DIY History | Transcribe | Pioneer Lives | George Wallace Jones letters, 1844-1896

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1892-12-28 Page 4

We walked deliberately out, got into the buggy and drove off two miles where we had left Mr. Couch. As we approached in hailing distance he cried out, "What success, General?" I held up the album, and said, "Here it is. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it. He said, "Did you serve a copy of the writ upon Moore?" "No," I said, He said that must be done. 
"Well, I replied, I'll go back and do it." "No, he said, I'll go back and do that now. You stay here, General." He went and soon returned, and said: "General Jones, if you had gone back you would have been murdered, as the neighbors had gone into the house. The old man was in a terrible rage, saying: "I saw the old secessionist with the pistol in his hand in his pocket."
And so indeed he did, for I expected to be roughly handled, but I knew that I was good for at least six men, the number of balls in the derringer that my dear, good abolition cousin forced me take, which alone saved me from a terrible beating, if not from being hung up and left for the crows to pick at. 
To save me the trouble and expense of going 130 miles to attend court and perhaps several trips, Mr. Couch voluntarily offered and paid the Moore thief." 
Geo. W. Jones
[Copied as given in the The Collector, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 58-59, March 1901.]

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We walked deliberately out, got into the buggy and drove off two miles where we had left Mr. Couch. As we approached in hailing distance he cried out, "What success, General?" I held up the album, and said, "Here it is. I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it. He said, "Did you serve a copy of the writ upon Moore?" "No," I said, He said that must be done. "Well, I replied, I'll go back and do it." "No, he said, I'll go back and do that now. You stay here, General." He went and soon returned, and said: "General Jones, if you had gone back you would have been murdered, as the neighbors had gone into the house. The old man was in a terrible rage, saying: "I saw the old secessionist with the pistol in his hand in his pocket." And so indeed he did, for I expected to be roughly handled, but I knew that I was good for at least six men, the number of balls in the derringer that my dear, good abolition cousin forced me take, which alone saved me from a terrible beating, if not from being hung up and left for the crows to pick at. To save me the trouble and expense of going 130 miles to attend court and perhaps several trips, Mr. Couch voluntarily offered and paid the Moore thief." Geo. W. Jones [Copied as given in the The Collector, vol. 14, no. 5, pp. 58-59, March 1901.]