From time to time they are landing men in jail at Dobson and the home is getting well filled up. The latest addition to the county boarding home is John Harris, now a citizen of the state of Texas.
The story of how John came to get behind the bars is so out of the ordinary that it is news. He is a son of the Late Mrs. Caroline Harris who lived on her farm near Burch station, on the Yadkin side of the river, for her entire life, and died three months ago. John heard of his mother’s sickness and came home to be with her and was here at the time of her death. When he arrived in the state he found that the old lady living in her home with a niece, Mrs. German Brown, and her husband. The old lady soon died and was laid to rest and then the heirs proceeded to wind up the estate. Harris had not been in the home of his mother but a few days until he found that there was a woeful lack of harmony between his niece, Mrs. Brown, and her husband. Here is the situation as John claims to have found it and into the family difficulty he soon became mixed. He claims that he found himself living there in the home with the Browns and that the life they were living was too much like that of a pair of mad cats. The wife in the case was free to charge that her husband was mean to her, and now that she had come into a share of the estate of old Mrs. Harris she never intended to live with Brown another day. She freely charged that he is out of the penitentiary on parole and that he was sent up for being a blockader, and that he has followed the calling of making and selling liquor for many years. She says that he has not supported her devently for years and that he loafs about an makes liquor and sells it to the people about Burch station and works just enough to keep the officers fooled. John Harris says he knows some of this report to be true for he himself bought liquor from Brown until the family row got to a white heat. When Mrs. Brown refused to live her husband any longer his acts became so violent that she went to the law in the way of having a peace warrant issued and got Brown put under a peace bond. The next move she made was to employ a Yadkin county lawyer and start proceedings for support and divorce.
While all this was being enacted, Brown claimed to see that all his troubles were due to the interference of John Harris in his family relations and freely charged that Harris had alienated his wife’s affections. Then Harris and Brown took to carrying guns when they went about the neighborhood and talked freely about the troubles that had developed. After Brown was put under a peace bond he went to the law and had papers issued charging Harris with interfering with his family relations, or something to that effect, and some magistrate has committed John to jail because he could not give a big bond. John says that the key to the whole situation is that he has run into a bunch of North Carolina blockaders and that they are trying to run him back to Texas until Brown can get his wife back with him, and that the situation is complicated for the reason that Mrs. Brown is now independent, since coming into possession of the estate, and Brown is all the more anxious to live with her for the same reason. To make the case even more complicated the folks say that the Browns have a small child and that no court would be likely to award it to either of the parents, the father because of his criminal record and the mother because of her feeble mind.
In the meantime while all this is being threshed out the county is boarding John and he is having daily newspapers and funny literature sent over to help him while away the time he must stay at Dobson.
From The Mount Airy News, July 14, 1921, J.E. Johnson and son, publishers
No comments:
Post a Comment