Strange Times 97: A Dance of Death

Today brings tragedy in Kalamazoo and further grim revelations from the Yellow River. Witness the horror on…

April 7, 1921

• After testifying that her husband forced her to live on the dog’s leftovers, Emma J. Helm is granted a decree of separation and an alimony of $12 per week.

• Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis sentences a mail clerk who confessed to stealing a doll from the mail to one hour in prison.

• 150 tennis outfits are destroyed when a Central Park locker room burns to the ground.

• The Weather: Fair today; Friday cloudy, not much change in temperature; fresh south and southeast winds.

I don’t have much to say about this one except that it is very, very sad.

KALAMAZOO, Mich., April 6.—While the deadly poison she had swallowed slowly drove life from her frail body, Mrs. Neva Fraser, 18 years old, and a bride of a few weeks, performed a dance of death in the presence of a company of invited friends here last night. At length, reeling from stupor and the pain of the convulsions which racked her body, the girl swayed and fell dead before her horrified guests.

After the company had arrived, excusing herself, she went to her room and took a dose of strychnine. She returned to her friends a moment later and chatted for a while.

Then she walked to the phonograph and started the record “Till We Meet Again,” explaining that the air had been played at the dance at which she met her husband. Her friends were still oblivious to the tragedy that was taking place when she began dancing to the music, but before the last bars had died away the little party saw her fall in a crumpled heap on the floor. She died without giving an explanation of her act.

To some of her friends she had confided domestic troubles that started because her husband insisted on her living at her mother’s home despite her wish to have a home of her own.

This continuation of a story first told in Strange Times 86 is also very, very sad. (And also features some unfortunate dialect.) Hm. Check back next week, I guess, and perhaps we’ll have something fun.

COVINGTON, Ga., April 6.—Fear for his own life was the motive that prompted Clyde Manning, negro farm boss, to help kill eleven negro farm hands employed on the Jasper County plantation of John S. Williams, the negro told the jury today in the trial of Williams in Newton County Superior Court here. Manning asserted on cross-examination he did not want to help kill them, but was afraid to disobey Williams, who, he declared was trying to do away with the negroes for fear they might testify regarded alleged peonage conditions on the Williams farm.

“They wan’t a-bothering me,” said Manning, a coal black, short, stockily built man of about 150 pounds, “and I didn’t want to get ‘em out of the way,” but, he added later, “Mr. Johnny said, it’s their necks or yours.’”

The negroes met death shortly after Federal authorities started an investigation of alleged peonage on the farm, six of them, according to Manning, being chained to rocks and thrown alive into rivers, and five knocked in the head or shot and buried on the farm.

Williams is on trial charged with the murder of Lindsey Peterson, one of three of the negroes alleged to have been brought into Newton County and drowned, and the defense sought to confine the witness to his account of Peterson’s death and to bar him and two Federal agents from testifying to peonage conditions. Judge John B. Hutchenson overruled both motions, and Green F. Johnson, chief counsel for Williams, indicated he would appeal on these grounds in event of conviction of Williams.

Throughout an hour of cross-examination, Manning, who was indicted jointly with Williams, denied any pressure had been brought to bear on him to make him tell the story. It was only after long questioning by officers, he said, that he first told his story, but he denied he had been beaten, threatened with drowning, or promised a light sentence if he would help convict Williams, as the latter’s counsel intimated.…

Manning was the State’s chief witness, and during his testimony the Court House was packed to capacity. He seemed little affected by his recital, and rarely changed the inflection of his voice. He is unable to read or write, he said, and is about 29 years old, but does not know where he was born.

“When I first remember myself,” he said, “I was in Jasper County.”

During some three hours of direct examination the negro told in detail of the alleged murder of the eleven negroes, giving his description in simplest words. Manning began his story of the “death farm” when Colonel Howard asked him if he knew Lindsey Peterson.

“Yes, he’s dead,” said Manning.

“Do you know Willie Preston, and, if so, is he living or dead?”

“I know him, and he’s dead.”

The names of eleven were called, and to each question Manning replied, “He’s dead.”

Manning said Willie Preston, Lindsey Peterson and Harry Price were killed the same night, one Saturday night about the last of February or the first of March.

“Tell the jury where Lindsey Peterson died and how he died,” the attorney said.

“He was thrown into the Yellow River with a weight around his neck,” replied Manning.…

Manning said trace chains were put around the necks of Lindsey Peterson and Willie Preston at Palk’s store. He said Williams was driving an automobile and took the two negroes together from Palk’s store to the Yellow River. He said sacks were tied to the negroes necks and filled with rocks. He explained how the hands of the two men were tied together with trace chains around their necks and a sack of rocks tied to the chains. He said the negroes scuffled when they reached the bridge.

“Mr. Johnnie (Williams) told us to throw them over the banister of the bridge,” he said.

Charlie Chisholm, a negro farmhand, was present, he said.

“Mr. Johnnie held up the sack of rocks as we walked to the middle of the bridge,” said Manning.…

“They was stubborn and a begging,” Manning said simply, “and me and Charlie rolled ‘em over the banister of the bridge.”

How Others Died

The men, as were the others killed, he said, had been lured away from the farm by Williams on the pretext that they were being taken to trains and would be allowed to return to their homes in Atlanta or Macon, where they had been taken from jail by Williams paying their fines.

Harry Price, another negro taken to be drowned, jumped off the bridge himself, Manning said, when he found there was no hope for him.

“Don’t throw me over; I’ll get over,” Manning quoted Price as saying, and added that the negro, with a cry of “Lord, have mercy,” flung himself into the river.

Manning then went into details of the alleged murder of other negroes, declaring one known on the farm only as “Little Bit” was induced to help lift “Red” Brown, another negro, over the river bridge railing on the pretext that Williams merely wanted to “scare” the one known as Brown. The latter, already weighted down, was dropped into the river, Manning said, and then he said he helped “Little Bit” to the same fate.

Another farm hand known only as “Big John” was induced to help dig his own grave on the pretense that he was digging a well, and when the hole was about shoulder deep, Manning testified, Charlie Chisholm knocked the negro in the head and he and Chisholm filled the hole. Manning continued his testimony until he had described each alleged murder in detail.

He declared Williams was present at the various drownings and had ordered the killings when defense counsel sought to make him admit he was the instigator in the alleged killings. He said that on one occasion he tried to “break away” from the Williams place, where has worked for fourteen years, but said, “Mr. Johnny jumped on me, and I ain’t tried it no more.”