The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-10-24
THE SHERIFF WAS COOL
PERSUADED MOB TO GIVE UP
 PRISONER
Negroes Wished to Lynch Will Harris Who is Charged With. Brutally Murdering Hattie
 Bell Near Selma.
Advertiser Bureau,

Selma, Oct. 2. s90l
 Will Harris, the burley negro who is accused of murdering the little coloed girl Hattie Bell, near the Valley Creek bridge yesterday morning. rested quietly in jail last night He is a heavy set, black negro about 90 years of age and bears very bad reputation among his color and is well-known to the police of Selma. , The chain of evidence connecting him with the crime is very strong. He was seen to leave Farrelrs store a short while before the murder. An old colored preacher saw him grab the child on the railroad track and make off with her to the woods. He recognized Harris at the time. He went off down the river after he murdered the child and stayed all day. Along toward dusk he came to the Skinner place and asked a negro man if he had heard anything about a little colored girl being killed. The man told him, yes. Harris then asked him If his name was connected with the killing. He was told, no, that it was reported that a white man was thought to have killed the girl. Then" remarked Harris, If that Is the case I will go on back to town.'
 As soon as Harris left, the colored man referred to above. jumped on his mule and rode around Harris by a circuitous route and beat him to the city and gave out the information to several colored men that the murderer was on his way to the city. Tobe Edwards, a colored merchant. who does business in the western part of the city. took two trusty men with him and hastened to the Valley Creek bridge and waited for Harris to come up. They had not been there more than thirty minutes when Harris came sauntering down the road and as soon as he got on the bridge they arrested him.
 They gave a yell and in few minutes at least a hundred negroes had gathered. Many of them were armed with shot guns and pistols and for few minutes it looked decidedly squally for Harris. If they had had a determined leader there would have been no trial by jury.
 Just as the negroes were getting into an excited state and were about to act, Sheriff Blackwell, who had been apprised of the negro's arrest, rode up and stop ped them from taking the law into their own hands. MT. Blackwell told them very quietly that he was an officer of the law and now that he had the alleged murderer of Matte Bell in his hands he would have to put him in jail, where he would remain until indicted and tried by due process of law. Some one or two in the crowd yelled hang him." but the crowd of negroes had too much respect for the sheriff to attempt to use force to take him from the officer and after com mending their forbearence MT. Blackwell ordered the man taken to jail. Several coored men were on each side Of the prisoner and Mir. Blackwell rode along be- hind them and Harris was landed in jail without further trouble.
 Charlie Bell, the father of the little girl, trotted along beside Mir Blackwell's s horse the tears running down his face, and begged the officer to .urn him over to the negroes that they might settle with him "as the white people would have dcne under like circumstances" but MT. Blackwell kindly, but firmly told him that he could not do so; that he sympathized with him as much as any man in the world could sympathize with another and that his whole soul went out to him in the loss of his little child. but as an of ficer of the law he had a duty to per- form and he was going to put the mur- derer in jail and protect him from mob violence.
 Sheriff Blackwell's coolness In taking the negro and putting him in jail, when surrounded by over q hundred excited, determined colored men. has been very highly commended. And the forbear- ance of the c0lOrSE men in not taking Harris from Sheriff Blackwell, is also highly spoken of. Any two of the men
  arms about MT. Blackwell and held him and taken his pistol from him and then they could have hanged Harris. but they controlled their anger and did as Sheriff Blackwell requested them to do and the law will now take its course.
 An old colored preacher saw Harris grab the child and recognized him. When arrested he had a big splotch of blood on his shirt front and when asked how it came there he said it was from his nose bleeding.
 There is still other strong circumstances connecting Harris with the murder and there Is no doubt in the world but that they have got the right man. He says he went down the river after a boat but could give no reason why he did not bring the boat back up the river with him. The colored population is very much incensed over the death of the little child and will run down every particle of evidence connecting the name of Harris with the crime.
 The little girl, Matte, was remarka- bly, bright, obedient child and when killed was hurrying home in order to help her mother get ready to go to her quarterly church conference today, and she had promised to take her little daughter along with her.