He defeated the son of Jasper Jack Allen for the position. Two bullet holes Floyd Allens final shots in the massacre are still visible in the wooden steps. ")[1] Floyd Allen stated that only then did he draw his own revolver and begin shooting. On the cold spring morning of March 14th, 1912, shots rang out in the tiny rural mountain town of Hillsville, Virginia. The next morning, the jury quickly returned a guilty verdict and a sentence of a year in jail and a $1,000 fine. The end result was three people deadthe judge, the Commonwealth Attorney and the sheriff. I recently learned that our town had a number of hiding spots on the Underground Railroad. [2] Both Allen and his brother Sidna held legal licenses for the production of alcohol. More by Ralph Berrier Jr. Support Cardinal News and connect with more than 13,000 of our most engaged readers by sponsoring a Cardinal News newsletter. Newport News nuprt - -prt -6 is an independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. The agency, infamous for busting coal miner unions, breaking strikes and shooting people in West Virginia, were led by Thomas Felts from just down the road in Galax. Burden "Byrd" Marion, a cousin and neighbor, had all charges against him dropped. "[16] The judge immediately sentenced Floyd Allen to one year's imprisonment.[16]. The answer would soon become obvious. [2] Sentenced to a $100 fine and one hour in jail for wounding Jack, Floyd refused to go, saying that he "would never spend a minute in jail as long as the blood flowed through his veins". Airy, North Carolina. The flood of indictments that came just days after the shootout wail with pain, the typewritten words seething on the page while claiming that the Allens unlawfully, feloniously, wickedly and maliciously killed the sheriff and others. Allen had been convicted of a serious offense interfering with a deputy (beating up a deputy was closer to the truth) to release his nephews from custody but nothing so serious that rose to the level of instigating a deadly shootout. [4] In September 1889, after pleading no contest to the assault, Garland and Sidna were fined $5 each plus court costs, and the prosecutor dropped the weapons charges. He has a wonderful essay in there titled The American Geographies. He speaks of the need to understand the stories, the voices of memory over the land. I think that is why I always insist on exploring my neighborhoods by walking (or on bicycle) and reading about them. [29], Another witness, Walter Petty, also testified that the first shots were fired from the courtroom's northeast corner, where Claud Allen was standing. Allen later denied this, but the reported threat caused Samuels to leave the state the same night it was delivered. The play was still occasionally performed before the pandemic. -- Sidna Allen, leader of the Allen clan, which shot up the Carroll County Court at Hillsville last March, causing the death of five person, was to-day found guilty of . The bullet came up under the skin of her right breast. As the late Roanoke writer and broadcaster Seth Williamson wrote in The Roanoker magazine in 1982, the Allen men were not a race of mild country squires.. It was Thomas and his father who swore out warrants for the Edwards brothers as a result of the fight at the schoolhouse/church the next day. He said he thought Floyd's fumbling with his sweater buttons was a prelude to drawing his pistol. Menu. Officers often had a violent past. Despite taking his nephews to jail himself, Floyd was accused that he did feloniously and forcably [sic] rescue his nephews, according to a grand jury indictment. However, once the story began, it flowed better. Past month; Great transaction. It would take another tragedy, the sinking of the Titanic, to remove the focus from Carroll County. [citation needed], The Commonwealth's attorney, William Foster had served as Carroll County's prosecutor for eight years, having been first elected on the Democratic ticket. J. E. Kearn, a traveling salesman from Roanoke, testified he sold Sidna Allen a lot of ammunition at the March term of the Hillsville court, specifically 500 each of .32 and .38 caliber pistol cartridges and 500 12-gauge shotgun shells. Not knowing all the details, I wasnt sure what to do with this information. And the storys controversies, conspiracies, debates over justice and moral lessons have long outlived the verdicts and punishments that sought to settle matters more than a century ago. [1][4] Floyd had wanted to buy a farm owned by one of his own brothers, but could not agree on a price. Eventually, Carroll County deputies Thomas Pink Samuels and Peter Easter nabbed the brothers in North Carolina, shackled