The Gazette
March 6, 1901

Shortly before day break Sunday morning two negroes — Sam Williams and Bill Johnson — each received a load of squirrel shot about the head while they were walking along the road near Mr. J. B. Taylor’s place.

The party who did the shooting is not known, but evidently he had laid in wait for his victims, and it is the general belief that he was a negro.

Williams was struck in the side of the face with a number of small shot and he fell to the ground. After the first shot his companion, Johnson, attempted to run but Williams was in no mood to be deserted in that hour, and as Johnson passed him he caught and clung to him and both the negroes, like Siamese twins, pulled up the road as rapidly as possible. The would-be assassin yelled to Johnson to drop his partner. Failing to obey, the second load was turned into the back of Johnson’s cranium, peeling the scalp considerably. Johnson then freed himself from Williams and ran along the road for two to three miles like a wounded buck yelling a la Comanche Indian fashion.

The supposition is that the two negroes went out on a lark that night and went to some place where they had no business, and that the offended party quietly awaited their homeward return, when he gave them a warm reception in the shape of squirrel shot.