1857 Excerpts from Bathurst-Perth Courier

Reference: N15 R4p-Positive reel 4 - Seen at Ontario Archives, Toronto, Ontario

1857
I hereby give notice that Margaret Machan, my wife, has left my house without just cause, and any person giving her, or any other person, credit on my account after this date without my written order, as I will not be accountable for it. (Verbatim)
Andrew Machan, Dalhousie, August 10, 1857

August 21, 1857 - Lynch Law - A Boy Shot

A young lad named John Horn, son of Mr. Alex Horn of Hopetown [Alex was brother of Robert Downie Horn] was shot Monday evening last by one Mathew Baird, a farmer residing there. The facts so far as we have been able to ascertain are these: the people residing in the neighbourhood felt scandalized, it is said, at the manner in which Baird had used his family, the details of which are too brutal and obscene to appear in print. One evening last fall, a number of men with blackened faces and otherwise disguised, repaired to Baird's house, seized and dragged him out, **rode him on a rail and gave him a coat of tar.

For this outrage, Baird lodged a complaint with the authorities here, and was taking measures to have several parties whom he suspected, hauled up and prosecuted. On Monday evening last, a number of persons disguised as before again went to the Baird house. He warned them not to enter or he would shoot them. John Horn, however, went to the door and from the nature of the wound it would appear that he was stooping down, probably to reconnoitre, when Baird discharged a pistol at him; the ball struck him on the chin, passed through the lower jaw, down the neck into the shoulder, through the left lung and lodged against the shoulder blade on the back. Horn immediately fell, when another lad jumped over him into the house. The parties inside then closed the door and attacked the intruder. Those outside, hearing the scuffle, broke open the door, entered the house and a general melee ensued, during which Baird received a severe beating, one of his boys was almost killed, and a girl had her arm broken. The intruders then decamped carrying off their wounded companion.

The medical men attending upon young Horn, state that he cannot recover and will probably not live over a day or two. Baird is represented as a very violent character and a terror to the neighbourhood.

Such are the facts of this melancholy affair, so far as we have been able to learn. The fate of the young Horn. cut off in the prime of life, should be a warning to young men to refrain from engaging in acts of lawlessness, and violence. No matter how bad a man Baird might be (and if reports are true he is unfit to run at large) still no one had a right to unlawfully enter his house or abuse him. If he committed acts of violence he should have been hauled up before the authorities and punished or bound over to keep the peace.

October 9, 1857
John Horn, who was shot by Baird at the lynch-law affair, noted a short time ago in these columns, died last week from the effects of the injuries received. An inquest was held on the body and a verdict of culpable homicide returned against Baird

(The October 23, 1857 edition of this paper reports the trial re: the shooting of the Horn boy. - Queen vs James Yuille and Peter Rankin, Queen vs David Barr, Queen vs Mathew Baird, Baird vs Boyle and 11 others.)

(Riding the rail was a punishment of Colonial America in which a man was made to straddle a fence rail held on the shoulders of two men, with other men on either side to keep him upright on the rail. The victim was then paraded around town or taken to the city limits and dumped by the roadside. Injuries from the ride could, if the victim were stripped, result in a cut crotch that often made walking painful. The punishment was usually a form of mob extrajudicial punishment imposed in connection with tarring and feathering. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riding_the_rail)