JOHN X. BEIDLER
Leading Vigilante and express messenger
Election day came, when the negroes, for the first time in our history, were to exercise the right of suffrage. It was a great day for them; and the few that were in the city, soon began to make their appearance, dressed up for the occasion as for a holiday. A riot was anticipated, as threats had been made by the roughs in town that the negroes should not vote without a fight. X. Beidler stood near the polls to preserve the peace, and see that every man, black or white, was protected in voting. In the meantime a colored barber and his negro associate had a set-to at fisticuffs, to decide some knotty point in politics. The crowd arrested the combatants, and while conducting them to the magistrate, the barber escaped and ran home. Hayes, still in their custody, was roughly charged by one John Leach with having drawn a pistol upon a white man.
“You lie if you say that,” was the indignant reply of Hayes.
“Do you call me a liar?” retorted Leach.
“Yes, you or any other man who says I drew a pistol or carry one.”
As he said this, the crowd released Hayes, and he walked down the street to a barber shop, where he was followed by Leach, who seized him by the collar with one hand, and drawing and cocking a pistol with the other, repeated the question,
“You drew a pistol upon a white man, did you?”
Hayes again replied in the negative, and raising his arm said,
“Search me, if you think I have any weapons. My fuss was with a colored man, not with you. I don’t want anything to do with you.” As he turned to release himself from the grasp of Leach, that ruffian, aiming at his heart, said,