The daily gazette., 1878-11-25
FIFTH EDITION.
LETTER FROM sAML TOWNSEND.

LIE IEh fhOM DAM Il OWNSEND.
For the Gazette.
Mr.. Editor:-T send you few lines
concerning some of the reports In the pa
pers about the country where the attempt
was made, on Tuesday night last, by two
young Maryland white men, to kill Jim
Jones, a negro. The most absurd stories
are Iold in some ..the papers,in regard
to the llocation of the country. The
Philadelphia Times reporter, in that pa
per of Saturday, takes the palm as the
biggest Munchausen. He says Caulk
lives In an old log house in tract of
marshy land, covered all over with
cranberry vines, with patches of higher
land here and there, with stunted
growth of water oaks and that the road
leading through this desolale coun-
try is not much frequented, the
houses being far apart and
and only three families living within a
radius Of two miles. SO much for the
Times Msnchausen.
The road along which tfis dark deed
was committed is the old road leading
from the head of Sassafras to Smyrna,
twelve miles.
The first two miles from Sassafras to
the Delaware line, run through as beau
tiful and open farming country as there
is in The Peninsula open plains to the
Southwest for miles. After reaching the
Delaware line, for three-fouIths OF
mile, are patches of second-growth young
oak timber, but averaging house along
said road every four hundred yards
Within the first three-tourlhs of mile
III delaware is where the deed was com
milted,a and where Andrew Caulk lives in
log house is not over twenty feet from
the road. This land is on the s'Summitn
OF highest land between the Chesapeake
and Delaware Bays and there are no
cranberry vines or cranberry bogs within
fifteen or twenty miles. There are some
ponds, and one of these ponds, of about
twenty acres, is near where the shooting
took place After passing on from Caulk's
house and one hundred yards beyond
where the shooting took place, there is
open country and good farms for the next
mile-and-a-half or two miles, and thickly
settled. And within a radius of two
miles from where Jones was shot. instead
OF there being but three houses, or faIni-
lies, as the Times reporter says, there are
nearer three hundred, certainly two hun
dred houses.
From where the shooting took place 10
Van Dykes station is ], ~ than one-fourlh
OF mile-all but speaking distance, aud
there are one farm house and three or
four tenant houses within two or three
hundred yards. Persons heard the shoot
ing and supposed some boys were out
coon hunting.
Along this said road from Sassafras to
smyrna, the country is thickly settled
with farm aud tenant houses, and there
are two railroad stations-Nan Dykes on
the Kent and Queen Anne's ROAD, and
Green Spring on the Delaware road.
This bugaboo "ColdwelP' was deep
well containing very cold wa'er, near the
, Delaware line, close to "A log house. A
fellow by the name of John Brown came
here from Jersey thirty years ago, and
married a woman named Polly NeWsom.
Her brother originally came from jersey
This fellow Brown traded aroupd and
i kept shop; and in political years both
night meetings there ami being place
where people gathered, it was thought
! the Cosden murder was concocted there.
Brown was arrested and sent to Jail i,
but as nothing was proved on him he wi as
released. He moved back to Jersey and
attended Wilmington market He died,
ami last year, believe, his wife, Polly
Brown, IA huckster in Wilmington, a'so
died. The old log house has bee n pulled
down and removed for several years and
the well filled up. One of the Cosden
murders who was hung (Murphy) lived
| at Bohemia Ferry, and it might have
been charged that the black hearted deed
was concocted there. There is mystery
thai surrounds the Causden murder that
has not been solved yer. The writer in
the Herald, of Saturday lis mistaken abo I
Shaw being the cloek-mender, as his
name was Roberts. Shaw turned States
evidence, and Tom Drummond was al
lowed to go, or sent to Cape May county,
n. j., where he case from. He, no donbi
shot Mrs. Gausden tCausdt ms wifel ont.
side the house. / saw where the suppos.
ed bullet struck a brick in the end ofthe
house, near The ground.
However this Causden matter sleeps
, / on for the present, but last week whilst
these reporters from all quarters were
pushing to the scene of the ATTEMPTED
Jim Jones murder, they missed fifst
class ite IN that might have been added il
by this cranberry bog reporter. Within
. fifty yards 90 the same north side OF tn,
{ road, where Jim Jones was shot, abou
AZ yeats ago white woman named lie,
hung herself to tree. She was a mar
, ried woman with small children, an,
1 lived in a house right opposite, soutl
side OF the road the house Is now zone
and the lot is In wheat.
: ! suppose this week Frdnk Iestie an,
Huper will have men on taking In
4 scene of this attempted murder with al
> Its surrounding, dense impenetirable 10.
9 Land cranberry bogs with rattle saak,
$ and alligators thrown in &c.
: SAMUEL TowNsEND.
Townsend, November %. 1873.