Alabama Assault

Among the members of any family there are always those who seem to be unlucky, or lucky, enough to have events happen to them that others seem to pass by.  Usually these selected family member’s stories are just a bit more vivid than those others who live an entire lifetime without making or leaving a ripple on life’s surface.  One such person that made newspaper headlines, certainly through no apparent fault of her own was Nellie Marie Lawton, born November 14, 1884 in St. Joseph, Michigan.  Nellie’s mother died while Nellie was young.

Of this item I know only in general, specific details have passed me by, but I am aware that the Courtland Enterprise newspaper dated August 13, 1897 stated in a story that “the three Negroes named Lewis Thompson, Walter Neville, and Rosa Binford were found guilty of assaulting little Nellie Lawton at Decatur, and sentenced to hang on Tuesday, September 7.”  I do not know if the sentence was actually carried out, but I suppose it was.

Nellie obviously survived her harrowing experience, whatever it may have been exactly, as she married in 1905, and raised a fine family of 8 children of which I have made the acquaintance of some of her descendants.

I have wondered about this event for many years with little way of learning more about it, but I wonder if any relative of mine might have an interest of going to the nearby Decatur Library to search through dusty old newspaper files to see what could be learned of this sad occasion?  As justice was much swifter in those days, than within our maddeningly slow courts of today, I suspect the assault took place not too long before the trial, and probably in the spring or summer of 1897.

What's For Lunch

When I was a much younger version of what I am today, I used to like to hunt.  That is the pursuance and taking of game animals.  On many occasions when I returned from an excursion, and was asked what my success had been, I might say, “Well, I didn’t actually get anything, but I saw a lot of tracks of one thing or another.”  My daddy always smiled as he told me that tracks make poor soup.

Well, that was easy for him to say.  He wasn’t out there slogging through the deep snow carting an old single-shot .22 caliber rifle trying to bag a rabbit that was running at about 90 miles an hour.  Yet, he was correct in that what I had bagged could leave a fellow awful hungry.

Today though was one of those days.  I rode my ATV back through the meadows and woods to see what I could see, and like those days of yore, I saw nothing but tracks.  Because my daddy said so, I know they don’t make good soup, but it’s the best I could do.  At any rate I spotted a set of hoof prints made by a large whitetail deer.  It was heavy enough that each print splayed at the front leaving an exceptionally wide print.  I suspect it was a large doe, heavy with young, but maybe not.

I also spotted, in near proximity, a set of dog-like tracks that I suspect were more than likely a coyote as they are prevalent in the area, and with little doubt would love a taste of venison after a lean winter spell.

The large turkey flock I spotted a month or more ago I believe has broken up as I spotted turkey tracks in many places, but none seemed to be of large flocks.  A few here, and a few there, and a total probably of many, but not all together.  I suppose they are preparing for their summer groupings of young toms (called Jakes), older toms, and the hens singling out for nesting.

As if that were not enough veiled excitement for one day, I also saw a perfect set of small cat-like tracks of some sort.  It is possible they were made by a common house cat, but also they may have been by some other small animal.  As I stated a few days ago, I am not good enough to recognize many different types or species of animal tracks. Skunks come out of their winter dens for breeding about this time of the year, so it may have been one of those.

You Must Leave

I doubt there is a person born in South Carolina that doesn’t know December 20, 1860 was Secession Day.  The South Carolina Convention voted 169 – 0, “that the union now subsisting between South Carolina and other states under the name of United States of America is hereby dissolved.”

It was January 11, 1861 when Winborn Lawton wrote his will in which his son Winborn Wallace (AKA Wallace) Lawton became the owner of the Hundred Pines Plantation across the Ashley from Charleston.  March 24^th Winborn died.

April 14^th after 34 hours of continuous bombardment Major Anderson commander of the Union garrison on Fort Sumter surrendered, and the Confederate and South Carolina flags were raised.  (Major Anderson’s daughter Eba would one day marry James Marsland Lawton of New York City and Havana.)

