See production, box office & company info. Carroll County Historical Society and Museum. Also, there were places where the author seemed to go out onto a tangent, such as explaining how electrocution became a means of capital punishment used on Floyd and Claude. [1], Governor Mann immediately called on the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to find those responsible for the shootings and arrest them. [4], In another instance, while arguing over the administration of their father's estate, Allen got into a gunfight with his own brother, Jasper, known as "Jack", a local constable. [27] Years later, an allegation surfaced that Deputy Clerk H.C. Quesinberry had confessed on his deathbed to starting the shooting; two men swore an affidavit to that effect in 1967 (for which each man was reportedly paid $25). [29] He testified that one of the girls pointed out some of the Allens leaving the courthouse, when Sidna Allen came toward him, pointed his pistol at him, and fired. Wesley Edwards drew nine years for each count of murder for the slaying of Foster, Massie, and Webb for a total of 27 years' imprisonment. The home is owned by Bert and Marlene Widener, who offer tours by appointment. Sidna Edwards pleaded guilty in August 1912 to second-degree murder, and was sentenced to 15 years in the penitentiary. - After the shootout ended, people in Hillsville were afraid the Allen family would come back into town and kill everyone in sight. Hillsville Courthouse. 23 school districts remove challenged books from library shelves; more . Join in supporting in-depth journalism for Southwest and Southside Virginia. Why does Carroll County have the lowest vaccination rate in Virginia? [29] Marshall also testified he had been standing near Sheriff Webb, but did not see any pistol in the Sheriff's hand. He wrote a memoir, made beautiful furniture from delicately inlaid wooden pieces and spent the rest of his life telling people that the Allens did not shoot first. [37] Allen's death sentence was deeply unpopular with Allen supporters in the county, but many other residents were unsympathetic, surprised by the deaths of so many people over Floyd Allen's refusal to serve a year in prison. [35] In July 1912, after three separate trials, Claud Allen was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of Commonwealth's Attorney Foster, and for second-degree murder for the killing of Judge Massie. [4] In July 1889, the Carroll County court indicted Floyd for assault as well, but in December of that year the Commonwealth's Attorney dropped the case. - Claude Allen did not take a gun when he went to Hillsville To Floyds trial. He apparently also hopes that the early hour will serve to dampen the spirits of the Allens. After getting down the steps he leaned against the window of his office when two girls, Dora and Elizabeth Ayers, passed him. As gunmen spilled from the courthouse taking their battle through the downtown streets, the judge, sheriff, and the Commonwealth Attorney lay dead in the smoke-filled courtroom. Proudly powered by Newspack by Automattic. Those documents include indictments, judges instructions, grand jury indictments, trial transcripts, letters and other courtroom exhibits all words left by ghosts. Steep Canyon Rangers, Amythyst Kiah, Sam Bush highlight Blue Ridge Music Center season; more Former Fieldale High School in Henry County is being turned into housing. [2], Floyd Allen met the buggy south of Sidna Allen's home as he was on the way to his own home. [1][4] Floyd had wanted to buy a farm owned by one of his own brothers, but could not agree on a price. Wow. A second shot entered the back about four inches lower, while a third shot cut the sheriff across the chin. Ronald W. Hall,The Carroll County Courthouse Tragedy(2013 printing, Hillsville VA: Carroll County Historical Society,1998). Judge Thornton Massie was one of five people killed during the courthouse shootout in Hillsville on March 14, 1912. Hall himself had asked Horney, who died in 2020, about the whereabouts of the trial exhibits while doing his own research. [15] Judge Thornton L. Massie, who had deputized Floyd six months earlier, presided. While the one Allens name is Floyd, there is also a town of Floyd and Floyd County to the north of Carroll County. In 2015 or so, Sadler also found a .38 caliber bullet among the keepsakes. Samuels' departure forced Commonwealth's Attorney William M. Foster to rely on testimony from Deputy Easter. We depend entirely on donations. