FOR ELI WITH JUSTICE

FOR ELI WITH JUSTICE

The story you are about to read is true.  It is horrific and should be upsetting to all.  It took place a century ago in the town of Cadwell, Georgia.  But, it is a story which needs to be told, for we may tend to forget that these highly regrettable events ever took place.  While the first part of  the story was somewhat predictable, please read to the very end.  Justice, at least to some degree, in this case was served.

The story begins in the middle of the first decade of the 20th Century.  The owners of the Dublin & Southwestern Railroad were mapping out a new railroad from Dublin to Eastman.  The Dublin end of the railroad had already been established to run from E.P. Rentz’s lumber mill to Dublin.  The railroad bed ran along the western side current Georgia Highway 117 until it reached the area known as Mullis, or “Mullis Town.”  From there it ran through what came to be known as Cadwell.

The railroad’s directors chose a tract of land offered by Rebecca Lowery Cadwell Burch instead of the one offered by the Mullis family centered around the area where Highway 117 and 338 intersect, once the site of the Red Top Grocery store.

Mrs. Burch, whose  husband was Charlton Burch, proposed the name of Burch, Georgia for the new town.  The name already in use elsewhere in Georgia, Mrs. Burch chose the name of Cadwell, for her first husband Matthew Cadwell, who, along with his horse, were struck and killed by lightning August 3, 1886.  Both Cadwell and his horse are buried in the nearby Lowery Cemetery.

Upset by the selection of Cadwell, the ubiquitous Mullis and Bedingfield families took great offense to what they truly believed was a better location for the railroad, not to mention the great potential profits from owning the new depot town.  

Relationships between the Mullis/Bedingfield clans and the Burch/Cadwell families continued to deteriorate and rapidly.  As the bad feelings between the factions began to wane with time, the Mullis/Bedingfield crowd was further incensed by the takeover of the liquor trade in the are, which had been in control of Cadwell in the past.

Then came the year 1919.  The “war to end all wars” was over.  Soldiers were returning home and Spanish Influenza pandemic was over.   Peace in Europe had come, at least for a dozen years.  The evil-headed monster of racism began to arise with a vengeance.  

They called that summer of 1919, “The Red Summer,” for the bloody, widespread racial violence across the South and other parts of the nation.  The last of a trilogy of unforgivable wrongs against the Mullis and Bedingfield families was about to ignite and all out war between the neighboring citizens of the two communities.

The prelude to war came on August 28, 1919 a gang of malfeasors and miscreants, including some of the Cadwell/Burch alliance, committed one of the most heinous murders in the history of Laurens County.             

Eli Cooper, an elderly African-American resident living just below the line which separates Laurens and Dodge County south of Cadwell, was targeted by a group of 15-20 white men for speaking of organizing an uprising to exact revenge for a half century of oppression.  Reportedly, Cooper’s plan was to take place in late September.  

Cooper was taken from his home in Dodge County, shot, and killed.  The gang then placed Cooper’s lifeless body inside Petway’s Gift Church donated by large landowner A.P. Petway, which was then torched and burned to the ground.  

The following morning, Dodge County Sheriff, C.N. Mullis, Judge Joel Q. Quillian, Dewey Mullis, and John L. Coleman visited the scene of the crime. Sheriff Mullis made a cursory examination and quiclcy pronounced that no Dodge County men had anything to do with the crime.  The suspects attempted to blame their crimes by starting unfounded rumors of a Negro insurrection in the area.  Also burned were other churches and a lodge building.  Blame for inciting the insurrection was placed on a Chicago newspaper, many copies of which were allegedly found at homes and meeting places in the area.

Within less than week, a large mass meeting of white citizens petitioned the Laurens County Board of Commissioners for an appropriation of county funds to rebuild the five burned churches and the lodge hall.   County Attorney, Col. M.H. Blackshear, told the empathetic gathering that the county could not legally contribute.  Instead, Blackshear recommended that the funds be obtained by asking the Governor to post a reward of $500.00 to go along with the $500.00 offered by Cadwell area citizens, who were highly incensed and outraged at the depredations. 

In mid-October, twenty-three arrest warrants were issued.  Four white men were arrested.  Cleveland C. Cadwell, was the most prominent man taken to jail.  Also arrested were C.G. Rogers, the Dodge County coroner, along with John Qullian and Will Watson of Laurens County.  In less than two months, the reward offered by Governor Dorsey of $750.00, $50.00 subscribed by Eastman citizens, and $500.00 offered by Cadwell area residents brought the total reward and building fund to $1300.00.  No bail was granted and the men were kept in the Dodge County jail.

