On 17 April 1875, Anna Williams of 313 Canal Street in Richmond heard a noise and went outside to investigate only to discover a plank pulled off of her hen house and a man “breaking chicken necks.”   Emmet W. Ruffin, a neighbor enlisted to assist her, later testified as to what happened next., “I jumped back and drew my knife and waited for him to come out…. Just then the man jumped out of the chicken house and threw a handful of sand or dirt in my eyes…. As soon as I got the sand out of my eyes, I went after him… and struck him with the knife as he was going over the fence.”  The thief dropped some of the chickens inside the yard, but Ruffin continued to follow him.  Shortly, a chase ensued, with people joining in and crying “murder” and “thief.”   Some members of the group began throwing stones.  One struck the thief on the side of his head knocking him to the ground.  The chicken thief, later identified as Robert Bland, never got back up.

The Richmond coroner’s statement reveals that the chicken thief came to his death from a stab wound, inflicted by Emmet W. Ruffin, received while engaged in stealing chickens. The jury was of the opinion that Ruffin “[deserved] the thanks of the community for his action under the circumstances.”

The testimony and investigation into the death of Robert Bland, dated 18 April 1875, can be found in the Richmond Coroners’ Inquisitions. The collection is available at the Library of Virginia but is currently closed for processing.

In April 2013, almost 138 years later, chickens are again making headlines in the city of Richmond.  City Council will be considering an ordinance that would allow residents to have chickens, and will vote on it on 8 April. A pro-hen group, Chickunz, along with other local chicken advocates, is helping spearhead this effort. 

As far as stealing hens goes, as Robert Bland discovered chickens do come home to roost. 

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

In 1879, Charles C. Curtis was working at the retail store of Wingo, Ellett, and Crump at 1000 Main Street in Richmond.  A customer, a young lady named Isabel Cottrell, visited the store to try on a pair of shoes, and found Mr. Curtis’s behavior “exceedingly offensive.” Instead of allowing her to put the shoes on, he insisted on holding the shoe for her to put her foot in and on buttoning the shoe after she had “begged him” to let her do it herself.  She encountered Mr. Curtis on a second visit to pick up a pair of shoes she had ordered, and he insisted that she try them on in the store. Cottrell instead took the shoes home.

On a third visit, she took both pairs of shoes back to the store “with the purpose of leaving one pair of shoes and having the heels of the other plated.”  Cotrell claimed Curtis opened the bundle of shoes and remarked, in a rather impertinent way, “what a pretty little shoe, I certainly would like to put them on you.  I don’t see how you can walk with such a foot.”  Ms. Cottrell “was very much provoked, and told him he would oblige [her] by not commenting on [her] foot.”  She was further annoyed when Curtis accompanied her to the phaeton, where a friend was waiting. He “gave my arm a very severe grip,” Cottrell remarked to her friend and claimed that she would never go into the store again as long as he was employed there.  She considered Curtis “not only unrefined, but insulting.” She then told her “intimate acquaintance,” John E. Poindexter, of these circumstances, and he “seemed very angry” and declared that he would “have to horsewhip the fellow.” 

Later, John Poindexter got his brother and went to the shoe store to confront Curtis.  After being sure that Curtis was the man he was looking for, he “pulled out a riding whip and struck Curtis eight or ten times.” Poindexter accused him of “insulting a lady,” and Curtis claimed to “have no knowledge of it, but if he had, he begged her pardon.”  After another salesman in the store intervened, the brothers left the store.

After the confrontation, Curtis decided to seek the advice of friends upon this “point of honor.”  After explaining the incident, Tazewell Ellet told him “the proper thing to do is…to go and kill him.”  But another friend, Francis McGuire, replied that he “cannot do that, his character as a Christian and member of the church prevents it.”  After Curtis acknowledged that he could not kill Poindexter, McGuire told him, “you must see him at once and demand a full and immediate apology, and if not given…beat him.”  McGuire then offered to accompany him “to stand by [him] and see fair play.”  They both went to Poindexter’s place of business to confront him on 3 March 1879.  Curtis, carrying a stick, walked toward Poindexter and demanded an apology.  Poindexter replied, “If you strike me with that stick, I will shoot you.”  Curtis said, “I am unarmed.”  McGuire then urged Curtis on by saying, “hit him, hit him, knock him in the head, or kill him, kill him…”  As Curtis advanced on Poindexter and struck him with the stick, Poindexter began firing until Curtis fell.  At which point, Poindexter said “I didn’t want to shoot him…let’s try and do something for the man.” 