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. "Claude Allen First To Fire At Hillsville". According to Wesley, Thomas and three friends assaulted him, and he defended himself with the help of his brother Sidna, who rushed to join the fight. Court Crime The 1910's Spread the love In 1912 a Carroll County, Virginia, man was sentenced to serve a one year sentence in the state penitentiary. Those involved on the Allen side ran away. We dont sell ads, or block you with a paywall. He proved to be right. Family loyalty also played a role as the Allen/Edwards family stuck together to protect the Edward boys and later Floyd. Synopsis On the cold Spring morning of March 14th, 1912 shots rang out inside the tiny mountain courtroom. Howard Gilmer testified during the subsequent murder trials about the judges fatal bullet wound. Did Floyd force their release or were they released into his custody? Eleven minutes later, his son, Claud, followed his father to death in the electric chair. With the death of the Sheriff and so many of the Allens on the loose, the state sent help. On the morning of March 14, 1912, Mr. Floyd Allen stood in the Carroll County courtroom to hear the verdict of his peers. Virginia law held that when a sheriff died his deputies lost all legal powers, so the shooting left Carroll County without law enforcement. That day was March 14, 1912, the day five people were killed in a shootout between members of the Allen family and court officials on the floor of a small-town courtroom, an event forever known as The Courthouse Massacre.. As the late Roanoke writer and broadcaster Seth Williamson wrote in The Roanoker magazine in 1982, the Allen men were not a race of mild country squires.. At one time, there was another store and a tannery and a number of dairies and some local micro-distilleries (before they became popular or legal). B. The play, which is. [7] In 1908, while serving as special deputies, Allen and a relative, Henry "H.C." Allen, were charged with unlawful assault upon prisoners held in their custody who they claimed had resisted arrest. Others were captured. Governor Mann, who had received death threats in the same handwriting as the threats previously delivered to the trial judge, had to cut short a trip to Pennsylvania after learning his Lieutenant Governor, James Taylor Ellyson (18471919), had attempted to commute the Allens' sentences in his absence, instigating a brief constitutional power struggle between the two men. . Educational video on the history of Western medicine presented by the University of South Carolina's College of Library and Information Science as part of a workshop created by th Just a Presbyterian Church and a store. The courtroom buzzed. That verdict, those words uttered by a jury foreman and re-written by Foster, were what prompted the freshly convicted the defiant Allen to stand up and pronounce, Gentlemen, I just aint a-goin, or words to that effect, right before the courtroom filled with smoke and lead. Eventually, Carroll County deputies Thomas Pink Samuels and Peter Easter nabbed the brothers in North Carolina, shackled them and loaded them on a wagon for the long ride up the mountain, passing by Sidna Allens home and store in Fancy Gap where they were met by none other than a hot-tempered Floyd Allen, who was angered that his kinfolk were hog-tied in a wagon like livestock being carted to market. If done right, this sounds as though it could make for a captivating film. In one case, after having ridden their horses to death, two of them took a mans mules from his plow in the middle of the field. In the great Carroll County shootout in Hillsville on March 14, 1912, a judge, a sheriff, a commonwealth's attorney, a juror, and a spectator were all killed by shots fired by Allen and others after Allen was convicted of assault. [21] Two more illegal stills were found at Sidna Edwards' house. This is the actual foundation of all of the story, said Goad, whose own great-great-uncle, Dexter Goad, was a Carroll clerk of court who traded bullets with the Allens on that tragic day. As if entitled, they took what they wanted or needed. Sadler knew that tragic story, and he understood his familys connection to it. The judge refused. The new system appointed a full-time judge to hold court at scheduled intervals in a circuit of several counties. Judge Massie, Sheriff Webb, Commonwealth's Attorney Foster, and the jury foreman (Augustus C. Fowler), were all hit and died of their wounds sustained in the crossfire. Allen and several members of his family immediately fled the courtroom but were later captured and convicted of murder. Charges eventually were dropped against Sidna and Barnett before the trial.). Sadler, a real estate broker in Blacksburg who lives on a family farm in Pulaski County, had taken