Murder! No Murder.

The Nashville Republican(March 1843) printed news that it received from the Sparta Gazette(Sparta TN) about a murder that was said to have taken place in Van Buren Co Tennessee.  Last names were mentioned but no first names and the details about the incident and the persons involved were not very clear,but the paper did mention the confusion.

The Tennessean (Nashville, TN) Wednesday  15 March 1843 pg 2
(at that time the paper was called the Republican Banner)

In the end the story that the Gazette had printed ended up being a false report.  The Sparta Gazette printed a retraction of sorts which the Republican Banner also passed along to it's readers.  

The Tennessean (Nashville, TN) Wednesday  22 March 1843 pg 2
(at that time the paper was called the Republican Banner)

While this was a rumor, over the next 130 years in the Van Buren and Warren Co TN area there would be murders and lynchings that would make the national news. I heard my Mom talk about some of these as she knew the Bratcher, Gibbs and Yates families from having grown up in that area. Victor Hillis was married to my maternal Great Grandmother's sister.

• 1894--The murder of Carroll Martin during a robbery. 
• 1896--William and Victor Hillis(Brothers) were tried for the Martin's murder TWICE. The first trial resulted in hung jury, They were convicted and sentenced to death as a result of the 2nd trial but were lynched by a mob shortly after that.. 
• 1943--Novella Johnson Yates killed her husband with an ax. She served a number of years in a mental institution. 
• 1955--Four members of the Bratcher family were killed by Billy Gibbs.