November 1861 brought word from Confederate President Jefferson Davis that the military decision had been made that the islands around Charleston, including James Island, were indefensible and thus needed to be evacuated.  Wallace was taken aback.  Evacuate to where?  How?  Wallace stalled until 1863, but finally decided it wise to move.

He purchased a plantation of about 3,000 acres some 6 miles from Lawtonville in Beaufort District, southwest of Charleston, near to where his sister Juliet and her husband Asa Waring Lawton lived.  The day finally came when over 100 people, cattle, mules, and all equipment needed for the plantation, as well as bedding, household goods, and items too many to begin to enumerate, began that overland trip of 75 to 80 miles.  What a nightmare it must have been.  Wallace’s brother Powell and three others went ahead by ten days to locate overnight havens with water sources, and to prepare the new plantation for their arrival as best as possible.

Enter Henry Ware Lawton

By the end of the Civil War Henry Ware Lawton had moved through the ranks from Private to Brevet Colonel although he had yet to attain the age of 22, unheard of for a non-academy graduate.  Along the way, he had earned a Congressional Medal of Honor.  At the end of the war he left the Army to attend Harvard Law School.  The Army at that point went through a great transformation period, downsizing from the massive Civil War force.  The young hero Lawton accepted a Second Lieutenant appointment in the new streamlined Army.  He was elevated to First Lieutenant and became Regimental Quartermaster for the 4^th Cavalry under Ranald S. Mackenzie in 1871 for the next ten years.

At the time Mackenzie attacked Dull Knife’s village in 1876, Henry Ware Lawton was quartermaster of the column, responsible for supplying the unit with whatever their needs might be.  A short while after the attack, the Sioux, Crazy Horse, surrendered his tribe to the Army at Fort Robinson in Nebraska Territory.  Dull Knife’s Cheyennes went with the Sioux.  The Southern Cheyennes had been beaten in battle previously and were on a reservation in Texas.  These Northern Cheyennes were told they must go live with their Southern brethren, and that Lawton would escort them there.

During the march from Nebraska to Texas the Cheyenne asked for weapons so they might hunt the occasional buffalo and antelope.  Lawton, who believed that a man’s word was to be trusted, issued the warriors thirty rifles and ammunition.  A total of 972 Cheyennes began the trip southward, and 937 arrived at Fort Reno, three weeks ahead of schedule.  The remainder had died along the journey.

The next month Lawton heard that the Cheyenne were being mistreated, so he spent a week among them watching their food distribution and listening to their complaints.  He then filed a report, through Mackenzie, which they pursued all the way to Washington.

Fort Sill, in Oklahoma, is near the city of Lawton, named for the former indian fighter that fought from its confines.

A Winter Journey

It was November of 1876, some five months after the battle of the Little Bighorn, with the Cheyenne, Dull Knife, wintering in his village of 150 lodges.  During the night Captain Ranald S. Mackenzie moved his troops into attacking position.  As dawn approached he sent in his allied Pawnee mercenaries to attack the Cheyenne yet asleep in their lodges.  Many Cheyenne warriors were slain while awakening, while others rushed naked into subfreezing temperatures to fight the Pawnee until the women and children could escape.  As Mackenzie entered the empty village he ordered all indian horses shot, and all saddles and equipment burned.

After the savage attack, the remaining Cheyenne knew only one place of refuge, Crazy Horse’s village on Box Elder Creek.  With few horses, and scarcely any blankets or moccasins, they set out on a forced march leaving a bloody trail in the snow where they passed.  The first night twelve infants, and several older members froze to death.  The second night some mounts were slain and infants placed inside body cavities to keep them from freezing.  Elders thrust hands and feet in with the infants.  They tramped across frozen snow covered ground for three days, the trail ever more marked with blood, before finally reaching Crazy Horse’s camp.

