last night. Howard Hollis, a Negro of Clayton, Del., was shot in both legs during the fight. . . . It is not known who shot Hollis as bullets were flying thick and fast during the melee.”[91:20]
“Federalsburg, Md., Sept. 6.—Officers are scouring lower Caroline County to-day for four Negroes who last night shot up a Negro campmeeting at Mount Hope, near this town.”[91:21]
“Deputy Sheriff Bruce C. Dean, yesterday afternoon shot and killed a Negro named Smith at what is known as Henry’s Cross Roads [near Cambridge, Md., negro] campmeeting. . . . There has always been more or less disorder; in fact, it is generally known that fights, cutting affrays, and a general disregard for the law exists.”[91:22] The Negro who was killed shot at the deputy Sheriff when he tried to arrest him.
“Salisbury, Md., Aug. 23.—A riot occurred last night at the Negro campmeeting, on the west side of the county, and Asbury Waters, 19 years old, was killed, and Clinton Gosless was shot through his jaw-bone and his chin carried away by a bullet.
“Just at the height of the services one of the local preachers, was raising his hands in prayer, a colored woman slipped into the kneeling crowd and pulled a pistol from her dress folds and fired a bullet into his heart. Waters pitched forward and died instantly. . . . Immediately after, Sallie Milburn whipped a pistol from her pocket and blazed away at Clinton Gosless, the bullet entering his jaw. Gosless is in a very serious condition with little hope of his recovery.”
Both these accounts were in the same issue of the Cambridge (Md.) Record, but the camps were in adjoining counties.
Indeed, Negro camp meetings and bush meetings had become so numerous,—occupied such a large part of the Negroes’ time during summer, caused so much lawlessness among them; and consequently so much expense to the whites, that the Maryland Legislature in 1916 passed a law evidently directed against them, which in part is as follows: