Black History Month – Recalling the 1915 shootout at Fairfield County Courthouse

WINNSBORO – In 1915, the roads were dirt and cars were scarce, so it must have been quite a sight when on June 14 two of them pulled up to the jail yard in Winnsboro. A small crowd had gathered at the Courthouse across the street to await the arrival of Sheriff A. D. Hood and eight deputies who were returning from the State Penitentiary in Columbia with a prisoner who was on trial for his life that day.

The trouble began a few months earlier on April 12, 1915, when Jules Smith, an African-American farm hand was accused of Criminal Assault (i.e. rape) of a woman the newspapers only described as the wife of a prominent farmer.

Smith allegedly tried to steal a firearm from the home, accidentally discharged it, and alerted the community to his presence. For the next three days Smith avoided both the sheriff’s posse and a lynch mob but on April 15, D.B Boney, a local merchant, spotted Smith walking along the railroad tracks in Blythewood, which is in Richland County. Boney ordered Smith to stop, and when he didn’t, Boney telephoned Sheriff McCain of Richland County. Sheriff McCain, along with Columbia Police Chief W. C. Cathcart, Jule Isom, a dog handler, and some bloodhounds, drove up to Blythewood to have the dogs pick up the scent. Sheriff Hood also drove down from Winnsboro.

By the time the lawmen arrived, a Blythewood citizen, J.M. Hawley, had taken Smith into custody and turned him over to the constable of the local magistrate, Dr. Langsford.

Sheriff Hood, fearing a lynching back in Winnsboro, took Smith to the penitentiary in Columbia for safe keeping. As we shall soon see, that precaution was futile. There, Smith allegedly made a full confession of his crimes to Chief Cathcart and Sheriff Hood. W.C. Cathcart came up to Winnsboro on the morning of the trial to testify about the confession. However, we will never know exactly what Smith confessed to or under what circumstances as the trial never took place.

As the cars pulled into the Jail Yard, the crowd in front of the court house assumed it would all be over in a few minutes. Smith would be found guilty, sentenced to the electric chair, and returned to Columbia to await execution, but that didn’t happen.

The building at the lower right is the death house at the South Carolina Penitentiary in Columbia, SC as it appeared mid 20th century. Since Jules Smith allegedly made a full confession of his crimes, the people in Winnsboro expected he would be found guilty, sentenced to death, and returned to Columbia to await his fate in the electric chair, but that didn’t happen.

What did happen next is not exactly clear. As one newspaper put it, they could not find two witnesses who told the same story. In addition, the earliest reports in the newspapers drew largely from the proceedings of both the Grand Jury and Coroner’s Jury which did not have the benefit of cross examination by or testimony of those who would be indicted. Therefore, the first reports were extremely one-sided. What follows here is a combination of the various articles from the time of the incident.

When Sheriff Hood and the eight deputies got out of the cars, the sheriff appointed another twelve men as special deputies. The sheriff said, “All right boys, now let’s all get around him.” and the posse started across the street. The task seemed simple enough. All they had to do was to walk about 75 feet across the street, up the stairs on the front of the courthouse, and into the courtroom on the second floor…but it wasn’t as simple as it seemed.

As the posse was crossing the street, Clyde Isenhower, the husband of the alleged victim was walking back and forth in front of the group with his coat jacket over his arm. Sheriff Hood and some of the deputies kept pushing him back, away from the prisoner. When they reached the steps at the north end of the building (right side of the photograph), a couple of deputies, Deputy Beckham being one of them, went up the steps first. Sheriff Hood was on the left side of the stairs closest to the street, Jules Smith was in the middle, Deputy W.L Haynes was on the right side closest to the wall, and the remaining deputies trailed behind. The sheriff went up a few steps, crossed the landing, turned to go up the remaining stairs, and after going up one or two more steps, the shooting started. One witness claimed that Jesse Morrison, the brother of the alleged victim said, “Now is the time.” Clyde Isenhower then produced a gun from under his jacket. Sheriff Hood reportedly said, “Oh no you don’t,” and Clyde Isenhower then shot Jules Smith once in the stomach. Isenhower then turned his gun on the sheriff, hitting him once or twice before the sheriff pulled out his own gun. As we will see later, the defense disputed this version of events.

