“Now, Mrs. Jenkins was a little old lady and

“Now, Mrs. Jenkins was a little old lady and she wore her sunbonnet in court. Ezra's family was so anxious to get a conviction that they hired a prosecutor from Front Royal - Will Armstrong, well-known in those days and he charged a lot of money. Well, Mrs. Jenkins was a reluctant witness, of course, and she tried her best to confuse and mislead Armstrong. Finally, exasperated, he said: ‘Mrs. Jenkins, if you’d take ;ff that bonnet, maybe you could hear me.’

Mr. Armstrong,' she said. ‘I can hear everything that you have to say.’John was exonerated, on self-defense which, of course, it was.”

Keyser remembers the case of Willis Dearing, who left an estate, immense for 1915, at $999,000. Although he had several nephews and nieces, Dearing left the estate to only two of them. The others contested the will and the majority of jurors agreed with them, all except for one man who held out against breaking the will.

“There was tremendous interest in that case in the county,” Keyset* said. “Everyone said that that one juror had been paid off by the original nephew.”

A tragedy remembered by Keyset* occurred in Huntly in the twenties or thirties. An orphan child, staying with folks at Chester Gap, went into the post office at Huntly and shot everyone there. He was sentenced, evidently as an adult, and sent to the penitentiary. Last I heard, said Keyset*, “he was a preacher somewhere.”

Another scandal Keyset* helped investigate was the murder of a boy named Finehum who always carried a lot of cash. Another boy up near Beech Spring wanted several hundred dollars for a motorcycle. Finchum was found dead and his friend was riding up and down the road on a brand new motorcycle. A witness had seen the murderer driving Finchum's cat*. Keyset* said, and the boy was later tried and convicted.

Keyser also remembers the famous moonshine murder at Nethers where a Nichols killed a Corbin while he worked in the yard. Nichols had heard that Corbin had turned his still in to the revenuers.

During prohibition there was a law on the books designed to punish drinkers, Keyser said. In addition to the fine for drinking in public, there was a ten dollar fee (quite a large amount in those days) paid to the law official who arrested the offender. The law was to encourage the arrest and prosecution of those found drunk. Keyser said that he arrested a whole bunch of partygoers in Sperryville, but believing the extra charge was unfair, he returned his fee. “As fast as they came out, I was returning their ten dollars,” he said.

Country lawyers of long-ago were colorful characters, not as staid and formal as their stereotype today. In the 19th century, court days were wild, full of people in town for trials, laywers playing poker and taverns full of country folks who made sure their monthly trip to town coincided with court day.

For years, J.A. Swan from Culpeper set up his farm equipment in the lot next to the bank. By the twenties and thirties, drinking was more secretive because of prohibition and things had calmed down in town so that it was safe for women and children to be about. But there were some colorful lawyers, Keyser remembers, mentioning especially Botts Strother Will Armstrong and William Meade Fletcher, who went on to gain statewide and national notice.

But it was still a day to look at new tractors and Plows, to find a game of cards and to file into the crowded courtroom to see what drama might be unfolding there.

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