Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 7 of 9 · from the scan, no model involved
Court Days Jack remembers court days as the high point on the calendar, particularly the advent of March court. The old saloon at what is now the Rappahannock National Bank would fill up. “Everybody would get drunk, fight and run their horses around town,” prompting mothers and daughters to bar the doors and stay off the streets. “People from Culpeper owned the empty lot next to the bank and they’d bring their new machinery, tools and all sorts of ware on March court days and spread it out for people to see. It was quite a day—we always got out of school,” Jack reported.
One trial from those long ago court days stands out in Mr. Miller’s memory from stories he heard growing up. It’s that of James Johnson, the man who poisoned his wife and died at the hanging tree “right where the pond is now on Arthur Miller’s farm,” Jack said.
“There was another lynching, a colored man named Willie Fitzhugh. They found out he wasn’t guilty but not until after he was hung.” 1 he man couldn’t speak well and when he went to a white woman's house trying to buy liquor, she thought he was trying to assault her and raised an alarm, according to Mr. Miller. Fitzhugh was arrested and put in jail. “A crowd of people got together—they never did prove who they were but I think I knew most of them—and came up to the jail and demanded the prisoner. Lillard was the jailer and he wouldn't give him up but they twisted :s arm out of the socket, broke into the blacksmith’s shop, got sledge hammers and knocked out the bars of the jail. They took Fitzhugh to the Hickory tree that used to
81.7%