Charles C. Curtis died of the effects of pistol shot wounds on 4 March 1879. The testimony and investigation into his death can be found in the Richmond Coroners’ Inquisitions, dated 4 March 1879. The collection is available at the Library of Virginia but is currently closed for processing.

We were not alone here at the Library of Virginia in finding this story intriguing. Reporter Herbert T. Ezekiel also remarked on the story in his The Recollections of a Virginia Newspaper Man, published in 1920. Ezekiel found the story noteworthy because Poindexter’s whipping of Curtis was the last instance of cowhiding, or horsewhipping, on record in the state of Virginia before the State Legislature passed a law making it a felony.

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

On 15 May 1883, a seemingly intoxicated man approached Richard Stevens and his group of friends as they were standing together at 513 N. 17^th Street in Richmond’s Church Hill area. The man was James Harris, a fortune teller or maybe just a swindler, who asked if he could tell their fortunes. Most of the group declined, but Richard Stevens agreed, and they went to a nearby passageway after Mr. Harris suggested they find a more private location. To the skeptic’s delight, this fortune teller was not able to see his own unfortunate end coming.

The pair settled in on a bench, but before he would tell Stevens’ fortune, Harris requested payment. Stevens informed him he would give him the money only after he told his fortune, but the fortune teller claimed, “I’ve been bit too often.”  James Harris then got up and started backwards, staggering. Richard Stevens provided an eyewitness account of the events that followed:

“He had a stick with a crooked handle which he nearly dropped, and I tried to help him with it by catching hold of the …end. He was intoxicated and was at that time on the edge of the doorsill and seemed to have such a slender hold on to his end of the stick that I aimed to catch [him] by his garments to prevent him from falling, but he fell over with my weight upon him and struck his head against the curbstone, both of our hats rolling out in the street. I caught hold of the man…and tried to lift him when I remarked…, ‘Good God, I believe this man is dead, run and bring some water to throw on him.’” Someone brought a pitcher of water to throw upon him, and John Sweeney, a nearby shop owner, “took the water and bathed his head, but found it was of no use, and walked away.”

On that fateful day in May perhaps fortune teller James Harris should have been more concerned about his own future prospects instead of those of Richard Stevens and his friends. The Richmond (City) Coroners’ Inquisition, 22 May 1883, taken at the city’s almshouse, determined that Harris died from a fracture of the skull, inflicted by an accidental fall. The Richmond (City) Coroners’ Inquisitions are currently closed for processing.

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

Often in high-profile criminal cases, the victim and victim’s family are an afterthought.  To mark this infamous anniversary, I decided to write a post on Ida V. Belote.  Who was she?  What happened to her eight children?  Two of her young daughters discovered their mother’s body and testified at the coroner’s inquisition.  What became of them?  My search for answers led me to the Belote coroner’s inquisition, newspaper articles, and Ancestry.com.  What follows is a fragmentary picture of Ida Belote and her family.

Ida Virginia Hobbs, the daughter of James and Harriette Hobbs, was born in March 1861 in North Carolina.  Hobbs married James Edward Wadsworth Belote (17 February 1846-6 June 1911) on 5 November 1879 in Northampton County, North Carolina.  By 1880 the Belotes moved to Virginia and started a family.  Ida and James had eight children:  Luther N. Belote (born 25 September 1880), William James Belote (born 24 February 1884), Bernard B. Belote (born 13 February 1886), Edward Linwood Belote (born 22 September 1887), Paul W. Belote (born 10 July 1889), Pauline A. Belote (born September 1891), Harriet Belote (born August 1898), and Sarah Elizabeth (Sadie) Belote (born 1904).  James E.W. Belote worked as a bookkeeper.  He died at home on 6 June 1911 from throat cancer and was buried in St. John’s Episcopal Church cemetery in Hampton.  Ida was buried next to him on 21 March 1912.

