Daily press. [volume] (Newport News, Va.) 1896-current, 1898-12-18

lreanspeople IN Warwick county, There
y as plenty Of devilment On court;
10 yS,ssthe farmers from $round-a bout
would get together ana consume more
%. lesssof cid corn juice. There was
Hghting in abundance, bat the man
who got whipped never dreamed of
preferring charges against the man who
whipped him. Why should he?
Were they not all friends and neigh
hors. and was it not the habit of the
county and the custom of the land.
The man who would take his neighbor
into court because of little fracas
would have been tabooed forever.
Nothing very serious ever happened. Ii
perchance. the constable was near. he
would wade in. When things had gone
far enough. and endeavor to separate
the con,asting parties. Sometimes he
succeeded. and sometimes he re-
ceived only Il broken head for his
pains. but the constable did not mind
that; it was about all he did do to
Justify his holding office.
Arrests We're few and far between.
and sometimes the county court did
not convene for two months ut u time
ana when it did. the session usually
lasted not more than half j day. court
adjourning in time to let the Judge and
jury go home for dinner. The circuit
court rarely sat for longer than :, day.
and easily transacted the business
which came before it in that time.
kAilcl!l lllC dCuIlit vi court DuSiIeSS
every one remembers that most nota-
Tile OF all Warwicllians. "Hell-cat Billy"
Jones, Or billy b. Jones' as he was
more often and less profanely known.
He was one OF the brightest and most
renarka bic men the county ever pro-
Guced, and was for twenty-Seven years
clerk Of the court Of this county. Well,
Doug Smith or most any other his
torian can tell you Of the time when
this distinguished gentleman used to
carry the records Of the court home in
bis hat, not so much because the hat
Was SO large, as because the records
We're so small. Considerable excitement
was created upon one occasion when the
clerk lost his hat. and With that We're
| lost also the records. The hat With it's
valuable contents was found several
Gays after, and a record book was
And so people began to call the lit
| tie county The Old Free State OF War
Wick, and it deserved the name.
| All this before the days Of the rail
road. and Bloodfielti. That one section
! today furnishes more material for the
| courts than the whole county did many
! times over. and the officers OF justice
no longer have sinecure.
SO peaceful were the times that the
older inhabitants can remember but
| two murders of any note preceding the
establishment of the railroad. One of
] these occurred on this point, something
| Ike 4 score of years ago, when Sheldon
Slaughter was murdered by a band of
ne grOeS. one of whom was arreS ted
| ard lynched to tree limb which
stretched across the road just below the
Court House Sheriff Bob Curtis was
the power that was in those days but
| the Infatuated citizens overpowered the
sturdy sheriff and took the keys from
| HIM.
| Another murder that is recalled is
! that of a man named Wooten, who
| Kept Il little store in the upper end OF
the county called Halfway House, be
cause it was about half way between
| Yorktown and Williamsburg. One
night in a year. not more than one or
| two after the war; Wooten heard q
nose just outside of the building, and
going to the window he peered out into
| the darkness to see what it was that
produced the racket. AS he looked
some one shot him in the face, killing
J HIM almost instantly. There We're