In May of 1871, the Reconstruction military occupation of York County was well under way. For some time, a peace-keeping force of United States infantry and cavalry had been garrisoned in the county seat, Yorkville (now York), and the commander reported to Washington that there was a decrease in violence.
Some miles away, before daylight had fully come to McConnellsville that morning, the quarreling of Peter and his wife, Lucinda, was shattering the peaceful countryside. Peter had come in late during the night, and Lucinda had accused him of philandering. While Lucinda went about her chore of fixing breakfast, they continued to fuss about Peter’s escapade. Eventually, they wore out the subject, and tension choked off any conversation.
In dead silence Peter and Lucinda walked over to the Steele farm, where they labored as field hands. After weeding the field for a while, Lucinda could hold her tongue no longer and resumed her accusing and quarreling. Peter continued to deny her accusations until she insulted him with name-calling that was sure to get a response from a southerner. With all the hatred she could muster from her body, she accused, “You’re a liar!”
Peter’s anger reached rage level under spontaneous combustion, and without a thought he swung his hoe at Lucinda’s head with all his might. Propelled by the force of the blow, Lucinda fell silently to the ground with a solid thud. Peter looked at the oozing gash across his wife’s cheek and ear and her askew jawbone; the sight jerked him from rage to fear.
In a self-preservation mode, he dragged her limp body across the field and threw it into a rocky ditch. He then rushed back to the murder site and cleaned the still-fresh blood from the hoe and spread dirt over the damp ground. Now, he was ready to spin his lie.
Peter ran across the field shouting for help from workers in an adjoining field. When they met him, he told how Lucinda had gone to get water and fell into a ditch. Not only did they not consider his lie for a minute, they bound his hands and feet and sent for the authorities. In time Peter was found guilty of being a murderous philanderer and was sentenced to a public hanging. He was led to the gallows by a company of federal troops.
Peace was not always found among the federal peace-keepers, either. There was always drinking and minor disputes, but sometimes these quarrels went a step too far. Usually, however, crimes within the military were easily and quickly solved, such as the case of a soldier named Kelly. His body was found in a well on a nearby farm with his throat cut from ear to ear. At the inquest, suspicion soon fell on a fellow solider, Berry. Berry denied having anything to do with Kelly’s death, but he couldn’t explain the presence of a blood-stained straight razor in his knapsack. He was found guilty, and a warrant was signed for his arrest.
Two years after Lucinda’s murder Trial Justice W. B. Williams conducted an inquest on May 19, 1873, at the military hospital for the stabbing death of Thomas Quinton of Company C, 18th Infantry. Testimony taken at the inquest provided sufficient evidence that George Welsh of the same unit had murdered Quinton. Welsh was charged with manslaughter, and Sheriff Glenn presented a warrant for this arrest to his company commander, Captain John Christopher, who then turned him over to York County authorities for due process under the law. (The Rock Hill Herald reported on March 14, 1889 – “That Sheriff Glenn is preparing to erect a handsome residence on his plantation one mile west of York.)
Almost exactly one year later, Trial Justice Williams conducted an inquest into the death of the same Captain John Christopher. The captain had arrived in Yorkville in February 1871 as commander of Company C, 18th United States Infantry, as part of the federal intervention into the increasing violence in the county. Christopher established his headquarters at Camp Sherman, just outside town, and soon earned the respect of local citizens. The little we know of John Christopher shows him as a fair, just man and effective officer, but he was eventually overcome by personal matters on the evening of May 4, 1874.
The captain and his father had been estranged for some time, and John Christopher had become troubled and stressed, “owing to the recent treatment of his family at the hands of some of his relations in the north.” For some reason the captain’s father had refused to be visited by John’s wife and two sons. Christopher began drinking heavily, which led to harsh words between him and his wife.
On the evening of May 4, the couple had another argument in their apartment in the McCaw building over his drinking. Unable to tolerate her drunken husband’s presence, Mrs. Christopher locked herself in their bedroom and refused to let him in. Frustrated, perhaps with feelings of abandonment, the 41- year-old officer went into his downstairs office and shot himself in the head. Coroner Williams impaneled a jury of 12 of Yorkville’s most prominent men who rightly concluded that his death was a suicide. We are left wondering why he and his father had become estranged. Was it later resolved, and were Mrs. Christopher and her two sons ever accepted into the Christopher family?
For our next tale of blood and jealousy, we jump 40 years into the future to 1911 and find a man called Jack lying dead, his friend Ed at the point of death, and another man, Bob, on the lam. The hot-bloodied murder took place in a private home near Kings Mountain battleground, and as were so many other cases in this time period, it developed out of a dance and a free-for-all fight.