The sheriff and Clyde Isenhower then stood with the barrels of their guns less than eighteen inches apart, firing until their guns were empty. Simultaneously, a general melee broke out. The reports of the shooting vary widely. They say that the mob was as small as five men or as large as one hundred, and the incident lasted from a few seconds with less than forty shots fired to several minutes with more than a hundred shots fired. One thing is for sure: based on the number of bullet holes in the courthouse wall and the number of people wounded, there were more than just two people shooting that day. Deputy Haynes stated that when the shooting started he froze, and it is a good thing he did as the bullet holes in the wall completely surrounded where he was standing.

One version of events states that Sheriff Hood carried his mortally wounded prisoner up the remaining steps and placed him in the docket of the courtroom before collapsing in a corner with the words, “Well, they’ve got me. I’ve been shot.” However, Deputy Beckham, who was further up the stairs when the shooting started, stated that Smith ran past him so fast he could not catch him. As they said at the end of the 1962 movie Liberty Valance, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend,” and so the legend of a mortally wounded Sheriff Hood carrying his prisoner up the stairs is the one that is best remembered.

Deputy J. Raleigh Boulware went up the stairs after the sheriff, came back out of the court room, and started down the steps. The State’s witnesses testified that as Boulware was coming down the steps, Clyde Isenhower’s brother Ernest stepped out from behind the north column, said, “You’re the SOB I have been looking for” and shot Deputy Boulware as he was waving his hands and mouthing the words, “Don’t shoot me.” Boulware then went back up the stairs, lay down on a table in the courtroom, asked for a doctor, and told Deputy Cauthen that Ernest Isenhower had shot him.

A few minutes after the shooting stopped, Jules Smith died. He was approximately 21 years old. Sheriff Hood sat in a corner of the courthouse with 5 punctures in his body, having been shot 3 times. Clyde Isenhower had stumbled into the Sheriff’s office on the first floor of the courthouse and collapsed while trying to reload his pistol. He had been shot seven times and had thirteen punctures in his body. Deputy Boulware lay on a table, shot once in the stomach. Deputy Beckham was shot once through the calf. Deputy Earl Stevenson was shot once or twice in the left arm so severely that at first they thought he would bleed to death and later thought he would lose his arm. A half dozen or more people were injured less severely either from bullets, bullet fragments, or flying pieces of masonry. The town’s doctors came out immediately and began tending to the wounded.

Mayor Robinson, fearing a general riot, telegraphed the Governor’s Office for permission to call out the local militia. Captain Doty assembled his Winnsboro company, but realizing he did not have enough ammunition, telephoned to Columbia for more. Major J. Shapter Caldwell, the Assistant Adjutant General of the State Militia organized a convoy of two cars, ten armed guards, 4,800 rounds of rifle ammunition, and 700 rounds of pistol ammunition. The convoy proceeded to Winnsboro at breakneck speed over the rural roads. They made the trip in one hour and fifteen minutes.. By the time they arrived, it was all over, and had been over for quite some time. They stayed in town for a few hours, then drove back to Columbia, and Captain Doty had his troops stand down.

In 1915, the rails were the smoothest and quickest way from Columbia to Winnsboro and a special train was sent carrying Dr. LeGrand Guerry and several surgeons with instructions to begin treating Sheriff Hood at once and do whatever they could for him. The doctors decided that the best thing they could do was to get the sheriff back to Columbia and operate. As the sheriff’s stretcher was being loaded onto the train, he spoke his last words, “I expect that I will die, but I have done my duty.” He then lapsed into unconsciousness. Mrs. Hood, Deputy Boulware, Deputy Beckham, and several of the walking wounded rode the train as well. The train stopped at Hampton Street, near the hospital, and Sheriff Hood, still unconscious, was immediately taken into surgery. The doctors repaired 12 perforations in his bowels, but he never awoke from the anesthesia. He came out of surgery at 10 pm and died later that night. He was 46. Raleigh Boulware was also taken into surgery and had seven perforations in his intestines sewn up. He survived the surgery, but remained hospitalized in very critical condition.

Clyde Isenhowe died two days later

Newspapers around the country picked up the story. It even made headlines in Hawaii. Most newspapers carried sensational headlines such as The Great Winnsboro Tragedy, The Great Winnsboro Massacre, or the Great Winnsboro Shootout.

Jim Young is a History blogger who now lives in Elgin.

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Related: Guest Editorial: Smith Escaped Lynching Only to be Gunned Down on Courthouse Steps