Mr. E.L. Flowers, who returned last night from the sandhill country, was near Carthage when three negroes, now in the penitentiary at Raleigh, attacked Mrs. A.E. Ketchen of Miami, Fla., shot her husband through the breast and robbed their tent Thursday night. Mrs. Ketchen was outraged by two of the negroes, the other robbing the camp of the wounded husband.
News of the outrage did not become known until yesterday morning, all telephone lines being closed at night, and immediately after the news spread a mob of 300 men in automobiles followed Sheriff Blue to Raleigh. He drove a fast car and beat the crowd to the state prison by 45 minutes, Mr. Flowers said.
Excitement in the community was intense and men who went to the scene for the purpose of reasoning with the crowd were filled with the same feeling that actuated the mob, the Hickory man said. If the sheriff had not got a good start, the mob would have lynched his prisoners.
Mrs. Ketchen, who lost consciousness for more than an hour, dragged herself back to the camp where her husband lay bleeding from a wound in the breast, and carried her 15-month-old child 400 yards to a farm house, where the alarm was given. Mr. Flowers talked with Mrs. Ketchen yesterday.
From the front page of The Hickory Daily Record, Saturday, Aug. 5, 1922
No comments:
Post a Comment