them and loaded them on a wagon for the long ride up the mountain, passing by Sidna Allens home and store in Fancy Gap where they were met by none other than a hot-tempered Floyd Allen, who was angered that his kinfolk were hog-tied in a wagon like livestock being carted to market. Later, the Thomas boy and others scrapped with the Edwards boys outside a church service, with the Edwards brothers getting the best of their rivals. Allen also had political run-ins with Foster, who switched parties from Democrat to Republican in order to defeat an Allen relative for the prosecutors post. As the smoke cleared the sheriff, judge, and the common wealth attorney all lay dead. Generations of Carroll Countians would grow up and grow old hearing about the shootout, arguing over who the true perpetrators were, creating and dismissing wild theories and resolving nothing. Judge Bolen confirmed his prior testimony that he saw Claud Allen fire the first shot at Judge Massie from the courtroom's northeast corner, whereupon Claud advanced toward the court officers to where Commonwealth's Attorney Foster was standing. [22], The prosecution attempted to show that Floyd and Claud Allen prompted the gun battle by standing and pulling their pistols and opening fire. After getting down the steps he leaned against the window of his office when two girls, Dora and Elizabeth Ayers, passed him. There is still question as to what happened and who shot first. [6] Governor Mann refused a request to commute the death sentences to life imprisonment, and Floyd Allen was electrocuted on March 28, 1913, at 1:20PM. Hall himself had asked Horney, who died in 2020, about the whereabouts of the trial exhibits while doing his own research. Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court Great Video Historical documentary of the 1912 Hillsville, VA courthouse shootout between the Allen family and the officers of the court. After all, he agreed hed have the boys in court? Send any friend a story As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. The U.S. Revenue Service had sent Deputy Agent Faddis to investigate reports of illegal liquor trafficking by the Allens. Floyd said that Commonwealth's Attorney Foster would not give him a show;[clarification needed] but that if he did not there would be a "big hole put in the court house." [2], Deputy Samuels was left lying unconscious in a ditch, and his horses were run off. But a year later the Hillsvile courthouse tragedy occurred and Sidna and his wife had only lived there a year. He only picked up Victors gun when he left it in the hotel room on the morning of March 14th. However, Goad denied firing the first shot in the fusillade. This story could have been written in a Creative Non-Fiction genre. - Sidna Edwards presence at Floyd Allens trial was requested by Floyds lawyers. The announcement of. Upon conviction of interfering with an officer of the law, Judge Thornton Massie oversaw the jurys imposed sentence of one year imprisonment. On the cold Spring morning of March 14th, 1912 shots rang out inside the tiny mountain courtroom. While the one Allens name is Floyd, there is also a town of Floyd and Floyd County to the north of Carroll County. Both, Walter Scott Tipton and David Winton Bolen, were retired Carroll County judges. HILLSVILLE Howard Sadler held the last words of a dead man in his hands. Too many other projects. The handwritten note, scribbled hastily in pencil on a folded piece of paper, read: We the jury find the defendant Floyd Allen guilty as charged in the within indictment and fix his punishment at confinement in the penitentiary of this state for one year., Sadler knew that William Foster, the chief prosecutor in Carroll County, had written those words at the behest of a judge. I should do better and learn more about the area I call home. Accounts differ as to whether this was for a lack of evidence, or because Marion became a state's witness and admitted his role in aiding the Allens. Otherwise, neither Sidna Edwards nor Victor Allen would have been present. Recognizing the need for immediate action, assistant clerk S. Floyd Landreth sent a telegram to Democratic Governor William Hodges Mann which read: Send troops to the County of Carroll at once. You can subscribe to the Stories podcast at Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Spotify, IHeart Radio or on your favorite podcast app. WALTERBORO, S.C. ( WCSC /Gray News) - Attorneys in the Alex Murdaugh murder trial are expected to deliver their closing arguments beginning Wednesday after jurors visited the scene of the killings . He was with his brother when the shooting occurred and was in jail with him when a vigilante mob took his brother into the jail yard and killed him. I just can't bear to see anyone drug around."[13]. Again, no thorough investigation of the courtroom happened, and the scene was almost immediately compromised by people who dug bullets out of the walls with pocketknives to keep as souvenirs. They were proud men, perhaps none more so than Floyd, who it could be said carried a log-sized chip on his shoulder. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. The following two tabs change content below. Hillsville 1912: A Shooting in the Court - Actors and actresses. Witnesses said she never looked Floyds way. [11] There was only one set of handcuffs, and because Sidna Edwards had tried to escape a couple of times, Wesley was handcuffed in the front seat of the buggy and Sidna was tied in the back seat. [4][2] Sidna promptly appealed and won a new trial on the perjury charge. I dont know too much historical facts about where I live. "[26], County Treasurer J. In 2015 or so, Sadler also found a .38 caliber bullet among the keepsakes. It is the county seat of Carroll County and the only incorporated community in the county. Its small enough for that to be possible I suspect. Mr. Allen stood and declared, "Gentlemen, I ain't a goin'." [26] He also testified that he saw the crowd come out of the court house, and recognized Floyd and Sidna Allen as the last to leave, both of them following and firing as they backed out, apparently in response to fire coming from within the courthouse. The deputy clerk of Carroll County, Dexter Goad, obtained a new warrant for the brothers' arrest, notifying the sheriff in Surry County, North Carolina, who soon arrested both men. [2] The federal court in Greensboro found him not guilty, while Sidna's alleged accomplice, Preston Dickens, was found guilty and sentenced to serve five years in federal prison. [citation needed], On the following Monday, Wesley and Sidna Edwards were turned over to the court by Floyd Allen, and the two Edwards brothers were soon tried and convicted of their crimes. Their trials took place in Wytheville. The tale of the courthouse massacre is lengthy and complicated, covering more than two years beginning with a fight in 1910, followed by Floyd Allens trial and the shootout and culminating in Floyd and Claude Allens executions in 1913. The documents were found in the basement of the Wythe County Courthouse and have now been returned to Carroll County. Upon his arrest by deputies at the hotel, Floyd attempted to slash his own throat with a pocketknife, but was overpowered before he could complete the job.[19]. The Carroll County Historical Society, INC. Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Floyd even paid their bail. That day was March 14, 1912, the day five people were killed in a shootout between members of the Allen family and court officials on the floor of a small-town courtroom, an event forever known as The Courthouse Massacre.. He never carried a gun as a matter of course, but on his way to court, the first day of Floyd Allens trial, his cousin, Allan Webb, advised him to borrow a pistol. Betty Ayers, an 18-year-old witness, was hit in the back while fleeing the courtroom and died the next day. Baldwin-Felts detectives traveled to Des Moines, arrested the suspects, and returned them to Carroll County to stand trial. Floyd, wounded too badly in the hip, thigh and knee to leave town, instead spent the night in the Elliott Hotel accompanied by his eldest son, Victor, who was later acquitted of involvement in the shootout. "Claude Allen Convicted: He Is Found Guilty of Murdering Commonwealth's Attorney Foster", Learn how and when to remove this template message, "Allen Clan Hillsville Courthouse Shootout", The Wheeling Intelligencer March 15, 1912 p.15, Transcriptions of contemporary newspaper articles, "Mug Shot Monday Special Edition: Floyd and Claude Allen", The UncommonWealth: Voices from the Library of Virginia at the Library of Virginia, The UncommonWealth: Voices from the Library of Virginia, "Hillsville Massacre - The UncommonWealth", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Floyd_Allen&oldid=1137936144, People executed by Virginia by electric chair, 20th-century executions of American people, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles with unsourced statements from October 2020, Articles needing additional references from October 2020, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from October 2020, All articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases, Articles with specifically marked weasel-worded phrases from December 2020, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Lewis Franklin Webb, Carroll