Luther N. Belote was married to a woman named Sadie and in 1900 lived in Newport News, where he resided until at least 1942.  He had at least three children:  Luther W. Belote (born ca. 1900), Bernice Belote (born ca. 1904), and Arthur F. Belote (born ca. 1924).

William J. Belote moved to Hartford, Connecticut, by 1917 where he worked as a conductor for the Connecticut Company.  He was married to Marie V. Ouellette.  William died on 30 August 1964 in New London, Connecticut.  Marie died on 9 January 1979 in Wethersfield, Connecticut.

Bernard B. Belote lived in 1900 with his grandparents, James and Harriet Hobbs.  He married Helen H. Reed on 25 June 1910 at the First Methodist Episcopal Church in Camden, New Jersey.  By World War I, Bernard lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and worked as a machinist.  In 1930 he was an inmate of the Philadelphia County Prison Convict Department.  At the outbreak of World War II, Bernard worked at General Cable and lived in Jersey City, New Jersey.  He died in November 1958.

I did not learn much about Edward L. Belote.  From what I did discover, he led an interesting life.  The Newport News Daily Press reported on 4 August 1906 that Linwood (as he is referred to in the article) was stabbed just under the shoulder by an unidentified African American.  No arrest was made.  In June 1907, Edward ran away from home with his brother Paul and two other friends and found work in Columbus, Ohio.  He was an inmate at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia when he registered for the draft during World War I.  In 1930 he lived in a rooming house in Manhattan, New York.

Paul W. Belote ran away from home in June 1907 with his brother Edward and two other friends.  Paul joined the Navy and served for 2 ½ years.  After his discharge from the Navy, Paul moved to the Alaska Territory in 1910 and was residing in San Francisco at the time of his mother’s murder.  He moved to Pennsylvania and was an inmate in Eastern State Penitentiary in 1920.  By 1942 Paul was still living in Philadelphia with his wife, Bella.

Much to my disappointment, I found very little on Ida’s three daughters who testified at the coroner’s inquisition.  I wanted to learn what happend to the two little girls who not only were orphaned at such a young age but also discovered their mother’s murdered body.  Pauline A. Belote married George W. Wright on 20 September 1909 in Newport News.  In 1920 the Wrights resided in Portsmouth.  Lewter F. Hobbs, Ida’s brother, was named guardian for Harriet and Sadie Belote on 3 April 1912 in the Circuit Court of Elizabeth City County.  Harriet completely disappears from the public record.  I searched the census, marriage, and death records but found no trace of her.  I located one possible record about Sadie.  In the 1920 Federal Census, there is a Sarah E. Belote, age 16, residing in what appears to be an orphanage in Norfolk.  One hundred years after Ida’s death, the story of her and her family remains incomplete.

Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

On the night of 4 August 1882, James M. Duesbury heard pistol shots coming from the nearby home of Christopher Goode and ran to see what the matter was. Goode, a resident of Richmond, Virginia, lived at 709 West Marshall behind what is now the Siegel Center near Virginia Commonwealth University. When Duesbury arrived at the home, Goode stated “I have shot a man; here he is lying down on the floor.” When Duesbury asked why he shot him, he answered, “I caught him on top of my wife.” Policeman Lewis Frayser arrived at the scene and found Winston Robinson “lying on the floor with his pants and drawers down to his knees”  and met Mahala Goode, the wife, in a dress that was “very much disarranged” and “bleeding very freely” from the gunshot wounds she accidentally received during the altercation.

In his testimony to police, Christopher Goode stated, “My God Master, I couldn’t help it to save my life, I shot him and couldn’t help it.”  Mr. Goode further elaborated, explaining that he had been “under the porch and heard them hugging and kissing” and heard his wife invite Robinson upstairs, but Robinson declined saying he “didn’t care about going upstairs” because “if the old man came there would be a fight and one or the other would be killed.”  When Goode heard them get up and go into the parlor, “he took his shoes off and raised the basement window and crept very lightly up the steps and found the lamp turned down very low.”  He turned the light on and discovered his wife and Robinson on the floor and that is when he began firing. Robinson and Mahala both jumped up and advanced towards Goode, who continued to fire. Robinson seized Goode around the neck. Goode fired again, this time hitting his target.

