About 12 o’clock the convention met in a large hall, provided with a rostrum, over a store on Main street. The hall, having been used for a buggy warehouse, had a tramway that led from the sidewalk to the floor. Up this broad and slanting way the delegates and spectators traveled. I was one among the first to arrive, with a chair that I borrowed, a small lapboard and a tablet, and took my seat on the rostrum, in the north corner, against the rear wall, near a window that looked out on a back lot, believing that I had selected the best place in the house for my purpose.
At the appointed hour the hall was well filled with people, principally negroes. Seeing Mr. Claude Dockery talking and laughing with me, Rich Lilly became curious again, and, when no one was about, he came up, looked me in the eye and asked: “Boss, for Gawd’s sake, whut is you gwine ter do ef you ain’t no deligate.”
“I am going to sit here and watch you Republicans, take notes and write you up in the paper if you don’t behave yourselves,” was my reply.
“O, you’s er writer fur de paper?”
“Yes.”
“I sees.”
I do not recall any but the more violent incidents of the convention. As I sat there and watched the various delegations take their seats, a looker-on in Vienna pointed out some of the celebrities.
“That man with the long beard and long fig-stemmed pipe, is Dr. R. M. Norment, of Lumberton,” said my coach. “The man with the cripple hand is Col. B. Bill Terry. The long-armed man with abbreviated trousers and coat sleeves, is Speaking Henry Covington.”
Many others were named, but I have forgotten most of them. Later Big Bill Sutton, of Bladen, came in. He did not belong to the convention, but it was understood that he was there to lead the Russell forces in a rough-house affair if his services were needed.