CHAPTER SIXTEEN
In Tuscaloosa
Two young men belonging in the hills of Tuscaloosa county, were journeying in a wagon, bound homeward from a trading trip to Northport (across the river from Tuscaloosa). Passing a negro lad, they jestingly pretended that they would kidnap him. In alarm, the boy fled to his home and informed his father that he had been mistreated; and the man armed himself with a gun and pursued the unconscious young men. Overtaking them, he leveled his gun menacingly and cursed the unarmed and defenseless white men. That night they, with some friends, repaired to the negro’s house to chastise him. He had assembled a number of armed friends in anticipation of an attack. He had loosened some of the flooring, and through the opening thus provided crawled to the edge of the house, and, emerging from this position, crept unperceived to the near-by bushes. While the whites were parleying with the inmates of the house, he discharged both barrels of his gun, and young Finley fell dead. Shots from the house succeeded. Attacked front and rear, the whites withdrew in disorder. News of the occurrence quickly spread far and wide.
Next day one of the negroes implicated was caught and killed. Later, another, who had been captured and incarcerated in jail at Tuscaloosa, was taken therefrom by a band of men and executed. The ringleader escaped temporarily. Twice in pursuit of him steamboats were stopped and searched. The fugitive had been on one of them, but debarked at one of the landings. About twelve months after the unsuccessful chase, the fugitive was traced to a plantation in Hale county, where the habit of wearing a heavy revolver even while at field work rendered him an object of suspicion, and caused an investigation which revealed his identity. His dead body, weapon in hand, was found one day on the roadside, and his taking off was associated in the minds of the people with the brief visit to that neighborhood of two white men, who departed in the direction of Tuscaloosa county. Consequences of this affair were a change in the office of sheriff, recall of troops, and other tragedies, but the ultimate effect was a better understanding between the races.