Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1922-10-10
PARDONED CLANSMEN RETURN
HOME TO VIRGINIA HILLS
Sid Edwards and FrieI Allen,
j Former Gunner, Freed
From Prison After Ten
Years
BY JOHN ARCHER CARTER
LEASED Wire Service to The Journal.)
DOWNRIGHT. 1921

BY JOHN ARCHER CARTIER
LEASED Wire Service to The Journal.)
Copyright, 1929
HILLSvILLE, Va, Oct. 7.-"Sid
Edwards and Friel Allen are coming
home"
The news is darting UP the paths
that lead to tiny log cabins On the
hillsides. Youngsters, who were ba-
bies when the tragedy Of the Blue
Ridge took place, are throwing
chinquapins at each other and yell
ing the news in glee. Mountain girls
are calling the glorious tidings
across the shining creeks. Even the
foliage on the slopes seems to have
celebrated by bursting into brown
and yellow tints Of welcome.
Because while the outside world
simply reads that two men-mem-
bers Of a noted mountain clan
have had executive clemency extend
ed to them, here in the wonderful
Blue Ridge, the message is a very
personal one. Sidna Edwards and
Friel Allen once more are to breathe
the air Of freedom. They have been
conditionally pardoned by Governor
E. Lee Trinkle. And they will be
back here in a day or two to once
more take their place with the
friends of a decade ago.
These two are coming, but there
is a breath of regret In the rejoicing.
They leave two brother clansmen
behind in the penitentiary, the gov
ernor having withheld his pardon
from Sidna Allen and Wesley Allen.
His reasons for so doing are record
ed back in Richmond, but up here,
where the men are best known, the
feeling is expressed that it might
have been well to have restored free
dom to those more active part1c1-
pants in a tragedy that more than
a decade ago stirred the entire coun-
try.
Fine Prison Record
Because of the splendid prison
record of the two men, because dur
ing their long stay behind prison
walls they have shown that they
regretted their rash crime, the act
of loyalty to a clan leader, the gov
ernor has permitted Sid and F'riel to
pass out from behind the grim
prison walls He acted on a petition
signed by $4,000 Virginians and on a
promise given to an Allen, now
dead.
To their home town they will come
to meet friends. Even those who lost
relatives that day in March, 1912,
when the rugged mountaineers rode
in from the hills to tear asunder
the human fabric of the Carroll
county court, always have believed
that the Aliens shot, as they con-
tended, to save the life of the aged
veteran, Floyd, and even If they did
not, the belief in the hills is that
despite the grossness of the crime
justice has been served.
eff it is true that they were too
proud to see old Floyd go to JAIL"
said villager today, Il reckon ten
years behind the bars at Richmond
has kind dedicated 'em to a more
amendable attitude, as the dedicated
Teller sez."
Hillsville does not expect them
to return crushed and craven. Rath-
err the people expect to greet the
same proud spirit of the men who
once were considered bigger than
the law, yet no longer outlaws.
Battle in Courtroom
But the town recalls the crowded
courtroom, hot despite t." fact that
winter had not capitulated in the
hills; the judge, Thornton l.. Massie,
digni1ed on his bench; the states
attorney, William Foster busy at
his desk; the sheriff, L. F. Webb,
standing calmly at the left Of the
judge, and ,brawny, aged Floyd AL
len, f1ery-eyed and tense in the prls-
oner's dock.
Then they remember Judge Mas
sic rising and pronouncinS sentence.
Like a boulder from catapault old
Floyd burst from his chair, crying:
''No man ever shall Ike me to
the penitentiary."
From then on memory's picture is
confused and clouded. Before the
non-combatants in the room realized
what was transpirirS the courtroom
was full of smoke. The crack of
many pistols was heard. Through
the smoke they saw first the judge,
then the prosecutor, then the sheriff
topp1e over dead while others fell
wounded.
And in the bedlam OF the moment
the Allen clan swept out and away
into the Businesses of laurel, and
pine, and bee.h in their mountains.
They remember this with great
distinctness. The pursuit by coun-
ty officers, state deputies and Bald
win-Felts detectives is still a vivid
picture here. How Floyd tried to
|. cut his throat while hiding, half
starved, from the officers, only to
be saved by the doctors until his
life was taken by the state in the
electric chair. and how his 19-year-
old son, Claude Swanson Allen, nam
ed for the senior United States SEN
ator from Virginia, followed him to
| death with a smile on his lips just
three minutes later; how F'riel Allen
and Sidna Edwards stood up under
their sentences of IS ind Is years,
respectively, and Sidna and Wesley
Edwards when apportioned Is and
II years for their part in the trag-
| edy. This fills out the memory pic
| ture as the mountaineers today pre-
| pare to greet the two that can come
| home.
The past can not be undone, but
| in his pardon Governor Trinkle re-
cords his belief that these two men
at least have learned their lessons
and will come back to be good citi-
| ZenS,