Friday, December 8, 2023

News from Across the State, Dec. 7, 1923

State News. . .A Digest of Things Worth knowing About Old North State Folks and Things

--A collision between two automobiles upon the Wilson-?? City road resulted in a serious though not fatal injury of Mrs. M.A. Taylor of Rocky Mount.

--D. Frank Smith, well-known resident of Rocky Mount, received fatal injuries when he fell through the elevator shaft at the Edwards-Cutchin Company’s building.

--Williard Dickerson, 2 ½-years old son of Mr. and Mrs. Dorsel Dickerson, West Durham, died in Watt’s hospital from burns suffered in playing near a bonfire of leaves.

--Brady Harrell died in a hospital at Mount Airy as the result of a pistol shot wound in the abdomen accidentally inflicted on himself when fooling with a pistol he though was not loaded.

--News was received of the suicide of C.L. Edwards, traffic officer on the highway between Rocky Mount and Tarboro, which occurred at his ho me in the Edgecombe county capital Saturday.

--Davidson College officials announced receipt of a bequest of $50,000 from the estate of the late Robert K. Smith, former vice-president of P. Lorillard Tobacco Company and one of the founders of the American Tobacco Company.

--Thieves entered the home of A. Oettinger at Goldsboro and stole jewelry valued at $10,000, according to a report made to the police. The jewelry consisted of two pearl necklaces, rings, a watch and other articles.

--Contracts were awarded by the building committee of the board of trustees of the North Carolina College for Women at Greensboro for two new dormitories, a physical education building and an addition to a dining hall, the latter including an addition.

--Rev. S.M. Davis, pioneer Methodist preacher, widely known religious writer and one of the few remaining historic “circuit riders” of the State, was found dead in his bed at the home of his nice in Caroleen.

--Found guilty by a jury in Nash County superior court, Lee Washington, negro, will pay the death penalty for his attack upon Mrs. H.J. Harding, wife of an Atlantic Coast Line section foreman, at her home near Momeyer several weeks ago.

--More than half of the 750 members of the freshmen class at the University of North Carolina are wholly dependent on themselves for support, and are working their way through college as self-help students, according to Dean Francis F. Bradshaw.

--Miss Catherine Clarke of Bladen County, champion club girl of the State, left for Chicago to attention the National Convention of Club Boys and Girls. Miss Clarke won the trip to the convention when she scored highest in club work at the State Fair. [This club work is the forerunner to current 4-H Clubs.]

--James Blue, fireman of Aberdeen, N.C., was instantly killed when the engine of the freight train on which he was working turned completely over on the Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad, 11 miles west of Raeford. The engineer and brakeman escaped without injury, according to reports.

--Roy Noring, a young Norwegian about 30 years of age, while at work on a guy pole about 60 feet high used in the construction of a tank for the Little-Dewey Veneering Company of Whiteville, lost his life when the guy wire supporting the pole slipped, causing the pole to fall.

--Ethel Allen, negro woman, while drunk and chasing her husband on Elm street chief thoroughfare at Greensboro, took a shot at him and missed him, but hit a blind white man, Clyde Pence, newspaper salesman. Pence was hit in the hip and badly hurt, but will recover, it is thought.

--Willliam M. Petteway of Kinston, widely known among employees of three railroads, has entered his 37th year as a locomotive driver. His engine bears his name on a brass plate. There are three other engines on the Norfolk Southern similarly distinguished. Petteway is the youngest of the four “decorated” drivers on the road.

--Roy Baldwin, a young white man about 18 years of age, was fatally injured when the lighting plant back of W.E. Merritt’s store at Hallsboro exploded. It is supposed that the young man, who was smoking a cigarette, struck a match and the gas which was escaping around the generator ignited, causing the explosion.

--W.E. Woodfin of Littleton, federal prohibition agent, shot and killed Grover Bradley, prominent country merchant of Northampton County. Bradley has two brothers who under indictment in federal court charged with operating the largest whiskey still ever captured in North Carolina.

