No, not the 3-D version of the 1997 mega-hit movie, Titanic, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, but the viewing of a stunning array of newspaper images taken from Chronicling America, a featured online resource of the National Digital Newspaper Program, a cooperative initiative to digitize historical newspapers from around the United States.  No special effects are needed to be drawn in and riveted by the press coverage of one of the greatest peacetime maritime disasters.

15 April 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  The mighty White Star Liner on its maiden voyage hit an iceberg and within a few hours sunk to the bottom of the cold North Atlantic Ocean, killing over 1,800 men, women, children, and crew members.

Stories of bravery, sacrifice, cowardice, and tragic negligence fill column after column of papers beginning with the late editions of 15 April 1912 and for many days following.  Early dispatches were filled with conflicting information, rumor, and wild conjecture, but over time the sad facts revealed the tragic scope of the disaster.

The pages you see here will be added to the Virginia Newspaper Project’s long-standing web exhibit, Titanic:  100 Years Later, a web exhibit, believe it or not, that predates the release of the movie Titanic in 1997 and even the birthday of Google.  So we’re happy to update the site with a selection of images that show how newspapers communicated to readers through a canny combination of dry news, sensational story telling, and eye-grabbing imagery that the mass reading public had come to expect from the ever evolving and burgeoning newspaper industry.

And while you’re at it, please check out Fit to Print, the Virginia Newspaper Project’s brand new blog.  Right now we’re featuring posts about the infamous Floyd Allen clan and the posts serve as a perfect complement to the work you’ll find here at Out of the Box.  In the coming days, Fit to Print will provide additional coverage of the sinking of the unsinkable Titanic!

-Errol Somay, Newspaper Project Director

In March 1913, Floyd Allen and his son Claude were executed for the 14 March 1912  murder of Commonwealth’s Attorney William Foster.  The Allens’ case had gone through many twists and turns since the shootout in the Carroll County courthouse the previous March.  The trials of Floyd Allen, Claude Allen, Friel Allen, Sidna Allen, Wesley Edwards, and Sidna Edwards took place in Wytheville from April to December 1912.  The prosecution’s strategy was to prove the courthouse shooting was a premeditated conspiracy in order to make each defendant equally liable for the murders.  On 18 May 1912, Floyd Allen was found guilty of the first degree murder of Commonwealth’s Attorney Foster.  The prosecution’s strategy failed in the trial of Claude Allen.  He was convicted of the second degree murder of Judge Thornton Massie because the prosecution failed to prove a conspiracy.  Claude Allen then was tried twice for the murder of Foster.  The first trial resulted in a hung jury.  In the second trial, Allen was convicted of first degree murder.  Floyd and Claude Allen were sentenced to die in the electric chair at the Virginia Penitentiary on 22 November 1912.

The execution did not happen in November.  In order to allow the Allens time to appeal their sentences, Governor William Hodges Mann stayed the executions four times between November 1912 and March 1913.  Their appeals were twice rejected by the Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals.  The United States Supreme Court declined to intervene.  With their appeals exhausted, Governor Mann set the executions for 28 March 1913.  During the four months of appeals, Mann received letters and petitions urging the governor to grant clemency to the Allens.  Mann refused.  That didn’t stop the Allens lawyers.  On 27 March 1913, with Governor Mann out of state, they suggested to Lt. Governor J. Taylor Ellyson that he had the authority to grant clemency in Mann’s absence.  Virginia Attorney General Samuel Williams, questioned by Ellyson on the constitutionality of this issue, ruled that the Lt. Governor had no power to act during a temporary absence of the governor.  Mann learned of Ellyson’s query to the Attorney General and quickly returned to Virginia to ensure the executions were carried out.

Floyd Allen died in the electric chair at 1:31 pm on 28 March 1913.  Claude was executed eleven minutes later.  The events of 14 March 1912 have been the subject of numerous books and articles with many of the facts of the case disputed (for example, who shot first).  Often lost in the details of the case are those who died as a result of the shootout.  Last night, the Carroll County Historical Society, as part of a Centennial Symposium, held a memorial service to remember the victims:  Judge Thornton Massie, Commonwealth’s Attorney William Foster, Sheriff Lewis Webb, juror Augustus Fowler and trial witness Elizabeth (Bettie) Ayers.  Today, the Society is conducting grave site wreath-laying ceremonies for the five.

