The Bonham News. (Bonham, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 73, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 12, 1907 Page: 1 of 4
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onham
•WE WILUDO OUR BEST TO BE RIGHT, LET HIM FIND FAULT WHO MAY.’
AND
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BONHAM. FANNIN COUNTY, TEXAS, TUESDAY. FEBRUARY 12, 1907
NUMBER 73
&
Description of the Stirring Times
In Texas and Fannin Comity
On the Eye of (he Straggle
The race for the presidency in
1860 was the most exciting con-
test ever shown in the United
States. The agitation of the
slavery question was opened by
the repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise, which led to the Kansas
war. That war was waged, to
force the abolition of slavery and
was the first more against the
local government ot states, which
were protected .by .the constitu-
tion of the general government.
The Free Soil Party was backed
•by the New England Emigrant
Society, which furnished them
bo*h money and Sharp rifles for
the contest, the guns being ship>
ped to Texas labeled “books”
and were called “Butcher’s Bi-
»* Kansas soon became the
of a desperate struggle in
which looting, robbery, midnight
assassination and mobs were
common.
John Brown, one of the leaders
of the Abolition Party, made his
raid into Virginia to excite an
insurrection of the negroes, and
. it was believed that he was in-
stigated to that desperate under-
taking by the fanatical aboli-
tionists ot the north, consequent-
ly the news of it aroused the
most angry feeling of resentment
all over Texas. Such was the
condition of the public mind
when Abraham Lincoln was nom-
inated as president of the Unit-
ed States. During the summer
of 1861, the excitement was stim-
ulated by what was regarded as
incendiary acts in the almost si*
multaneous t burning of several
smallltowns, gins, and mills and
the assassination of several citi-
zens; the most conspicuous of the
atrocious acts being committed
in Dallas and Fannin County. In
Bonham the little child of Mr.
Alfred Pace was murdered by his
negro woman; she expiated her
crime on the same oak tree on
which several evil doers had
ended their lives. Mr. Thomas
Kincaid, wife and little sou,
aged about five years, were mur-
dered by twoot their negro men.
Jess and Rube and a woman,
wife of Old Jess, belonged to Mr.
Berbee Kincaid, who lived about
two miles southeast of White-
wright, and, late in the night,
when all the family were asleep,
the negroes entered the house
and killedJiim and his wife with
axes. The noise they made in
perpetrating the horrible deed
awoke Mr. Kincaid’s little son’
who begged’old Jess not to kill
him, but the incarnate fiend, act-
ing upon'the principle that the
dead tell no tales, split his head
open with an ax. The negroes
were caught, confessed their
guilt, and were hung. Rube and
the old woman were buried, but
the body of Old Jess was turned
over to Dr. W. P. Wead. who
dissected it and hung the skele-
ton up in his barn. Besides be-
ing useful to the doctor in his
profession, it was the strongest
guard he could have put over his
barn and its contents. No negro
or superstitious .white person
would enter the barn^after dark-
ness had gathered oyer the land.
I learned that when Grayson
College was established the
bones of Old Jess were turned
oyer to it; if so, they were reduc-
ed to ashes when that institution
went up in flames a few years
There is no doubt that crimes
were incited by emissaries, chief-
ly professed ministers of the gos-
pel, from the northern and west-
ern states. Immediately * after
the execution of the Kincaid as-
sassins an old Northern Method-
ist preacher named Elrod, who
lived on Bois’d Arc, near the
Kincaid farm, left the county
and sought a more healthy cli-
mate on the Pacific coast. Those
preachers ’circulated among the
negroes, and white people who
were in sympathy with them,
numerous papers and pamphlets
containing all the extraordinary
cases of cruelty to slaves, collect-
ed on the high Seas, the West
Indies, and the United States to-
gether with such inflamatory
speeches and sermons as were
calculated to excite insubornation
and insurrection among them
and expose the county to all the
horrors of a servile war.
Popular excitement became in-
tense; public meetings were rap-
idly held throughout the state,
and organizations were formed.
In 1859 the Northern Methodist
Church attempted to hold a con-
ference on Red River, in Fannin
County, Bishop Jones of Massa-
chusetts presiding. The citizens
of Bonham held a mass meeting,
adopted resolutions appropriate
to the occasion and appointed a
committee of which Judge Saniu-
al A. Roberts was chairman, to
wait on the conference and in-
form them that their presence
was embarassing to the good
people of the county and they
must leave. When the commit-
tee arrived at the school house
where the conference met, the
Bishop had iust begun his ser-
mon. Judge Roberts stopped
him and read the document from
the mass-meeting. The Bishop
made no reply to it, but asked
permission to finish his sermon,
which was readily granted, and
Judge Roberts said.it was one of
the most elegant sermons he ev-
er listened to. When it was end-
ed the Bishop told his brethren
they could do as they pleased,
but as for himself he was going
to leave immediately and he did
so. The brethren followed his
example, and there has never
been a conference of that kind in
the county since.—Old Choc in
the Trenton News.
EFFORTS FOR PEACE
Good offices of This Country and
Mexico Will be Asked.
GUARD AMERICAN INTERESTS
Cruiser Chicago Has Gone Southward
and the Gunboat Yorktown is
to follow.
Washington, Feb. 7.—There is
danger of an outbreak of war in
Central America, according to
advices which have reached
Washington, although efforts for
arbitration are being made in the
city of San Salvador in the hope
of preventing hostilities. To
guard against any danger to
Ameri can - interests, the State
Department has suggested to the
Navy Department that one or
more naval vessels be sent to
Central America. The Chicago
has gone southward from San
Francisco, and the Yorktown,
after receiving the necessary re-
pairs in dry dock, will follow.
Senor Cordova, who occupies
the position of representative of
Sal/ador and Honduras at this
capital, called at the State De-
partment today to have a talk
with Secretary Root, It appears
there is complaint that the Nicar-
aguans are continuing warlike
preparations and increasing thtf
military forces on the border of
Honduras.
Mr. Murry, the American Min-
is’er to Costa Ricq, Nicaragua
and San Salvador, had a great
deal to do with bringing about
the agreement to submit the dis-
pute to arbitration, and as the
Mexican Government was a pow-
erful influence in the first in-
stance, it is believed that its good
offioes and those of this country
will again be invoked to relieve
the pre sent tension.
--m m m-
Drunkenness in America.
Dallas News.
There is hardly any other sen-
tence that is repeated so often in
the United States as “Have a
drink with me,” unless it is the
remark of jthe other fellow to the
bartender, “Fill’em up again.”
The fact that New York spends
a million dollars a day for drinks
shows how expensive is the age
in which we are living. In. the
time of Charles II. the keepers ot
9
alehouses in England used to ad-
vertise to “make a man drunk
for a penny, and find him straw
on which to lie until he recovered
his faculties.”
When I called on a man who
sitSup nights figuring on the
*-r.
$10,000.00
BIG BANKRUPT SALE
OF WATCHES, DIAMONDS, JEWELRY
AND SILVERWARE, FOR TEN DAYS
This stock was purchased for fifty cents on the dollar and is the
biggest MONEY SAVING SALE of the kind ever made in Bonham
|j A FEW PRICES
Rogers 1847 knives and forks, per dozen, regular price $5.00, bankrupt price.............................. • 3.00
Pearl handle knives and forks, per dozen, regular price$24.00, bankrupt price........... ...................... 12.50
Eight day clock, any make, regular price $4.00, bankrupt price...........................:.................., 2.50
Sterling silver extra heavy teaspoons, regular price $6.00, bankrupt price................-v................ 3.50 ^
Sterling silver extra heavy tablespoons, regular price $15.00, bankrupt price................................ 10.00
Elegant 8-inch cut glass powls, Hawkes’ make, regular price $6.00, bankrupt price.......................... 3.00
Twenty-year gold-filled Waltham and Elgin watch, regular price $18.00, bankrupt price..................... 11.50
More than 1000 solid gold rings will be sold at half price. Many
beautiful broaches, emblem pins, stick pins, cuff buttons, charms, fobs.
Also the largest display of cut glass ever on display in Bonham
totals of the liquor traffic he told
me that the annual consumption
of drinks in the United States
.was $1,400,000,000. I asked him
if he could not dilute that state-
ment so as to make it more un-
derstandable, and the next day I
got a note from him saying:
“If all the beer drunk in the
United States since the year
1876 were brought together it
would fill a canal stretching
from New York to Denver—a
canal ten feet wide, twenty feet
deep and 1,938 miles long.” If
I could get some one e’.se to
figure out how many .“schooners”
could be floated on this canal
the comparison would be com-
plete.
The Nation’s drink bill figures
out one-third more than the
public debt; •. twice as much as
the capital stock in the banks; a
little less than the capitalization,
of all our trusts and industrial
combinations; one-half the value
of our domestic animals; more
than one-balf the value ot all
our farm products; more than
one-twelth more than our total
exports. '
If each individual, regardless
of age or sex, had drunk his pro
rata ot liquor in 1876 he would
have consumed eight gallons;
but now the proportion is a little
more than twenty gallons. The
great increase is attributed to
the influx of foreign immigrants
who drink much beer. It is esti-
mated that three-fourths of our
population are total abstainers,
which would make every fourth
person who does drink consume
on an average $7Q worth of li-
quor each year. If that portion
of our population which has the
drink habit should abstain for a
year and provide a fund tor the
savings it would start every illit-
erate child in the United States
on the wav to a college educa-
tion, and if the drinkdfs of the
world Were to deny their thirst
for eighteen months their sav-
ings would buv every ounce of
gold in existence.
Half of the twenty million peo-
ple . who drink in this country
constitute the dangerous e 1 e-
ment of our population and are
confined largely to the slums of
the larger cities. - Thoce who
study the source of crime and
poverty claim that 75 per cent of
all such cases is caused by drink-
ing. The use of wines and spirits
is on a decrease in the United
States, while beer is becoming
more popular.1 We have fewer re-
tail liquor dealers now than there
were a year ago, while the num-
ber of places where beer is sold
is increasing rapidly.
As many railroad accidents
were in times past accounted for
by employes being drunk, 800-
000 of the 1,200,000 railroad men
now on duty in the United States
are under orders to neither drink
nor to enter a olace where liquor
is sold. The penalty is dismissal
from service. In Canada if a lo-
comotive engineer or a train con-
ductor is found drunk while on
duty he is liable to ten years im-
prisonment. A significant com-
ment on the abstinence of rail-
road men is that when the loco-
motive engineers held their an-
nual convention in Memphis last
year the papers stated that of all
the gatherings held in that city
there had never been a more or-
derly body of men.
. Just to see in what way the
saloons were superior to the
other attractions life might offer
to a working man, or a homeless
one, a prominent minister turned
hobo for a while in’order to study
the question at first hand. Af-
terward he told of the uriverspl
kindliness of the saloonkeeper
and of the various plans he had
for encouraging patrons. He
told of the drinking fountains at
the front door for the use of
teamsters’ horses, of the setting
forth of a free lunch equal to a
table d’hote dinner. , The minis-
ter told his church people of the
things they must combat if they
would win men from the saloons
and added: “For five hundred
dollars men join exclusive poli-
BOYS’ SHOE
A ma^n said the other day:
x&sm*- ‘Z°V sh0T we*r
about twice as long as
the .kind we get at other
stores.”
> Quite a compliment,-
you know, and we can’t ,
at heipit<
•y/l V, tea Boys’ shots............61.86 I
Boys’ shoes............ 1.60
_ Boys’ shoes...........1.76
JM. Boys’ shoes........
Boys’ shoes........
Boys’ shoes.................
Boys’ shoes...*........3.0§‘
• ;
All sizes. Box Calf, Gun Metal Calf, Lace and
Blucher styles, double water-proof soles, with nothing
omitted that could in any way better our boys’ shoes.
I C\Y/IQ THE SHOE MAN
L/C W lOj South Side Square &
tical and social clubs on the ave-
nue of the metropolis, For five
dollars some join Young Men’s
Christian Association Clubs, but
for five cents the multitude of
men, whom only God and the sa-
loonkeeper and the ward boss
know, nightly join the one Dem-
ocratic club in American life,
the American saloon.”
Southern states are more ag-
gressive at this time than those
of any other part of the country
in attempting to curb drunkenness
by law. Kentucky, whose very
name brings up the thought of
mint juleps and apple toddy, has
119 counties, and of these ninety-
six are without saloons. In all
Kentucky there are but .five
counties where liquor may be
sold 2^11 over the county. In the
matter of local option elections,
Illinois leads all other states
with a record of 700 communi-
ties which have voted the saloon
out. Mississippi 4nd Texas are
more than three-fourths dry by
virtue of local option laws. Tex-
as prohibits screens in drinking
places and Indiana requires sa-
loons to keep lights burning all
night with window shades open.
Tennessee, another great whis-
key-producing state, has had a
remarkable anti-saloon moye-
ment, with the result that
are but nine towns in the
Commonwealth wfiere saldbi
are permitted. Every Candida
for a state otrice in Ten
Democrat or Republican, ip
temperance reformer. Se:
Carmack, a Democratic 1
has pledged himself to a
ment to drive ever£ saloon t
the state. Californians say
a great temperance lesson
taught by the San Francisco
earthquake. San Francisco
sumed much liquor and
known as a wide-open fi
When the great seismic dif
occurred, the saloons were c
and kept closed. ' Men
swore they would die if th
not have alcohol were made
to work clearing away
an 1 it is said many of th<
stayed on the “water
ever since. North Can
also taken advantagre~bf t
option law. Greensboro,
more than 30,000 populate
as dry as a bone. South G
,.r.
lina has the State dispensary
system.
Indiana, a State which
years ago regarded the distillc
and brewers’ lobby as its
ruler, is now trying to keep
Continued on page 4.
DON’T OVERLOOK MY STOCK AND
when in want of anything in the PLANT
LINE. You can get anything you want at
at prices that you will like. Come and see
CITY GREENHOUSES PHONE 3:
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-/jgife jj&jL sjs£ ledfe. [**/&,
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GAS BURNERS
Bonham Acetylene Gas Co., Bonham,
Texas, can supply you with one of the
best Burners on the market at 25c each.
Mail orders will receive
receive prompt attention. I
. -
You Can’t Farm
unless you have the necessary tools
and implements to do farming with
Without The Canton Line]
YOU ARE MUCH HANDICAPPED
They do the work you want done,
then they are light, strong, easily
adjusted, and they will last longer
than any other implement made.
That Riding Middle Buster and Com
and Cotton Planter is the best made.
m
Chas. Davis &
THE HARDWARE PEOPLE
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Evans, Ashley. The Bonham News. (Bonham, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 73, Ed. 1 Tuesday, February 12, 1907, newspaper, February 12, 1907; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth974202/m1/1/: accessed July 13, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Bonham Public Library.