The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1912-03-15
HUNTING DOWN
THE ALLEN CLAN
Officers Are Being Aided by Noun
talneers in the Search for
the Court Assas.
sins.
IN REIGN OF TERROR
Little Town Where Crime Was Com
mitted, Fears Fcturn of the
Gang to Rescue
Prisoners.

UNITED Press Leased Wire Servicel
BARREN SPRINGS, Va, March Is.
Lean, hairy faced men, with murder
in their hearts and deadly rifles in
their hands, scanned the foot paths
and bi-ways OF the blue ridge today for
the first time in their lives giving ac-
tive cooperation to the sheriffs' auth
ority. For the Allen clan is con-
demned
AT Hillsville they murdered Judge
Thornton l.. Massie; Commonwealth
Attorney William Foster and Sheriff
Lew Webb. They made shambles of
"a Virginia court of Justice; they have
"a price on their heads; they are fugi-
Itives from the stern hand OF the law
but these are mere trifles to the gaunt
Imountaineers beside the fact that in
their murder they wounded some OF
the Fowler, Faddis. Kane. Hewlett,
Marshall and Woorell families
Clans today remembered long
lsmouldering enmity against the Al
lens, and took to the trails. wet and
slippery with warm spring rains, with
long rifles hooked under their armpits.
Meanwhile seventeen of the Allen
lclan--tall, mirthless men, with the
barrels of their guns still sullied with
the powder with which they turned
Judge Massie's court into bloody
arena-hurried through the lonesome
woods towards the North Carolina
border and friends of their own law
less calibre.
Two score detectives--men who
iv ear the ssame cowl.ide shoes, the
same blue flannel shirts and shoot
with the same deadly accuracy be-
cause they come from the feudist
country-started in pursuit. Over
along the North Carolina border a
score of miles from HilIsville, sher-
ifs posses guarded the mountain
passes and the foothills, watching for
the Aliens.
I hundred miles away, ready In,
stantly to entrain, We're two companies
of Virginia militia, held by Governor
Manns order for possible mountain
warfare.
4 Hillsyille today is practically with
out judicial system. Assassins'
bullets killed or manned every legal
officer in the county seat. Posses are
without actual heads. Attorney
General Williams of Virginia and
Judge Staples of the Roanoke corpor-
alton court. are expected to take
charge of the legal machinery Mean
while the village is iii the grip of a
reign of terror, for word comes down
from the mountains that the Aliens
are determined to rescue Floyd Allen
--he who started the killings In the
court room by shooting Judge Massie
and who now lies dangerously
wounded in the little jail
But meagre word came today from
Hillsyille. There is only one telephone
line to the outside world that to
Barren Springs-and the down pour
of rain the past few days has put it
partly out of commission.
Floyd Allen was the mountaineer
whose trial and sentence to a years
Imprisonment by Judge Massie started
the trouble. He is a bewhiskered
powerful man who boasts that he car
ries thirteen bullet holes in his body
-fiye-thirteenths the work of his
brothers against whom he waged a
fued at one time.
His brothers are Sidney and Jack
both from the same unyielding noun
tain stock. Sidney is now under SEN
tence for alleged perjury in connec-
tion with a counterfeiting case. Jack
is the youngest brother. These three
desperadooes, with fourteen OF like
kind did the killing yesterday and all
save Floyd Allen escaped to the
|. mountains
They left a bloody trail of wounded,
, as well as dead in the shooting that
| followed Floyd's murder of Judge
Massie. Clerk Dexter Goad, Jurors
, Eadd, Fowler and Kane; and A. t.
Hewlett. Bruce Marshall and Stuart
7 Woorell spectators in the court room.
We're struck in the hail of bullets.
Sidney Allen is believed to have been
wounded but got away with his clan.
} Looks Like Trouble
l HILLSVILLE, Va, March 15De-
tective Felts and twenty picked men
reached here early today, took charge
of the legal machinery; formally ar
ranged Floyd Allen, the desperate