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

List of Records at the Library of Virginia related to the Carroll County courthouse shooting

• Virginia Secretary of the Commonwealth, Papers relevant to the Floyd Allen case, 1912-1922, accession 21690 and 39265, State Records Collection.
• Records of the Virginia Penitentiary, 1796-1991 (bulk 1906-1970), accession 41558, State Records Collection.
• Wythe County (Va.), Circuit Court, Commonwealth of Virginia v. Floyd Allen, April-May 1912 (trial transcript), accession 28311, Local Records Collection.
• The Virginia Newspaper Project has partnered with the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Library of Congress, and other newspaper projects, to digitize select Virginia newspapers published from 1860 to 1922 via Chronicling America.  The newspapers are full text searchable.  Researchers can read contemporary media coverage of the shootout and subsequent trials.

Entries in the Dictionary of Virginia Biography related to the Carroll County courthouse shooting

• Floyd Allen (1856-1913)
• William Gibboney Baldwin (1860-1936), Co-founder of Baldwin-Felts Detectives
• David Winton Bolen (1850-1932), Floyd Allen’s attorney on 14 March 1912
• Stuart Bland Campbell (1888-1973), Wythe County Commonwealth’s Attorney, prosecuted Floyd Allen
• Robert Walter Childress (1889-1956), member of posse that chased Floyd Allen et all after the shooting
• Charles Francis Cocke (1886-1971), Sidna Allen’s attorney during his appeals

*Update – 21 March 2012*

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce a new blog, Fit to Print:  Dispatches from the Virginia Newspaper Project @ The Library of Virginia.  The first post, 100 Years Ago – Law and Disorder, is about the Allen’s and the Carroll County Courthouse shooting.

On 13 March 1912, in the Carroll County Circuit Court, Floyd Allen was tried for attacking two deputies who had arrested two of his nephews for fighting and disturbing a religious meeting. The jury found Allen guilty of assault on 14 March and sentenced him to one year in the penitentiary.  Allen stood up and stated, “Gentlemen, I ain’t going” and shots erupted in the courthouse leaving several county officials and a spectator dead.  The Allen family claimed that several court officials opened fire on Floyd Allen, while other witnesses contended that Claude Swanson Allen, the defendant’s son, began the shooting. Nevertheless, Floyd Allen, Claude Swanson Allen, and other members of the Allen family were tried for murder in the Wythe County Circuit Court from April-December 1912.  Floyd Allen was convicted of first degree murder on 16 May 1912.  Claude S. Allen was also found guilty of first degree murder.  Father and son were executed on 28 March 1913.

Sidna Allen, Floyd’s brother, was sentenced to 35 years in the penitentiary for second degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.  Sidna Edwards, nephew of Floyd and Sidna Allen, plead guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years in the penitentiary.  Friel Allen, Floyd’s nephew, confessed to shooting the commonwealth’s attorney and was sentenced to 18 years in the penitentiary for second degree murder.  Wesley Edwards, brother of Sidna Edwards, received a 27-year prison sentence, 18 years for two counts of first degree murder and 9 years for second degree murder.

Over the next week, Out of the Box will post a daily entry on each member of the Allen family.  The schedule is:

• Thursday, March 8 – Friel Allen, No. 10994
• Friday, March 9 – Sidna Edwards, No. 10995
• Monday, March 12 – Sidna Allen, No. 11217
• Tuesday, March 13 – Wesley Edwards, No. 11218
• Wednesday, March 14 – Floyd and Claude Allen, executed 28 March 1913

Each entry, where applicable, will include a photograph and prisoner register entry from the records of the Virginia Penitentiary, clemency documents from the Secretary of the Commonwealth and excerpts from an anonymous article published in The Beacon, the prisoner-run Virginia Penitentiary newspaper, that describes one inmate’s observations on the Allen family.

-Roger Christman, Senior State Records Archivist

*Update – 21 March 2012*

The Library of Virginia is pleased to announce a new blog, Fit to Print:  Dispatches from the Virginia Newspaper Project @ The Library of Virginia.  The first post, 100 Years Ago – Law and Disorder, is about the Allen’s and the Carroll County Courthouse shooting.