Shot Up Town

 

Tuesday night at 1 o'clock, about fifty masked men visited the little city of New Liberty in this county, burned Dave Snell's tobacco barn, shot out the plate glass  front of Bond Bros. Store, and sent a few stray bullets through the windows of Mr. John  Hanlon's residence.  The barn in which Snell was handling tobacco was situated on the edge of town and was the property of the Cincinnati Tobacco Warehouse Co.  He has been buying tobacco for several weeks and while the principal part of his purchase was unpooled he had been charged with buying and shipping some pooled crops.  He has been told, or so we are informed, to stop buying but paid no attention to the warning.  There were about 15,000 pounds of tobacco in the barn, and it was covered by insurance.  There were also two hogsheads of the 1906 equity pool stored in this barn.

 The men rode thru the streets of the town and fired a volley into the store of the Bond Bros, demolishing the plate glass front and breaking some windows in the Odd Fellow's Hall on the second floor.  Some shots were sent thru the residence of Mr. John Hanlon.  Whether these damages were the result of desultory firing, or whether there was method in the madness of the raiders we are not informed.

At the same time the raiders visited the barn of Mr. John Garvey, about two miles from New Liberty on the Sparta pike and destroyed it and 4,000 pounds of tobacco.  This was also insured.  Mr. Garvey was an independent buyer and we are not informed whether he had bought and shipped any of the pool.

One of the most reckless deeds of the raiders was the firing into the residence of Mrs. J. M. Edwards, an old woman who lived on the Sparta road, and who was dying at the time the shooting occurred.  It was evidently a case of trying to make people put out their lights, for they could have no grievance against this good old woman.  She died later during the night.

Considerable excitement prevailed in the town and immediate neighborhood.  This is the first appearance of the real "night riders" in Owen County and all our people are hoping it will be the last.  The board of control and all the leading equity men in the county have labored hard and earnestly to maintain harmonious relations with the independents, and all they have ever asked is to be left alone with their pooled tobacco.  They have never molested the independent growers nor buyers nor tried in any other way to control them.  On the other hand, many independent buyers have paid little regard to the interests of the pool, buying tobacco whenever an opportunity offered and rushing it to open markets and selling it.

On account of this utter disregard of the rights of the Society, it has been necessary for the Board of Control to bring many damage and injunction suits.  A determination on the part of a few to break up the pool, and the recklessness of these independent buyers is ignoring the rights of the Society, have, in our judgment, had much to do with stirring up such sentiment in the county as to make the raid of Tuesday evening the natural result of their own folly.

On yesterday morning Judge Cammack ordered a special grand jury to investigate this raid.  It will be empanelled this morning and they will be instructed to make a thorough investigation, not only of the raid itself, but of the cause or causes which led to it.

 

From the Owenton News Herald, March 12, 1908, page 1