Article published June 1, 2007
Spartanburg in The New York Times
By Gary Henderson, The Spartanburg Journal
But before you get all puffed up with community pride about this, you might want to tread on, or scan the newspaper's archival files and read a few of the stories the editors called "All the news fit to print."
Murders, lynching and mayhem were popular themes.
Trying to choose one of these gems to share with you was difficult.
The October 1900 story about Mme. Clio, the "Lion Queen" of the Bostic Carnival was an eye catcher. Clio was locked in the lions's cage, popping her whip and making the lions step lively, when someone accidentally flipped a lit match into a can of gasoline.
As fire spread through the straw scattered on the ground and set fire to the wooden platform under Clio's cage, the crowd watching headed for the tent exits, leaving Clio alone with the lions.
Naturally, the lions got a tad upset. I mean, who wouldn't with fire lapping against sides of your cage, people running bravely for the tent's exit flaps and all that smoke and noise.
Did anybody stop long enough to let Clio out of the cage? Well, no.
Clio's clothes caught on fire about the time the lions attacked her, gashed her arms and tore her garments to shreds.
The newspaper account said Clio "fought the beasts with the greatest coolness until a group of men arrived and extinguished the fire."
As the crowd returned, Clio left the cage to loud applause and doctors hustled her away to her hotel for treatment.
It was tempting, but I passed on writing about the January 1878, report of the man whose head flattened a bullet after an assistant marshal shot him in the forehead with a pistol. His only injuries were a slight skull fracture.
My thought when I read this story was, "Why can't we have good stuff like this to write about today?
I think it was drama in the March 3, 1890 report about George Turner, the Valley Falls Cotton Mill owner, who shot and killed his brother-in-law, Edward Finger, that made me want to write about this story.
Turner had been sued for "betraying" Finger's sister, a matter that had caused bad blood between the two men. The times reported that one of the many quarrels they had involved shotguns, though it didn't say how.
Anyway, Finger, "a little under the influence of whiskey," was riding his horse on the road near Turner's premises when he met a woman named Sparks that accused him of getting her pregnant.
Finger never denied the woman's paternity claims, but said Turner had put her up to telling him. He got off his horse, beat up the woman and rode on.
Turner and Finger met a little later near Turner's store. Both pulled pistols.
When a man tried to hold Finger back, Turner reportedly said, "Let him come, I'll fix him."
When the man turned him loose Turner dropped him like a sack of potatoes, with a single shot to Finger's left side.
Three years earlier, Turner shot and killed one of his laborers in an argument over $1.03. He was tried, convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Turner's wealth, The New York Times reported, allowed him to buy his way into a new trial by the Supreme Court, and an acquittal.
Here's a twist in this sorted story. Turner was given a new trial in the killing of his laborer three years earlier, largely because of the testimonies of Clara Finger, his wife's sister, and her brother, Edward Finger, the man he'd murdered.
Clara sued Turner for $20,000 after the hearing that got Turner a new trial, saying he betrayed her.
Does anybody else wonder if Clare and Edward were promnised payment for their testimonies?
Turner surrendered to the Spartanburg county Sheriff after he shot Finger and was locked in county jail.
Three days later a mob of folks from the Ainger neighborhood, worried that Turner might get away with murder again, decided to bust him out of jail and lynch him themselves.
The mob showed up outside the jail on Magnolia Street, located just north of Morgan Square, pointed a piece of field artillery they'd procured at the front door and threatened to fire if the sheriff didn't hand over Turner to be hanged.
Five Spartanburg police officers, headed by Mayor Henneman, broke up the mob, spiked the cannon and ordered them to leave town.
The mob left without the big gun they dragged into town to blow the door off the jail.
A sheriff's posse of heavily-armed men was stationed in the jail to thwart any further attempts to haul Turner away for hanging.
"The indignation of the people in Turner's section of the county, who, in common with a better element of South Carolinians generally, are disgusted with the frequent miscarriage of justice in the courts of this State, manifested inself last night when a second attempt was made to lynch Turner," the Times reported.
This time, a mounted courier rode into downtown Spartanburg and warned authorities that 200 armed men were on the way.
Armed sentinels were positioned around the jail and on the streets.
About half-a-mile out of town the effort to lynch Turner fizzled out when someone warned the crowd of would-be hangmen what were waiting for them.
The last story found in the times archives about the Valley Falls Cotton Mill owner said it was feared he'd never be tried for the crime of killing Edward Finger.
And there was this postscript to the tale.
Mayor Henneman, who led the police in the mob standoff, was shot and killed six months after the jail standoff when he tried to offer help to a woman who was being beaten by a man named John Williams. Williams pushed the mayor out of his way and shot him.
Mayor Henneman was remembered as a "popular and fearless man."
At the time of the times report, there was talk about town of busting Williams out of jail to lynch him.
Contact Gary Henderson at 266-3324 or ghenderson@thespartanburgjournal.com.