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711 



fin- i.f 1891. The Industrial School, tin- schools 

 for the blind, deaf ami dumb, ami the Confed- 

 rrutr Solilii T-' Home were all reported in good 

 condition by an in\cstigating committee ..I tin- 

 Legislature. 



Labor Troubles. It was hoped that the 

 action of the courts in Anderson County on the 

 disturbances of 18i>2 in eastern Tennessee would 

 prevent any further demonstrations on the part 

 of the miners. Hut lawlessness broke out at Tracy 

 City in April. Rumors were current that a 

 general strike WHS organi/ing in the coal region. 

 Fort Anderson was strengthened by the erection 

 of heavy redoubts for artillery. "The timber, 

 which afforded such safe cover for sharpshoot- 

 ers, was cut away from the hillsides, making it 

 impossible to come within range of the fortifica- 

 tions unobserved. 



Fighting began in the evening of April 19, 

 when a body of miners from 75 to 100 strong 

 went to the stockade and sent 8 of their number 

 to the gate with a demand that the convicts be 

 released. On the refusal of the deputy, the lead- 

 er said that he and his companions represented 

 700 miners, and that they had the dynamite and 

 the arms to release the convicts by force. Then 

 he held up in his hand a dynamite cartridge, 

 such as is used in blasting away slate in the 

 mines, and was on the eve of making a threaten- 

 ing movement, when the deputy warden and the 

 sheriff seized him, and dragging him inside the 

 gate, closed it. As soon as their companion was 

 seized, and before the guards could get their 

 hands on t hem, the other two walked rapidly away, 

 brandishing their arms as they went. The 

 sheriff ordered the guards to fire upon them, 

 but for some reason this was not done. The 

 captured miner had hardly been taken inside the 

 little room near the gate when the guards heard 

 the patter of shots from a score of weapons. By 

 a preconcerted signal they came from every side 

 of the stockade. The miners had closed in on 

 the stockade, and were actually thrusting the 

 muzzles of their guns through the portholes. 

 In an instant the guards were at their posts, 

 and then the salute from the outside was 

 answered by a volley from within. The miners 

 had the advantage, as the lights on the inside 

 enabled them to see every movement of the be- 

 leaguered guards. But the latter took to the 

 upper portholes and then the battle raged fu- 

 riously for a few minutes. Fully 500 shots 

 were fired. Deputy Shriver had climbed into t he 

 second story of the stockade, where he could 

 look down on the besiegers. He had hardly 

 reached the room before a miner saw him in the 

 lamplight and aimed at him. Shriver saw him, 

 and they fired almost simultaneously. Shriver 

 was shot twice in the right side of the face, 

 while his adversary fell dead in his tracks. In 

 the meantime the captured leader had been re- 

 leased by Sheriff Sanders and the guards upon a 

 promise that he would go out and stop' the firing. 

 This he did not do, and after his release Guard 

 S. A. Walden received a full charge of 7 shots 

 from a gun thrust through one of the portholes. 

 Five miners were wounded in the fight. The 

 besiegers broke for a hill overlooking the stock- 

 ade, and fired for some time longer, but every- 

 thing was quiet by morning. The State troops. 

 under the Adjutant-General, were sent on tin- 



next day. A mass meeting of citizens was held 

 soon afterward, at which spceche-i were made 

 condemning the action of the rioter.-, but 

 eating the infliction of any punishment. Reso- 

 lutions were offered, one of which asked mercy 

 for the rioters and cxprc.-M-d sympathy for them. 

 The Adjutant-General, who had come to the 

 meeting by invitation, told the citizens they 

 were making a great mistake. He said the 

 Governor was not only going to make every ef- 

 fort to capture every one of the malefactors! but 

 that he was going to punish them. He advised 

 them to withdraw that clause, as it would preju- 

 dice their case, and said that he himself would 

 put down lawlessness in the State at any cc*t, 

 and that they must obey the law or take the 

 consequences. The clause was then withdrawn. 



Later in the year trouble was made by rioters 

 at Coal Creek, and the militia was sent there. 

 The leader was tried and sentenced to five years' 

 imprisonment for rioting and two years for in- 

 terfering with convicts. 



Sunday Laws. A bill was introduced into 

 the Legislature, but not passed, to relieve the 

 Seventh-Day Adventists from prosecution for 

 working on Sunday, after having kept their 

 Sabbath the day before. The prosecutions were 

 renewed in the cases of three men. one fifty-five 

 and another sixty-two years of age, who refused 

 to pay their fine, declaring that it was unjust 

 and that they were liable to be arrested again as 

 soon as they were released. They were conse- 

 quently kept at work with criminals at shovel- 

 ing on the highway until they had worked out 

 their fine. 



Burial Place of President Polk. The re- 

 mains of President James K. Polk and his wife 

 were removed, Sept. 19, from the tomb at Polk 

 Place, in Nashville, the family residence, and re- 

 interred in the State Capitol grounds. After the 

 death of Mrs. Polk suit was brought in the 

 Chancery Court, by descendants of President 

 Polk, to set aside the will of the President and 

 divide Polk Place among them. The Chancellor 

 decided the President's will was void, inasmuch 

 as it provided for perpetuity by declaring that 

 the property should forever remain in the pos- 

 session of the Polk family, passing from time to 

 time to the worthiest bearing the name of Polk. 



The Virginia Boundary. The State of Vir- 

 ginia filed a bill in the Supreme Court of the 

 United States some time since against the 

 State of Tennessee, setting forth that the bound- 

 ary line agreed upon in 1803 was not the line in 

 the original charter, and that the agreement 

 about the line in 1803 was void, being a com- 

 pact between two States, which the Constitution 

 forbids without the consent of Congress. 



This was met by Tennessee with these argu- 

 ments: That a mere agreement between two 

 States as to where the line was was not a com- 

 pact; that if it was a compact, it was good be- 

 tween the States until Congress dissented, and 

 that Virginia was estopped ; that if there had 

 been no agreement and no line made by the 

 States but an Indian or a buffalo trail which 

 the two States had treated as the line merely 

 acquiesced in it for more than eighty years such 

 acquiescence was binding on both State*. In ad- 

 dition to these questions, Virginia presented the 

 bill in a second respect, that the line was ob- 



