W.C. Faries Sentenced to Electric Chair, Nov. 26, 1922

W.C. Faries, Alleged Slayer of Four, Is Sentenced to Death. . . Is Unmoved by Death Sentence; Cole Blease, His Counsel, Asks for New Trial

York, S.C., Nov. 25—William C. Faries, 60 years old, will die in the electric chair on December 29 for the slaying of Newton Taylor, aged 15, unless the higher court or the governor interferes. Date for his execution was fixed late today by Judge J.E. Peurifoy in court of general sessions after a jury earlier had found him guilty of murder.

A motion for a new trial was overruled.

Fairies went on trial yesterday morning in the first of four charges of murder against him, growing out of the fatal wounding September 6 of four members of the family of James M. Taylor at Clover. Both sides closed their case this morning and at 1:38 o’clock this afternoon the case was given to the jury. At 3:16 o’clock the jury announced it had reached a verdict and three minutes later the verdict was announced.

Faries at no time during the trial showed any trace of emotion. He received the verdict condemning him to death in the electric chair stoically.

An hour after the verdict was read, former Governor Cole L. Blease and Thomas McDow, council for Fairies, made a motion for a new trial and it was overruled.

The judge then called Faries before the bench and pronounced sentence. Standing erect and holding his black slouch hat in his hand, Faries for 11 minutes stood before the judge while sentence was pronounced.

Sentencing of Faries concludes on of the most notable cases of recent years in South Carolina. It all grew out of a children’s quarrel in the little cotton mill village of Clover. The children of James M. Taylor and those of Faries quarreled. There were several quarrels and finally the adult members of the families became involved, although never reaching the point of violence. Finally, on September 6, little John Faries, son of William, told his father that a member of the Taylor family had struck him with a stone. This, according to Faries own story on the witness stand, so provoked the elderly man that he could not stand the quarrels any longer, and getting his gun he started shooting members of the Taylor family. He said he really did not know what he was doing. Six members of the Taylor family were wounded when the smoke cleared away. Four, Newton, Lila and Fred Taylor, and Claude Johnson, their grown cousin, died.

From the front page of The Wilmington Morning Star, Sunday, Nov. 26, 1922