The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1880-03-04


death of Mr.. Greeley, Mr.. Robinson
was given charge of the Tribune proof
room. He left that journal in 1875,
and accepted similar position on the
Sum-. Y. Sun.
4 POLITICAL MURDER.
An EnterprisIng Northern Man, for
Eleven Years q Resident OF Ala.
bama. Killed Because Of His Polis-
ical Opinions.
CULLMAN, Ala, February.
Of all the bloody deeds, of all the
cowardly murders ever perpetrated,
the assassination of Sydney II. Lee, of
Leesburg, Morgan County, Ala, is the
most diabolicaI, especially SO from the
GOODNESS and deiberativeness with
which it was planned and executed.
The crime, committed at about sun
down on the 14th of January last, was
the consummation of several years of
violence, threats and ostracism toward
the said unfortunate man and his in
offensive family. Mr.. Lee was native
of Rush County, Indiana-and by
trade a wagon-maker, and about fifty
five years of age-where he resided
until he enlisted in the Union army
and assisted to restore the authority
of the Stars and Stripes over the soil
which drank his life-blood. In 1869,
possessed of some means, he removed
to near Falkville, Morgan County, Ala,
and engaged in farming, being fairly
successful, but from the time of his ar
rival in that section he was the object
of persecution and abuse from the
chivalry," SO called, but, being q
MON Of anarorx- ond hDn;nor for hot
treatment, he remained attentive to
his own work and molesting no one,
when, in 1871, his son, who had the
effrontery to take a public school, re-
ceived the following letter from the
Ku-Klux then infesting Morgan Coun-
ty. This was served on Mr.. Lee by
posting on the school-house window,
August, 1871:
"MR. LEE: You must not take hold of tho
free public school No. =, at Ebenezer, in Nor
gan County. This by order Of the Great Drag
on, commanding Middle Section X. X. X. 1t Is
general order from the Great Dragon that no
cursed Yankee shall teach our Southern
our Southern people is all a cursed humbug
Why, they would put more deviltry in their
beads than their parents could whip out in ten
years. We have been watching you and your
old dad for some time, and from what we can
see OF you we are compelled to say that you
are two of the cursedest rascals unhung; but
it is not too late yet. am satisfied that the
rope has been made and is now in good hands.
You are not only willing, but do take mean,
to it, and that cursed quick. So IL you take
the public school AT the place referred to, we
excitement in the county, but we are still
more unwilling to let a cursed Yankee teach
of YOUR gas about the southern people, but, to
cut the matter short, we will kill you dead
before you shall teach, and the way for
breach 10 YANKEES the way to H Heaven, s but Your
cursed scismatics don't preach with the in
rh GREAT DRAGON m s co@mandins % % Middle Division '
"SEECH SKIN"
From that time Lee and his family
have been the object of satire, ridicule
and ostracism, which was not abated
when Mr.. Lee, seeing the benefit to be
derived by introducing Northern capi-
tai, labor and men into that section,
purchased a large body of land, and
cutting it up into small farms and lay
ing off a portion into town lots, he
founded the thriving little village of
Leesdale, in which soon were erected
those evidences of Northern life aud
Civilizations church and school
house. The hum of busy life made the
dense old forest resound with life,
and the merry songs of the sons
of Ohio, Indiana and New En-
gland floated (this time peacefully
on the Southern breeze. One would
think that a people possessing common
sense and a mutual interest would re-
joice at these evidences of prosperity,
but not so. The little struggling vii
lage of Falkville, about two miles from
L., whose inhabitants, with but few ex-
ceptions, are Southerners, possessing all
the prejudices of that people, were not
,.loaeal OF tho iponyui0y, of ha North.
ern barbarians, and when they succeed
ed in having a post-office and railroad
sidetrack established at Leesdale, the
good people of Falkville were filed with
envy, and no means were left untried
whereby to prevent immigration and to
prevent Mr.. Lee adding to the number
of Northern citizens. As to Lee HIM
self, he was the center of their hate and
malignity, and while judge of election
in 1875 at Falkville he was badly beaten,
and his life threatened because he en-
dcavored to prevent a fraud being per-
petrated at said election; no means were
left to ruin him; his fences were burned;
his life threatened, and in the spring of
1879 he received one of the most filthy,
disgusting and threatening letters,
which would call blush to the cheek
of a Mfodoc.
Thus things went on from bad to
worse, till a mob with arms went from
Falkyille to Leesdale, committed as
saults, and, threatening the lives of Lee
and others, caused him and his friends
to think that the time had come for
something to be done. So he caused
the arrest of the parties, the leader of
which was fined and bound over to an
swer for other offenses in the Circuit
Court of the county. About thirty days
previous to his death he was the recipi-
ent of another infamous letter, giving
him thirty days to prepare for death, and
containing disgusting language never
before put on paper. l have inclOsed
you the letters. Of course they are
unfit for publication, but will do to
show what refined taste and language
our Southern chivalry possess. Too
truly, in thirty days he was killed! A
man with blackened face, in disguise,
armed with a shotgun, lurking in the
woods near his house, accosted his
daughter, badly frightening her. She.
ran into the house and told her father,
who, arming himself, went out to see
who the intruder was. As he passed
out of his back-door, the assassin
changed his position, and, deliber-
ately walking past the end of the house,
in full view of and in sight of Mrs. Lee
and her daughter, took position be-
hind a large tree, and as Mr.. Lee came
out of his gate the murderous gun
belched out its contents. instantly Kill
ing the victim of as hellish a plot as
ever disgraced the annals of crime.
The assassin fled, and he is unknown,
but were he known no justice would be
meted out to him. Suspicious are
abroad, but none dare say who they sus-
pect; men go with bated breath and
horror-stricken faces, not daring to say
what they think or feel. Horri-
BILE as the crime was, not
newspaper in the State has ever
published more than a cursory mention
of the murder. 1t may be claimed that