Shepherdstown register. [volume] (Shepherdstown, Va. [W. Va.]) 1849-1955, 1895-01-10
WEST VIRGINIA ITEMS.

All C4l40 va 0SNA oSSN~-
was frozen to death in bed last week
near Clarksburg. The family was toe
poor to buy fuel.
Harry Chain, of Logan county, was
struck on the head with rock thrown
by man named Cullom the Other
day. He died next day.
Captain Rankin Wiley, one of the
Oldest business men of the southern
part of the State and father of ex-Sen'
ator Rankin Wiley, died at Charleston
on Tuesday, aged eighty years,
Mrs. Geo. L. Philips, youngest
daughter of the late Senator Ewing
has become insane on the subject of re.
igion. She resides at st. George and
declares that place heaven and Parsons
hell.
The West Virginia Central Railroad
has declared dividend of 4 per cent
and the Piedmont g. Cumberland
per cent. The West Virginia Contra
has guaranteed $3,600,000 of the
bonds of the Cumberland & Baltimore
Railroad, the long-talked-of line from
Cumberland to Hagerstown.
A Tucker county preacher, who had
two amendments, one at the north
end of the district and one at the west
end, announced not long since that on
the following Sunday there would be
services at 10 o'clock a. IN. at the north
end, and at 2 o'clock p. m. at the west
end, and baptizing Of children at both
ends.
Hamlin, a small town that is the
county seat of Lincoln county, was
almost wiped out by fire Saturday
night. The fire originated in the
Eagle Flour Mills and soon after spread
to the Hamlin Handle Factory, a large
plant, and also to a large saw mill
All these buildings and several smaller
ones were entirely destroyed.
A gang of gold brick swindlers re-
Gently cheated A. w. Withers, OF
Gloucester county, Va, out Of $4,000
by the old familiar game of selling a
chunk of brass for gold. Thos. A.
Parker, one of the swindlers, has been
arrested and is now in Jail at Rich
mond. This is probably the same
gang that recently got $4,000 from a
farmer near Wheeling, this State, by
the same method.
James A. Williamson, ex-sheritf OF
Barbour county, committed suicide
last Sunday at his home, near Phihppii.
After his first term as sheriff in the
eighties, he served as deputy sheriff,
until 1892, when he was reelected and
sworn in. His bondsmen gave him up
at the end of three months, and he
was unable to procure new security.
Investigation showed that he was short
in his accounts, and the State had in
stituted suit against him for SIC, 900.
His property was to have been sold
Monday.
Col. A. W. Johnson, assistant adJu-
tant-general of West Virginia, has
rendered his resignation on the demand
of Governor MacCorkle. There was
a difference between the Governor and
Colonel johnson, said to have arisen
from the fact that Colonel Johnson had
changed the military record as it ap-
peared in the report of the adjutant,
from which it appears that certain
order issued from the adjutant-generals
office, but the fact was that it issued
from the Governor Office.
Four years ago, at Charleston, Simon
Wallace and his mother were murdered
and the honse fired, consuming their
bodies with it. Several parties have
been tried for the crime and have been
acquitted for lack Of evidence, but the
suspicion of foul play has always been
kept alive. An attempt made several
days ago to extort confession from
John Mourning, who has already been
tried for the crime, but acquitted.
Mourning, SO the report goes, was
taken out of bed on a bitterly cold
night and almost naked was strung up
by the neck by mob of unknown per-
sons. They tortured him terribly for
an hour, but all efforts to make him
confess were without success, and he
was finally cut down nearly dead and
almost frozen, carried four or five miles
further up Elk and left at the house
of man named Harrison, where he is
now in a precarious condition.