Governor Offers Reward

Title

Source Type

Newspapers

Publisher

Birmingham Post-Herald

Publication Place

Birmingham, AL

Publication Date

09/21/1898

Transcript

SECOND ALABAMA WAS FURLOUGHED The Soldier Boys Paid Off and Left for Home. GOVERNOR OFFERS REWARD For the Arrest of Murderers of Jim Thompson. PAYING THE SCHOOL TEACHERS Treasurer Ellis Will Disburse $110,000 for the Past Quarter-General Oates Assigned a Brigade-Col. Coffey Resigns. Montgomery, Ala., September 20. —(Special.) —The Second regiment Alabama volunteers was today furloughed for thirty days expecting about 100 men who were left to take care of companies’ property. The paymaster entered his duties early this morning and by 5 o’clock this afternoon had paid out $40,000 and made glad the hearts of over 1,200 soldiers. The men were furnished with their furloughs along with their pay and after stowing away their tents most of them came into the city. They will all leave for their homes tonight or in the morning. The governor has offered a reward of $200 for the arrest and conviction of the murderers of Jim Thompson in tallapoosa county. Two or three months ago a mob lynched four negroes near Wetumpka, on the charge of robbing and murdering an aged white man and his wife, and another old man who lived with the couple, several miles from that town. The governor ordered state troops to proceed to Wetumpka and protect the alleged murderers, but they arrived too late; the mob had done its share of murdering. One negro man named Jim Thompson, charged with complicity in the crime for which the four were lynched, escaped. Recently he was arrested in Tallapoosa, and three men started with him to jail. They “lost” him on the way. The other day his body was found in the Tallapoosa river, disemboweled and with a weight tied about it. There also other marks of violence. The governor will pay $200 for the arrest and conviction of the perpetrators of this horrible crime.

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