Posse Catches Up With Wrong Negro, Dec. 21, 1921

Officers Chase a Wrong Negro. . . Reports That Adam Miller Had Been Captured Prove Erroneous

Excitement was rife out in the Willgrove section of the county on the Norfolk-Southern line, 13 miles from Charlotte, Wednesday morning when word was circulated in that section that Adam Miller, negro, wanted for alleged assault upon Mrs. D.F. Finger on the Monroe road Saturday night, had been turned out to be false. A negro of that section, who had been mistaken for the wanted man, was greatly relieved when, after an exciting chase, he was identified by a member of the quickly-formed posse as somebody else than Miller.

Also during the morning, the police station received a long-distance telephone call from the chief of police at Wadesboro that he was positive that he had Miller locked up. He told Desk Sergeant J.C. Mayson over the telephone that the man he held tallied in every detail with that sent out as descriptive of Miller except the overalls that he was said to be wearing when he left Charlote, and that the overalls had been found hidden in a negro restaurant in the town. A Charlotte officer, who will be able to identify Miller, was sent to Wadesboro Wednesday afternoon to look at the man being held there.

Among the many false alarms that have come to the police station in the past day or two from sections where Miller was alleged to have been seen, one from Wilgrove early Wednesday morning seemed to bear the earmarks of authenticity, and officers were at once dispatched to the community to run down the reports. Later in the morning other messages came to the same neighborhood seeming to substantiate the truthfulness of the first report and it was said there could be little doubt that the right man had been signed. He had several times previously been reported probably in that neighborhood and is known to have relatives in that part of the county. A message came about 11 o’clock that officers and a number of citizens had almost come upon him, that several shots had been fired at him and that he was apparently surrounded in a woods. The aid of volunteers was also asked to help the officers scour the woods and another car with several officers started for the scene. While the last car was enroute to the scene, with a number of cars along containing citizens of Charlotte, word came that the man the crowd had been chasing had been apprehended, but had turned out to be a harmless man of the neighborhood instead of the man wanted.

There is no clue as to the whereabouts of Miller at present, unless the man is being held at Wadesboro proves to be the man. Fred Ardrey, the negro arrested Saturday night shortly after the crime and strongly suspected of being one of the two assailants of Mrs. Finger, is still out of the city in safekeeping.

From the front page of The Charlotte News, Wednesday, Dec. 21, 1921. In an earlier article, the victim’s last name was given as Dellinger, not Finger. I don’t know which is correct.