The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-11-28
LOOKS LIKE ABDUCTION.

Escaped Negro Convict and Loses SIS.
Little eleyen-year-old Willie Judson
Walton, the son of w. f. Walton. pro.
prietor of the half-dime eating estab.
lishment opposite the market house.
caused his father no little worriment
and anxiety by disappearing from home
Sunday.
a negro named Will Swan. who "a.
capped from the jail early SUNDAY morn.
ing, also figured in the case and the
combination Of the two leads tho father
TO suppose that the whole is clear case
OF abduction and robbery. Certain 1t is
that Mr.. Walton is the loser by about
$40 but he has his son back while the
negro is still at liberty.
Mr.. Walton related the story to a
ZINES man last night after the bows
return from Wytheville on the vestibule
train. Willie, it seems, started for
Sunday-school about the usual hour
Sunday morning. At the depot he met
Swan, whom, he says, found out he had
some money and induced the boy to
accompany him to Salem.
Tho boy, so his father stated. has
saved up some money which was in his
trunk. 1t was in pocketbook and
amounted to between S2s and $40. This
tho boy took with him, for some unex-
planned reason, to the Sunday-school
He had it in his hat when the negro
costed him,
When Willie failed to return at the
proper hour his father began to make
inquiries all over town, but 1t was not
until shutdown that ho learned that the
two had been seen travelling toward
Salem. Mr.. Walton then got team
and drove to Salem, where he learned
that Swan and the boy had secured
tickets, the former to Christiansburg
and the latter to Wythevllle, and had
left on the regular evening train.
Mr.. Walton, after trying to induce
points, sent the dispatch himself, and
not until yesterday morning early did
he receive reply to the effect that the
boy had gotten off at Wythcville. The
father then sent Peter Lanther ON there,
and then it was learned that the bow
had gotten toam and gone to Stony
Ford, where the Walton family formerly
lived. The boy was found there, and he
accompanied Mr.. Lanther back last
night.
Willie was very communicative
last night and 1t was only by hard ques-
tioning that he would relate the Incl.
uenIs ol tne "Trip. lie mad given, he
said, about SIS in all to the negro, who
kept urging him to give him ali that he
had before they parted company at
Christiansburg. Willie hung on to
part OF 1t and returned with 50 70.
The negro had left him in a little
shantY near the depot at Salem while
he purchased the tickets with the
money Willie furnished. He got pretty
tired walking to Salem and didn't get
anything to cast until yeterday at
Stony Fork. Willies mother died
when he was about four years old and
he has lived with his father and shifted
more or less as he liked ever since.
Mr.. Walton has been in the city about
two years.
Swan, on November 10 in the police
court, was fined $40 for disorderly con-
duct, and in default of payment was
working out his sentence on tho chain
gang. He was sent to fix the fires by
Officer Tuggle on Sunday morning when
he mado his escape.
He is considered hard character by
the police, having been arrested several
times for disorderly conduct and small
thefts. Mr.. Walton, when he learned
from the descriptions OF the man his boy
was accompanying, feared that he would
take the money away from him by force