County sheriff, William McDonald Foster, Commonwealth's Attorney, Augustus Cezar Fowler, juror (died of wounds), This page was last edited on 7 February 2023, at 04:22. Movies. - After the shootout ended, people in Hillsville were afraid the Allen family would come back into town and kill everyone in sight. Democratic Governor Elbert Lee Trinkle pardoned Friel Allen and Sidna Edwards in 1922. [2] His pistol empty, Allen proceeded to beat Jack with the butt of his empty revolver. But the storys roots go further back and involve politics, rivalries, clannishness, thuggery, vengeance and even a little geography. [2] Wesley Edwards tried to grapple with Easter, but Easter got away and fired a shot at Floyd as he did so, wounding Floyd in the finger. Sheriff and Commonwealth's Attorney dead, court serious. To see this handwritten verdict, I knew it was the Holy Grail and Exhibit One in the commonwealths case against Floyd Allen, Sadler said. At one time, there was another store and a tannery and a number of dairies and some local micro-distilleries (before they became popular or legal). Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. Sidna was released from prison, but he never set foot in his fine house again. Many of Allen clan members were spectators in the courtroom, most of them armed with pistols. [26] Gilmer said he heard Floyd Allen say two or three times, "I am shot, but I got the damn scoundrel. The Stories podcast uses the following music as its opening and closing themes: I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license. Sadler took the file drawer to a vault in the courthouse and dove into the trove. Wesley was sentenced to sixty days and his brother thirty, which were served outside jail on work-release. Check your inbox now to confirm your subscription. Perhaps the hardest thing for an outsider to understand is the frequently heard claim that the subject is dead. Hall has done an outstanding job researching this subjectt. Floyd Allen was going to trial. Explore the latest videos from hashtags: #truckspottinginthe717 . Massie refused, saying he was there to prosecute, not persecute.. [29] Marshall also testified he had been standing near Sheriff Webb, but did not see any pistol in the Sheriff's hand. He was not in the courthouse during the shootings, but immediately ran to his dying friend and mentor. '"[11][17] At this point, shots broke out in the courtroom. The discovered papers do little to shed new light in the darkended corners of the tragedy. [10] Rather than face arrest, the two men fled over the state line to North Carolina, where they found jobs in a granite quarry. [2] In May 1889, Floyd's brothers, Garland and Sidna Allen, were tried for carrying concealed pistols and assaulting a group of thirteen men. Site of the Bloody Massacre Photo by Author, Thelma Raker Coffone. Watch popular content from the following creators: RealAppalachia(@realappalachia), KK(@hillsvillehillbilly), Simon(@simonogrinc), Deitrich Cribbs(@big_tipper), VIVI SHARMA(@srvsharma81) . Ron Hall, a local historian who has written a book about the shootout and is considered one of the best sources for factual information about the story, told Sadler that he was probably the first person to see those documents in 100 years. Please visit their website for more information. He found trial transcripts. To be honest, nothing in the more than 180 pages of court papers adds any new information to the well-researched story of the shootout and its equally tragic aftermath. - Old timers said that when Wesley kissed the McCraw girl at the cornshucking, it wasnt out of affection for her, it was to irritate her boyfriend, John William Thomas. It was a huge goal to get this back in Carroll. The museum has extensive archive and reference materials in its resource section, as well as exhibits and artifacts that reflect the heritage of Carroll County. The author is honest and at many times in the book admits we wont know for sure what happened. The shooting began after the jury had found the defendant, Floyd Allen, guilty of forcefully releasing two prisoners (his sisters sons) from law enforcement as they were bringing the prisoners back from Mt. Attorney Howard C. Gilmer, of Pulaski, Virginia, was at Hillsville Courthouse in a room adjoining Judge Massie's courtroom when the shooting broke out. 10995 Wesley Edwards, No. So was the judge. I find myself more and more drawn to history. Sidna Allen maintained until the end of his life that this informant was Maude Iroller, Wesley's fiancee, who provided information on the fugitives' location in exchange for $500 from the detective agency.
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