Richmond’s The Daily Dispatch reported the story on 6 August 1882, referring to it as “The Colored Shooting Affair” and describing Christopher Goode as a “quiet, inoffensive man.” We never learn the rest of the story from either newspaper accounts or the 5 August 1882 Richmond (City) Coroner’s Inquisition.  All we know is that the inquisition concluded that Winston Robinson came to his death from the “effect of a pistol shot wound inflicted by Christopher Goode because of criminal relations between him and the said Goode’s wife and they [the jurors] are of the opinion that the killing was eminently proper.”

-Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

“The 1930s was a tough decade, one made even tougher by Prohibition. During this lawless time in American history, a group of criminals called the Tri-State Gang emerged from Philadelphia and spread their operations south, through Baltimore to Richmond, wreaking bloody havoc and brutally eliminating those who knew too much about their heists. Once termed the “Dillingers of the East,” Robert Mais and Walter Legenza led their men and molls on a violent journey of robberies, murders, and escapes up and down the East Coast.”

Richardson, a former archivist at the Library of Virginia, will recount the story of this whirlwind of crime and how it finally reached its climax in Richmond. The talk, part of the “Books on Broad” series, is free. Light refreshments (wine and cheese) will be served (5:30­–6:15 pm), followed by author talk (6:15­–7:15 pm), and book signing (7:15­–7:30 pm).  His book can be purchased through The Virginia Shop at the Library of Virginia.

Selden made extensive use of the records at the Library of Virginia. The gallery accompanying this post consists of some examples from our local, state, and newspaper collections.

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Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

While processing Petersburg (Va.) Coroners’ Inquisitions, 1807-1947, I found these references to the “reefer man” intriguing. Early in Virginia’s history, the Jamestown Colony made cannabis cultivation mandatory because hemp was viewed as a critical crop for rope, clothing, and canvas. After the formation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics in 1930, marijuana was soon regulated as a drug in every state, and, by 1937, with the passing of the Marijuana Tax Act, the production of hemp in addition to marijuana was prohibited.

In the 1930s, marijuana made its presence known in American popular culture. The 1933 film, International House, featured Cab Calloway performing what has become a classic song, “Reefer Man,” about a man who enjoys his marijuana cigarettes.  The mid-1930s soon saw the beginnings of anti-drug propaganda that warned that smoking marijuana would lead to misery, shame, and despair. The most famous propaganda film of this era was the 1936 film Reefer Madness. Originally titled Tell Your Children, Reefer Madness was a film financed by a church group to warn parents melodramatically of the dangers that ensued when high school students were lured by pushers to try marijuana. In the film, the smoking of marijuana soon turns to murder, suicide, attempted rape, and descent into madness.

The 1930s timeframe of this case coincides with the rise of anti-drug propaganda in the United States. There are no references in the coroner’s inquisition to the use of drugs other than Margaret  Jacobs’ remarks, but was this an instance of a drug deal gone bad? Or, did Mrs. Jacobs simply see or hear of the movie and become alarmed about the evil that lurked in the world of the “reefer man” and fear for her son’s involvement?   We may never know these answers, but either way the “reefer man” had made his presence known.

 -Mary Dean Carter, Local Records Archival Assistant

At one o’clock in the morning on 1 September 1859, Milly T. King arrived at the home of James Clary and found his slave Hannah “lying on the hearth gasping for breath, and I thought dying.” When King saw Hannah an hour later, she was dead. The following day Brunswick County coroner William Lett arrived to examine the body.  With him were twelve men, none of whom had a medical background but rather were chosen as upstanding men and representatives of the county. The office of coroner held inquisitions in cases when persons met a sudden, violent, unnatural, or suspicious death. In this case Hannah had certainly met a sudden and suspicious demise.

