Strange Times 86: Gruesome Find in Yellow River

Today brings a sickening story of murder near Macon, Georgia. Prepare yourself for…

March 27, 1921

• In Tokyo, Henry Bowie, late president of San Francisco’s American-Japanese Society, becomes the first foreigner to have a Shinto shrine dedicated in his honor.

• While rescuing a ship’s cat trapped inside a piano, a New York customs agent discovers a huge cache of liquor and perfume smuggled inside the instrument.

• The start of spring is marked by Hatchetface, a Staten Island turtle who, it is said, eats his first food of the year on the day that winter ends.

• Paris officials express concern that the fight between Royalist and leftist deputies could result in a bloody vendetta between their factions.

• The Weather: Partly cloudy today with mild temperature; probably showers; Monday rain; southerly winds.

This may be the most horrifying story I’ve encountered in the two years I’ve been writing this newsletter. It contains descriptions of hideously racist graphic violence.

I think it’s worth reading primarily because of a detail in the second section, which suggests that Georgians were prepared to storm a jail and lynch a white man “in defense of the negroes who had been brutally treated on the Williams plantation.” Whether in 1921 or 2019, white supremacy is sustained in part by the myth that violence of this kind is beyond the pale, and not the logical extension of the entire belief system.

MACON, Ga., March 26.—Six more bodies, bringing the total so far discovered to nine, of negroes alleged to have been kept in peonage and murdered by John Williams or by his orders were found today. Five were dug from shallow graves on or near his Jasper County plantation and one was taken from the Alcovy River. Three bodies had already been taken from the Yellow River.

Federal and State officers were led to the graves by Clyde Manning, the negro hand of Williams, whose confession, in which he admitted himself killing some of the negroes, led to the arrest and indictment of Williams for murder.

The dead negroes are said to have given evidence to the Federal Government of alleged peonage conditions on the Williams farm.

Warrants were issued for the three sons of Williams today, Julius, Hayler and Marvin, but had not been served at a late hour.

Militia Held Ready for Call

Following the finding of the additional bodies, feeling has reached such a state in Jasper County that National Guardsmen stand ready tonight to respond to a call.

Jasper County is some thirty-five miles north of this city. The conflict appears to be between citizens of Jasper and those of Newton County, for it was in the latter county that three of the bodies from the alleged peonage farm were deposited in the Yellow River.

Officers felt safer to keep John Williams in the Fulton County Jail in Atlanta, to which place the alleged confessor, Manning, also was taken. There were many Jasper County citizens ready tonight, according to reports from that city, to take the law into their own hands in defense of the negroes who had been brutally treated on the Williams plantation.

Officers today claim to have found the stockade in which Williams is alleged to have kept his negroes locked up every night. Some of these negroes are said to have preferred being shot to standing torture under his alleged peonage practices. Manning is said to allege that the negroes on Williams’ 2,200-acre plantation were held in slavery worse than was ever practiced in South Africa.

Three of the bodies recovered today were buried on the Williams plantation and two on the adjoining Campbell plantation, which also is operated by Williams. Manning says that he knows there are two more bodies in the stream, but efforts to recover them failed tonight, for the dragging hooks broke. The work will be resumed tomorrow.

The body taken from the river was weighed down, head and feet, just as Manning had said it was, 500 pounds of stone, tied in a bag, being attached to the body.

Manning Opens Graves

Sheriff Johnson, who has been the leader in the investigation following the gruesome find in Yellow River, stated this afternoon that five of the six bodies showed that their skulls had been crushed by an axe, while the other was killed by a pistol bullet through the head. The graves of the five negroes on Williams’s farm were carelessly dug, four being only eighteen inches deep and the fifth about two and a half feet deep.

The officers stated that they arrived at the Williams farm at or about 10 o’clock this morning with Manning. They drove immediately to the pasture where the negro stated in his confession that he slew three of the farm hands. The place was located a few hundred yards from the Williams home. Sheriff Johnson stated that the negro walked as “straight as a bee line” to the first of the five graves.

“Here’s one, boss,” he exclaimed to the Sheriff. The negro then got down on his knees and began uncovering the dirt from the shallow grave. The body was exhumed. He walked twenty yards further to the right of the first grave. He stopped and dug the toe of his shoe in the ground. “Here’s another, boss,” he stated. “Just like I told you they were here.”

At the third grave Manning looked at the body and exclaimed: “This is the negro who would rather be shot than whipped. He ain’t been buried long.”

From the pasture the party went to a spot on what is known as the Campbell place. Manning was in the lead. He pointed out two graves to the officers at a distance of about 200 yards. The bodies were exhumed and showed that each skull had been crushed.

“Now, boss, the other three bodies are in the Alcovy River underneath Waters Bridge,” calmly stated the negro while standing at the foot of one of the graves. “Them niggers were thrown in about three weeks ago, and they ain’t coming up unless you bring them up, because we weighted them down, head and feet. One of them is Charlie Chisholm. He was a trusty for my boss, Mr. Williams. He killed one suspicious negro by braining him with an axe. Then, a little later, Mr. Williams got uneasy about the way Charlie was acting and made me get him. Me and Mr. Williams took Charlie to Waters Bridge. Charlie begged hard, but Mr. Williams said, ‘Throw him over,’ so we weighted him pretty good at both ends and—splash!—that was the end of Charlie. Come on, boss, I’ll show you where Charlie and the other two negroes are.”

Believe Two More in River

At Waters Bridge Manning pointed out the spot where he believed he had thrown the bodies.

“Them negroes are down there,” he said. “Ain’t no chance for them to be anywhere else, with all those stones around their necks and feet.”

A boat was procured and with a grappling line trailing from its stern a member of the party did not have to row long before the grappling hook struck a snag. The line was pulled up and the body of the sixth negro came to the surface.

Half an hour later the grappling line struck another snag. The boatmen tugged at the line and were lifting it when what was thought to be a body came loose from the hook.

The Coroner of Jasper County empanelled a jury today, but it was later decided to postpone the inquest over the bodies of the six negroes pending the recovery of others.

The three Williams boys, Julius, Hayler and Marvin, it is said, watched the searchers on their father’s farm from the family residence. Sheriff Johnson stated that he had no orders, as did Sheriff Persons, for their arrest.

“Why did I do it?” said Manning. “Because the boss, Mr. Williams, said he wanted to get rid of them negroes and that if I didn’t make them disappear he’d kill me. And I know he meant what he said. I knowed him like he knows a book.”

MONTICELLO, Ga., March 26.—Judge Parks of the Ocmulgee circuit tonight called a special session of the Grand Jury to investigate the murders on the Williams plantation. The best citizens of Jasper County promised their cooperation in the inquiry. 

Belief was expressed by the authorities tonight that all the victims had been killed at the Williams place since Feb. 21, when agents of the Department of Justice visited the farm during an investigation of alleged peonage in that vicinity. Williams is a cousin of Sheriff Persons of Jasper County, who is under indictment for peonage. It developed today that information also has been filed with the United States Attorney here against Williams’s relative to peonage charges.

ATLANTA, March 26.—John Williams, accused of complicity in the murder of nine negro plantation hands, tonight in his cell in the tower held firmly to his statement that “the whole thing is a lie and a frame-up.” He charges that a feud of long existence between his family and the Leverett brothers, who live on an adjoining farm, are the cause of the charges against him. He denied he gave instructions to Manning to murder any negroes and he said if any bodies were found on his land he believed the Leverett family was responsible for their burial there.

Williams said he had members of the family frequently quarreled with the Leverett family over land lines and grazing fields. He said that despite his efforts to make amicable adjustments the Leveretts had continued for several years to antagonize him in every way and had made repeated attempts to “get” him.

“Mrs. Leverett and her three sons, Tom, Roy and Dave, operate a farm adjoining mine and they have contended that I was in possession of part of their land,” said Williams. “They also have claimed that I killed some of their live stock. Last Fall the Leverett boys charged my boys with turning up a still to the officers and we almost had a shooting scrape over that. Two months ago I had a fight with Dave Leverett and at that time he threatened to break my neck by making peonage charges against me.

“If Manning killed eleven negroes, as he says he did, he did so under the orders of Leverett and not under my orders. It is a fact that I did bail out negroes from jails in Atlanta and Macon and took them to my farm, but the charge that I held them in peonage is false.”