Saturday, February 11, 2012

Revenue Officer Killed

The Washington Post, 11 January 1905, page 1:

KILLED ON REVENUE RAID.

Member of Tennessee Posse Shot by Alleged Moonshiners.

Knoxville, Tenn., Jan. 10. -- John Carver, a member of a posse of revenue officers in charge of Capt. Kit Spears, of the local raiding force, was shot and instantly killed in Cocke County, Tenn., this morning while on a raid.

The officers has located and destroyed a seventy-gallon still just across the State line in North Carolina, and had arrested Wilson Price, one of the owners, while he was at work in the distillery. Carver and Oscar Hopkins, another posse man, were sent to the home of John Brown, a partner in the still, to arrest him. Brown refused to admit the officers, but instead shot over the door of his log cabin home, killing Carver instantly. The full charge of buckshot entered Carver's breast, tearing out his hear. Brown escaped.

Price was brought to Newport, Tenn., and jailed there. This isthe first death on a revenue rais in this section since Sheriff Dosser [sic], of Cocke County, was killed about four years ago within 400 yards of where to-day's tragedy occurred.

Sheriff "Dosser" is most likely a reference to Joseph S. Dawson, a 31-year-old Cocke County Sheriff who was shot and killed 20 April 1899 in Haywood County, North Carolina, while on a moonshine raid.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

Railroad Construction Deaths

Atlanta Journal, 16 December 1906, page 1:

Dynamite Kills Six Persons

Fatal Accident to Railroad Workmen in North Carolina.

Knoxville, Tenn December 15 -- Six men met instant death this afternoon in a dynamite explosion about 24 miles from Newport Tenn. and just across the state line in North Carolina. They were employed in railroad construction, building an extension to the Tennessee and North Carolina railroad. A load of dynamite for a blast exploded while being tampered, tearing 6 men into shreds and seriously injuring a seventh. The victims, who were all white men of families living in the vicinity of Mount Sterling, were:

HAMILTON SUTHERLAND
ALFRED SUTTON
WILLIAM SUTTON
HARRISON BROWN
TIPP HALL