--J.F. Goolsby, Southern Railway agent at Donnaha near Winston-Salem committed suicide by shooting himself in the head with a single barrel shot gun. The entire top of his head was blown off. It is said that the shot was fired within a few minutes after he arrived at the station.

--A.M. Thompson, 65-year-old carpenter and contractor of Raleigh, is dead and E.H. Cook, age 23, a mechanic of Durham, is held in Wake county jail as the slayer following a shooting affair at the home of Mrs. Bettie Spikes, a widow more than 50 years old. Mrs. Spikes is being detained in the city jail as an important witness.

--The trial of Doc McCoy, negro, on a charge of shooting Rufus Beard, wealthy farmer, from ambush near Bailey about two years ago, came to a sudden end in Nash County Superior Court when McCay submitted to a second degree murder count and was sentenced to 30 years in the penitentiary by Judge G.W. Connor.

--The major portion of the increased cost of public education in North Carolina is accounted for by the increased load that the schools are carrying, and by the lowered purchasing power of the dollar, according to a careful study made by Mr. H.E. Austin of the teachers College faculty, and presented to the Greenville Kiwanis Club.

--The second flogging to take place in Nash County within almost as many weeks occurred one night last week, according authentic reports from Nashville, when Hendry Gardner, member of a prominent family of the county, was taken from the home of Annie Viverette, a young woman who resided in Cooper’s township, carried some distance into the woods and given a lashing.

--Charged with attempting to criminally assault a 14-year-old white girl about 7:30 o’clock Monday night at Goldsboro, Jim Bryant, 22 years old, negro farmer, was given a preliminary hearing in City Court before Mayor Edgar H. Bain, who bound the negro over to the January term of Wayne county Superior Court in default of a $5,000 bond.

--With Dr. E.D. Brooks, president of N.C. State College, and Judge R.W. Winston, now of Chapel Hill, as the principal speakers, the new vocational building at the Cary High School erected at a cost of $45,000 out of bonds authorized in 1920, was dedicated in the name of Walter Hines Page, Ambassador to Great Britain, who received his primary education on the spot now occupied by the Cary School.

--While the Baptists as a whole in North Carolina are somewhat short of their quota of the $76 Million Campaign, the report of the Women’s Missionary Union, which will go to the convention meeting in Gastonia next Tuesday, will show that the organization asked to be responsible for $1,100,000 of the North Carolina quota, has already raised $1,217,050.

--“What education in North Carolina needs, white and black alike, is a few more real teachers and a few less time servers,” Miss Ellizabeth Kelley, president of the State Educational Association told a thousand members of the Negro State Teachers Assembly in Raleigh, speaking before the second session of the annual convention being held in the City Auditorium.

--John H. Barnhardt, aged 55, and Chas. R. Otterburg, aged 32, both salesmen of Spencer are dead as a result of one of the worst motor accidents in that section, when a large truck owned by the company and driven by Mr. Barnhardt went down a six-foot embankment on the State highway at the northern limits of Spencer while returning from a trip to several country villages near town.

--One of the most interesting cases slated for trial at the coming term of superior court at Wilmington is that brought by Miss Ida Anderson against W.K. Allen, well-known civil engineer and surveyor, in an effort to recover $10,000 in damages for alleged physical pain and humiliation suffered through her acquaintance with the defendant. Breach of promise and seduction are the basis on which the suit is brought.

--The Southern Public Utilities Company announced negotiations are regarded as nearly completed for the sale of $4 million in bonds, proceeds of which will be extended in payment for the Mountain Island hydro-electric development, near Charlotte, which will be placed in operation within a few months. The proposed bond issue is contingent on completion of negotiations with the Southern Power company for a long-term lease on the Mountain Island development and acceptance of the mortgage.

--Probable cause was found against Captain A.C. Skelton, master of the wreck British schooner Pilot, and all members of his crew at a preliminary hearing in Beaufort before a United States commissioner. Captain Skelton and his first mate, H. Moran, furnished $1,500 bail each and were released. The entire personnel of the crew will be tried in Federal Court in Raleigh on a charge of violating the Volstead act.

From The Independent, Elizabeth City, N.C., Friday, Dec. 7, 1923

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