costs of the case only.
In the severe winter of 1917-18 Nelson Doughty, a weak
minded colored boy in the Gates County Home had both of his feet to freeze.
When his feet became rotten and offensive the following summer the keeper of
the home, A.S. Walker was convinced that the feet should be amputated. Gates
county na no regular county physician and the doctor who served the county on
call didn’t find it convenient to perform an operation on the crazy Negro at
the poor house. So Keeper Walker armed himself with a hacksaw and a butcher knife
and performed the job himself. The first operation wasn’t altogether
satisfactory, so he performed a second, sawing the legs off near the knees. The
Negro lived and the Board of Commissioners was so pleased with the operation
and the economy of $5 “for cutting off Nelson Doughty’s Legs.”
Public opinion was so outraged when the facts came out, that
the prosecution of Walker and the Board of commissioners was demanded. The
prosecution resulted about as such prosecutions usually result where the
interests of white men influence are involved on the one side against the
interests of an “ordinary nigger” on the other side.
Let it not be thought however that the prosecution was
without wholesome results. The prosecution together with the publicity given by
this newspaper turned the attention of the good people of Gates county to the
niggardly and neglectful administration of their County Home. The keeper of
that home was allowed only $3.50 to $4.50 a month for the board of each inmate.
Imagine, if you can, what food one gets these days for $4.50 a month or about a
dollar a week! But all that has been changed; the Commissioners of Gates now
allow $15 per month for the board of each inmate in the County Home and it will
be a long time before another Board of Commissioners in that county tries to
save the county’s funds at the expense of the county’s poor.
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