McDowell, Hartford Herald, March 18, 1908

And Shot Down Two Innocent Men.

RACE WAR NOW THREATENED

Result of Fatal Wounding of Deputy Marshal at Providence.

DIxon, Ky., March 15. – The fatal wounding of Deputy Marshal Smith Childers by Jake McDowell, at Providence, Ky., last evening almost precipitated a race war, and was the indirect cause of two traveling men being shot. P. B. Carter, a traveling man of Chattanooga, was dangerously and perhaps fatally wounded, and J. B. Barry, another commercial traveler, was pain fully wounded. The two men were shot from ambush by negroes while driving between Dixon and Providence in company of two other drummers. The negroes who did the shooting evidently labored under the impression that the quartette were members of a mob pursuing McDowell.

Deputy Marshal Childers was shot while attempting to arrest McDowell. The negro was taken into custody and hurried to Dixon for safe keeping. A mob of white immediately began forming and negroes in the vicinity of Providence, hearing fo this, also armed themselves and lay in wait by the road over which the mob was expected to pass. They mistook the traveling men for the advance guard of the mob and after firing on them, made their escape. McDowell, after being brought to Dixon, was hurried on to Henderson.

The mob in pursuit arrived at the Dixon jail at 2 o’clock this morning and, finding there was no chance of getting McDowell,  immediately set out to beat the country with bloodhounds for the negroes who had fired on the traveling men. Thus far no trace of the culprits has been found, but any of them caught will probably be lynched.

Carter was taken to a hospital at Evansville, Ind.

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JAILS HEAVILY GUARDED

Henderson, Ky., March 15. – Webster county, the scene of a race war Saturday night, is quiet to-day, but the jails at Dixon and Henderson are being heavily guarded to-night for fear of a raid by a mob. Deputy Marshal Smith Childers, of Providence, who was shot by Jake McDowell, a negro, is dying.

McDowell was placed in the Henderson county jail after a chase of twenty-five miles. Will McDowell, a cousin of the murderer, Tom Fuqua, Tom Miller and another unknown negro, were arrested to-day, charged with the shooting of two traveling men, whom they thought were part of a mob on the way to Dixon from Providence to hang McDowell. One of the men shot is in a serious condition

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MR. BARRY DEAD.

Evansville, Ind., March 16. – John Barry , of Louisville, Ky., who was shot by negroes from ambush near Dixon, Ky., Saturday night, died in a local hospital to-night.