The dance had been well-attended by local individuals and couples and lasted into the wee hours of the morning. There had been a lot of drinking, but no one was willing to admit they were a bit tipsy, much less drunk. About 3:00 in the morning, a quarrel developed between a man and his wife. Cal accused Ester of dancing too many sets with Ed and responding to his flirtation. He told her that he was fed up with the way she was acting and demanded that she go home. But Ester was having too much fun and told Cal he could go home without her.
Their quarrel escalated until Ester’s father, Bob, who had been playing the fiddle for the dance, stepped into the fuss and ordered his daughter to go home with her husband. Now it had become a public affair, and some of the women feared what Cal might do to Ester when they got home and advised her to stay. Cal left without Ester but returned in a few minutes and went into the house, grabbed Ester by the arm, and took her onto the porch, where he told her she was not dancing another set. A crowd formed in the yard, and as the couple argued, some chose sides and began cursing and making threats. Ester ran into the house with Cal on her heels, fussing all the way.
Bob and another man, Tom, had heard enough, and they grabbed Cal and began pushing him out of the house. Ed, Ester’s admirer, got into the fray, and for a few minutes, they were flying at each other with pocket knives. Esther’s father was not about to stand by and watch his son-in-law be attacked; he snatched up a nearby ax and struck at Ed as he was running back into the house. The door slammed behind Ed, and in moments a gunshot blast tore through the door, peppering a party-goer in the face. A second shot killed Jack, an innocent bystander.
When the smoke cleared, Jack was sprawled out on the porch in a pool of blood. Ed had been so badly injured by the ax blow he could not stand and death seemed close. Others in the crowd were bleeding, having been slashed with knives or peppered with shot. When Bob regained his senses, he fled across the state line, which was only some yards away. Sheriff Brown and Deputy Sheriff Quinn spent the next day investigating the murder scene with the coroner, while Bob remained on the run.
The scene was nearly repeated a little over a month later when a preacher invited a number of men and women to his Tirzah home for a dance. The minister was well aware of the times and that men were considered ill-dressed without a pistol and warned that the first man he saw with a pistol would have to leave. “You can have a good time without fighting, shooting or cutting. We have had some right nice times lately and let’s have it again and let nobody go to York jail.” The preacher’s warning had little effect on some of the party-goers.
The crowd was drifting in, but a young woman named Lillian said to Will, her boyfriend, that there were not enough women to make couples. Will instantly responded, “Good God, I will go and get some women,” and got up to hitch his mule and buggy. Standing nearby was a flirtatious Mary, who had designs on Will for herself, and said, “Aw, it’s too late to get other girls.” Lillian knew that Mary was making a play for Will, and she was not going to share Will’s attention with her or anyone else. She had to find a way to let Mary know that he belonged to her. With the speed of lightning, she grabbed Will’s hat from his head. Mary got the message and snatched the trophy away, but Lillian quickly grabbed it again. “Look here,” Will said. “Don’t you all tear my hat!” He took it away from Lillian and put it back on his head.
Standing by, Fred whispered to someone that he “smelt battle comin’.” Fred dashed outside and found two friends, Sam and George standing around talking. As soon as Fred asked for a gun, George shoved one into his hand, and Fred lit out for the house with Sam.
Meanwhile, as Fred was outside getting a pistol, jealousy had become full-blown. Lillian said to Mary in her most challenging tone, “Look here, you know you can’t whip me. No, you can’t whip me! I will fight you ’til the last!” With that said, Lillian hit Mary in the face. Mary took the challenge by grabbing Lillian’s wig and threw it to the floor. They went into holds, and the fight was on!
George (a second George) ran between them in an attempt to break them up, but Will took up the fight with him. Will hit George four or five times until George picked up a chair and hit Will over the head with it. He was about to hit him again when Sam ran up to Will and fired a shot.
Will ran out of the house and into a field 50 yards away. Many of the party-goers followed and surrounded Will when he collapsed. Mary grabbed the dying man by the arm and shouted to the women, “Get away from here, had it not been for you all I don’t believe this would have happened!” Some of the men picked up his body to carry it to the house, but the reverend would not let them in. By the time the authorities arrived, Will was dead, and they found his body in the yard.
Both of the last two murders came to trial during the same court session. Sam and George were found guilty with a recommendation of mercy. Both were sentenced to life in prison. Bob, of the Kings Mountain dance fiasco, was convicted of manslaughter and received a three-year sentence on the state chain gang.
Life was rough in this area during Reconstruction. Many drank too much, were well-armed, and had short tempers brought on by the times in which the lived.
J.L. West – Author
This article and many others found on the pages of Roots and Recall, were written by author J.L. West, for the YC Magazine and have been reprinted on R&R, with full permission – not for distribution or reprint!
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