The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1896-10-04
Blockader BarnuTn Jones kllled
Near H Still in
Bladen.
HIS PICTURESQUE CAREER
Handsome and Well-Reared,
but Desperate IN
Deeds.
A HAND ENCOUNTER
He had Vowed He Would Never be
Taken Alive and Was True 10 Ills
Vow---A Deputy and a Marshal
wounded

vow---A Deputy and a Marshal
Wounded.
News came here yesterday from
Deputy Collector w. +, Gibson, at
Lumberton, that Barnum Jones, "a
blockader, had been killed.
This was ON it's face a simple an
nouncement of the death of man
who had had history.
He gave up his life while the revenue
officers were attempting to take him
at his place of business In Bladen
county, known as j. G. Davis, Retail
Licensed Dealer. According to the
story Barnum fired the first shot, and
during the fusillade the chief of police
of Florence, S. c., was badly wounded
i'm the left shoulder. Deputy Marshal
j. G.. Parrish was slightly wounded.
Among those engaged was Sheriff
George B. Mcleod, of Robson county.
Barnum had always said he would
not be taken alive, and the officers had
taken him at his word. For his face
was of that build that gave mean
ing to words. And his body, too, was
stalwart and athletic and ready to do
dangerous deeds at he behest of
desperate will. As soon as the tragic
death of the man became known those
who had been cognizanb of his
history began TO weave a reckless
and romantic framework about his
personality. Some said he had killed a
man in North Carolina, though there
was doubt expressed as to this, and
fleeing to Texas had killed another
there. Then, TO Alabama where he
killed another, and then back to North
Carolina, having eluded the hands of
the law in all his fight. All this had
happened years ago, for he had been
back in North Carolina some ten years,
settling in Baden county, which had
been his old stamping ground.
This was during the activity of the
Prohibition campaigns, and many
counties, including Bladen, had gone
dry But Barnum took no heed of this,
CARRYING ON his business according to
his own desire Few there were
who would have dared TO
modest him. And then, too, he
was popular and picturesque in way;
and a man, too, of following and infiu-
ence, and withal of pleasing ways.
Exceedingly handsome and daring of
face, and sinewy of limb, six feet,
suave in manner when need be, and
with conversational power that was
a delight to every group of friends in
which he might find himself.
With all these antithetical points of
character, he was wary, defiant, with
out bravado, quiet, self-reliant, always
ready. They tell of the time when
he had constantly in his goings three
bulldogs accompanying him. and a
Winchester handy. And he walked
abroad, at bay, the prince of the for
ests and Swamps of Baden.
Then, too, he was a man, not with
out some finer sensibilities, with the
marks of once gentle surroundings,
with a family well known in the coun-
ty, his father having once been one of
the Board of County Commissioners
of Bladen.
All these things were in his favor,
and yet he was a strange manner of
man with suddenly alternating cur
rents in his nature. And SO it hap
pened one day that when he was over
hauled by the officers and cast in the
county Jail, there were friends to
rescue him; but he was. taken again
and carried TO Wilmington, but on his
way he escaped by jumping off a train,
going at the rate of thirty miles an
hour. That was easy. So he was back
at his old life. in Bladen. On his regu-
lar business, which was a bar-room,
he duly paid his license, but he couldn't
screw his courage up to the paying
place for his stills down in the
swampS that skirt the little town of
Bladensboro. The revenue officers had
time and again located his lair, and
had broken up his corn-juiceries only
to see two grow up where but one had
been before And SO time went, and
l. 4 1.4fs
came and went. Each kept his trigger
eye cooked on the other. Only two
weeks ago, North Carolina deputy
went to his house and was told by his
wife where he could have a conference
with Barnum. 1t was a deep spot in
the woods. The deputy found him
there, but Barnum said very quietly:
sHold up your hands, before you come
further" and he used a persuasive ar
gument. The two men had a talk,
which was not unpleasant; for they
walked to his home together where
the deputy was Hospitality rooted and
entertained. That was the last calm
before the storm of Thursday.
Barnum was mot dissipated, rarely
drinking anything, and had a house
hold which was happy in it's way.
He was devoted to his boy lad
named Thurman, for the late Allen G..
Thurman. Bafnum used to say that
Thurman was the best Democrat of
them all, and that he would not have
died so soon but that the Democratic
party got so bad he couldn't live. He
was a man of forty-ive, with blue eyes,
sandy moustache and goatee, a face
frank, but with lines of steel, man
of many friends in spite of his many
enemies. His type has not '1cen infre-
quent among the 1esparadoes of the
West, and his end, like the end of many
of them, came 70 him with his boots on.
after a life in which kindly and vicious
qualities had been so tangled as TO
render impossible The separation Of
one from the other. But sitting around
the fire in the woods winter nights,
the revenue offics"s could spin many a
yarn of biockaders who lived and died
some Of them just like Barnum Jones.
WANTED.