Crazy horse shared what his people had, but warned Dull Knife’s people to be prepared to run as he had not enough ammunition remaining to stand and fight the white man.

Here We Go Again

Does that truck look familiar?

A media release under the name of Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman gives us the information that New York State and the United Parcel Service (UPS) have reached an agreement for a $1,300,000 settlement resolving allegations that UPS knowingly permitted trucks in a state of serious disrepair to be driven and operated on the highways and byways of the state.  The release further stated that UPS had received a license from New York State to perform their own yearly truck safety  inspections.  UPS also agreed to abide by the state and federal laws pertaining to maximum driver hours, vehicle loaded weight limits, and the securing of cargo.

It is very easy to think that New York State taught UPS a lesson with a fine of that magnitude, but let’s rethink this deal.

How did UPS ever get the right to inspect their own vehicles?  If this isn’t a case of the fox guarding the henhouse then I have never heard of one.  This stinks of corruption in government to a high degree.  It makes a complete mockery of the entire safety inspection program in New York State.  Any fool could see the problems of this arrangement in a business setting.  Yes, almost as if scheduled, the UPS trucks began operating with seriously rotted frames risking the lives of every person driving the roads of New York State that came near them.

Now, what was that again about agreeing to abide by the laws of the state in regard to driver hours and such as a part of the settlement?  Are you trying to tell me that New York State laws are arbitrary, and there are choices as to obeying them or not?  Why were these laws not being enforced to begin with?

Next is the matter of the fine.  It obviously is large, although it is probable that it is only a very small portion of the profits that UPS acquired by the illegal use of falsely inspected vehicles, keeping them on state highways long after their true service life was seriously impaired.  Where does this fine money come from?  Of course, it comes from the UPS company income.  Where does this income come from?  Of course, from the public.  Whether you personally use UPS service or not, you still pay for it every time you buy any goods from a dealer that does use their service, which is practically all retailers.

So, not only were the citizens of New York placed in jeopardy by this entirely shady operation, they must now, adding insult to injury, pay for the UPS indescretions.  This is nothing more than a form of illegal taxation placed on the citizens of New York State.  UPS collects money from the public and turns it over to the state for state use.

 I think it is high time some court proceedings are in order.  Possibly a bit of time spent in the slammer for those who would break the state laws would be much more appropriate than charging the citizens of New York

Carolina Catastrophe

Winborn Wallace Lawton, always known as Wallace, was born January 31, 1837.  He was the great grandson of William Lawton the first known Lawton in the South Carolina low country along the Atlantic Coast.  Wallace’s father, Winborn, had established The Hundred Pines plantation on James Island, across the Ashley River from Charleston before the War of 1812.  As a part of his will, Winborn sold the plantation to his son Wallace in 1861.  Wallace married a cousin, 16-year-old Cecilia Lawton, September 20, 1864, during the Civil War.  After the war was over, the plantation was in financial trouble with the lack of slave labor.  A year and a week after the wedding Wallace was in the process of selling a section of land to his sister Juliet’s husband, yet another cousin, Asa Waring Lawton born in 1831.

Wednesday, September 28, 1865 was the date set for the signing of the paperwork effecting the transfer of property.  Asa’s brother Judson, and Wallace’s brother Josiah, always known as Powell, were there as witnesses to the signing.  After the signing of the papers there was a dispute about taxes associated with the transfer of property ending with a brief scuffle between Wallace and Asa, with the much larger Asa getting the best of it.

Cecilia, knowing her husband’s propensity toward violence, gave Wallace’s pistol to Powell and told him to leave with it.  Outside Wallace threatened to kill his brother if his pistol was not returned so Powell gave it to him.  At that point, Wallace shot his cousin Asa killing him.

As this was immediately after the Civil War Wallace was arrested and brought up on charges at a military proceeding.  He was found guilty of  the charge of murder, but with no malice aforethought, and therefore it was considered an excusable action.  So ended another tragic sequence of events among the extended Lawton family members.