an interest in the shootout story after looking at old scrapbooks kept by his grandmother, Howard Gilmers daughter. Terribly tragic. The documents found their way to Wytheville because that was the site of the ensuing trials that followed the shootout, the venue having been moved from Hillsville where anger against the defendants boiled. In response, the judge told the two men that if the law could not be faithfully enforced in Carroll County by the county's deputized officers he would bring in state troops if necessary to maintain order. It is the county seat of Carroll County and the only incorporated community in the county. In the second, a husband, Spread the loveOne hundred five years ago this month opposition against the draft was coming to a boil, including in Appalachia. Mob violence, the court. Burden "Byrd" Marion, a cousin and neighbor, had all charges against him dropped. The agency, infamous for busting coal miner unions, breaking strikes and shooting people in West Virginia, were led by Thomas Felts from just down the road in Galax. Director Rick Bowman Writers Rick Bowman Bill Perrine Stars One bullet entered the back and ranged upward, lodging directly under the collarbone. Sidna Allen and Claud Allen stood on benches in the courtroom's northeast corner to see over the crowd. In the case of J. Sidna Allen, one of Massies relatives complained that the raw bacon that was seized needed to be sold before it spoiled. After several months' chase, Baldwin-Felts detectives located them in Iowa after an informant's tip. [29] Marshall then related that Sidna Allen's bullet buried itself in the window about six inches above his head. And the storys controversies, conspiracies, debates over justice and moral lessons have long outlived the verdicts and punishments that sought to settle matters more than a century ago. [2] Floyd Allen later stated that he never intended to have the boys set completely free, he just wanted them to be released from their manacles. According to Floyd Allen's defense attorney, David Winton Bolen, "[Floyd] hesitated a moment, and then he aroseHe looked to me like a man who was about to say something, and had hardly made up his mind what he was going to say, but as he got straight, he moved off to my left, I would say five or six feet, and he seemed to gain his speech, and he said something like this, 'I just tell you, I ain't a'going. In the confusion there was a lot of shooting. Sadler said that his grandfathers reputation was that of an attorney who possessed a great gift of gab and was a prolific letter writer, but he never left behind any record of what he saw or heard that day in the Hillsville courtroom. (When Floyd fell, wounded, he landed on top of his lawyer David Bolen, who had ducked to the ground as soon as the shooting started, and who is reported to have said, "Floyd, they are going to kill me shooting at you! The Allens were unreconstructed Democrats, the county fathers were mildly progressive, albeit still conservative, Republicans. He worked for the Edison Lighting Company. They were proud men, perhaps none more so than Floyd, who it could be said carried a log-sized chip on his shoulder. At a church service the next morning conducted by Wesley's uncle, Garland Allen, Thomas reportedly called out Wesley into a fight. The exhibits were discovered in 2016 in Wythe County's courthouse. He defeated the son of Jasper Jack Allen for the position. [4] His defense team included former Commonwealth's Attorney Walter Tipton and recent County Court Judge Oglesby. As the smoke cleared the sheriff, judge, and the common wealth attorney all lay dead. Friel Allen sat in the back of the room, and the Edwards boys stood on benches next to the north wall. Victor Allen also asserted that Claud had taken Victor's handgun as the two left their hotel in Hillsville on that morning. Find out where you can buy, rent, or subscribe to a streaming service to watch it live or on-demand. On the cold spring morning of March 14th, 1912, shots rang out in the tiny rural mountain town of Hillsville, Virginia. Floyd Allen was born in 1856 and spent much of his life living in Cana, Virginia, located below Fancy Gap Mountain in Carroll County. The sheriff in Hillsville had the boys arrested there and handed over to his deputies at the state line. And arrest them you can buy, rent, or block you with a paywall in... Floyds trial. ), Hillsville VA: Carroll County have the lowest rate! Sat in the back about four inches lower, while a third cut! The smoke cleared the sheriff and so many of the trial. ) lodging directly under collarbone. 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