A preliminary hearing was had before Dodge County Justice of the Peace, C.B. Murreill.  The usual result was handed down.  Judge Murreill ruled that as a matter of law, the defendants were not guilty.  The Judge believed their alibies and cited Mrs. Cooper’s alleged conflicting testimony between the coroner’s inquest and the preliminary hearing as the justification for his decision.

Once again as had been the case of this sort crime, the defendants were set free and justice was not obtained.  

Eight months later, the white citizens of Mullis had had enough.  It was time for justice for Eli.

It was cooler Saturday night in Cadwell.  A waxing gibbous moon was obscured the rain clouds which had cooled off most things in the town.  Memories of the loss of the railroad station to Cadwell still tormented the minds of Mullis Town residents, even after a World War, the boll weevil, and the Spanish Influenza of 1918.  

The Cadwell clan lead by Mayor H.L. Jenkins, C.C. Cadwell, husband of town and Methodist Church founder Rebecca Lowery Burch Cadwell, and John Qullian.  Young twin brothers, Hiram and Homer Mullis,  and John Bedingfield were among the combatants from Mullis Town.  The men from Mullis were sure that it was H.L. Jenkins who led the beyond brutal murder of the elderly Eli Cooper and the torching of several Negro churches in the previous autumn.    They were also sure that Cadwell was profiting from highly illegal sales of mass quantities of the demon rum.  

Front seat, left to right Homer Mullis, Bob Lee. Back seat Hiram Mullis, Johnny Fann.

Hiram Mullis, the 34-year-old, present mayor of Cadwell,  had heard rumors of trouble so he closed his store early in hopes of avoiding any fight.   About 10 o’clock, two hours before midnight, Mullis was approached by a man wanting gasoline.  While pumping the gas, Mullis noticed the 42-year- old, C.C. Cadwell walking up and uttered “fighting words.” 

Cadwell, the town’s former mayor,  began to beat Mullis about the head with the butt of his pistol.  Mullis pulled away and gathered his wits, pulled out his gun and warned Cadwell to stop.  Cadwell advanced again.  Mullis began to fire on Cadwell, Jenkins, and Quillian.     Jenkins fired back at Bedingfield, whose life was saved when the bullet pierced only the brim of his hat. Bedingfield returned fire in Jenkins’ direction, firing twice, the first shot went astray but the second struck Jenkins’s spine causing instant death.  Cadwell, was shot in the stomach. Qullian sufffered a broken arm.  Early in the investigation,  the murder was ruled justifiable self defense Meanwhile, Hiram Mullis was lying on a bed, dying from head wounds.  Initially, no hope was had for a complete recovery.  Mullis, shortly recovered from his wounds to live until the middle of the 20th Century.  

Herschel Linton Jenkins, Sr. was buried in Jenkins-Johnson Cemetery in Johnson County.  Hiram Mullis lived to be 63 years of age.  He is buried in the Reedy Springs Cemetery.  Cleveland  C. Cadwell died in the autumn of 1951 at the age of 66.  His body was interred in the Cemetery of the Georgia State Prison in Reidsville, where he spent the last decade of life for murdering his fourth wife.  

The killing didn’t stop.

Cadwell marshal Ernest Bass (yes, you read it right) was in the town drug store on October 12, 1922.  Entering the store was one Matthew Burch, 27-year-old son of Rebecca Lowery Cadwell Burch. Cadwell and. Burch stepped behind the counter, Shots were fired.  Burch ran outside.  A few moments after Burch exited the store, Bass shot his 38 caliber rifle, struck just below the heart of  Burch, who died almost immediately. Bass turned himself in to local authorities.  Bass claimed that he simply mentioned that he was searching for stills.  Burch, who had been carried a repeating rifle in town earlier in th day, was looking for Bass. 

Bass, a cousin of Burch, was no angel.  He claimed that it was his mission to stamp out crime in Cadwell, although at the time of the shooting of Burch, the marshal was under sentence for fatally  shooting his wife and wounding his child.  Despite his conviction, the Laurens County jury unanimously acquitted Bass for the killing of Matthew Burch. 

Hiram Mullis lived to age of 63, dying in 1949.  The commonly named  John Bedingfield was never fully identified.  He could have been John Bennett Bedingfield, long time Clerk of the Laurens County Superior Court or John Etheridge Bedingfield or many other men with that Bedingfield moniker.   

There was no joy and cries of justice served in Cadwell.  Not for the Burches and Cadwell families. And certainly for the family the old Eli, who could have been slightly consoled with at  least some measure of justice for the unbelievably horrid death of a man who did not deserve the fate he suffered.