Hannah, owned by the late Elizabeth H. Harwell, had been in the possession of James Clary, who adamantly maintained that the marks found on her feet and legs and the wound on her head were not from anything suspicious but came as a result of a fall from a window occurring a few weeks before her death. The coroner and his jury of white men were left to decide if Hannah had suffered an accidental death or if her death had been caused by something more malicious. Clary’s wife, Eliza, backed up her husband’s statements and claimed to know nothing of Hannah’s death, maintaining that her wounds were caused by the fall. But the Clarys’ neighbors painted a different picture of the events surrounding Hannah’s death.

Milly King heard Hannah “wailing and begging as though she was under severe chastisement” and reported Eliza Clary saying “she would kill [Hannah] if she did not do better.” Samuel King recalled seeing Hannah “tied across a log hands and feet” with Clary “whipping her with a leather rein doubled” two weeks prior to her death. Clary was said to have explained that he was “whipping her for going in the table cloth and taking out something to eat.” Samuel testified that he heard Hannah at other times, including the day before she died, “making lamentations as if under severe chastisement and sometimes for nearly an hour at a time.” Another neighbor also heard “some person begging and heard some blows as if inflicted with a large switch…”

Faced with contradictory evidence from witnesses, a doctor was finally summoned to provide a physician’s view of events. Dr. Robert S. Powell testified that all of Hannah’s wounds “did their part in hastening the fatal termination,” and the large wound on her head “would ultimately have produced death without medical assistance.” When questioned if her myriad of wounds could have come from a fall, Powell replied that the large head wound could have, but that her other wounds could not have come from the same fall. Powell further believed that “the marks of chastisements had been inflicted about 48 hours” before he saw her, which certainly contradicted Clary’s claims that Hannah’s wounds came from a fall occurring weeks before her death.

After examining the body and hearing testimony, the coroner and his jurors determined that Hannah did not die from a fall but that the “deceased came to her death by abuse inflicted on her person at sundry times during the present year and in various ways by choking and by blows inflicted on her head, body, and limbs,” and some of the blows appeared “to have been inflicted with switches and by other heavier weapons we know not what in the hands of James Clary.”

Virginia coroners were frequently called upon to investigate the deaths of slaves and were often reluctant to place blame in these instances. In the case of Hannah, the coroner and jury did not hesitate to blame Clary for her murder. However, a similar case in Petersburg showed a different outcome. Reuben, a 40-year-old slave, died in 1843 after being “severely whipped” by John Minetree. The coroner found “his body marked with many blows of the cowhide” yet the whipping was not considered a sufficient cause of death. It was determined that Reuben came to his death from an “undue quantity of cold water in his stomach, while under excessive heat and exhaustion.” The coroner and his jury censured the severity of the whipping, but Minetree was discharged from all murder charges.  A similar death happened in Frederick County when Lucy met her end in 1833. Earlier on the day of her death, Lucy had been whipped about the thighs as punishment for stealing some “trifling article” from a neighbor. After her punishment she was sent about her day’s work. While working over the fire Lucy fainted and struck her head on the hearth. The coroner determined that the whipping and fall were the cause of her death but no blame was placed on her owner because there was “no intention to kill on the part of her master.”

The separate office of coroner was created in about 1660 to hold inquisitions into sudden, suspicious, and violent deaths. Causes of death found in coroner’s inquisitions include murder, infanticide, suicide, exposure to the elements, drownings, train accidents, and natural causes. Coroner’s inquisitions are a valuable source for local, social, and legal history. They are especially useful for those researching African Americans. The gender and race of the deceased was often noted in the inquests. If the deceased was African American, the inquest would identify the individual as either a slave or a free person, and if the deceased was a slave, the inquest would include the name of the slaveowner. Currently, the following counties and cities have coroner’s inquisitions available for research at the Library of Virginia: Amelia County, Amherst County, Arlington County, Bedford County, Botetourt County, Brunswick County, Charlotte County, Frederick County, Henrico County, Norfolk County, Petersburg (City), and Rockbridge County.

-Bari Helms, Local Records Archivist