HenrysHistories

  It has been a very busy time for me and I apologize for the delay in getting to the rest of the story. However, I have had time to look over all the documents and also research what became of some of the other people involved in the story. So let us begin.  First, I would like to say thank you to the NC State Archives located on Jones Street in Raleigh, NC for helping me find the NC Supreme Court files for this case. For documentation purposes cite the case as follows: Supreme Court Original Files State v. Calvin & Thomas Coley Case No. 17,772 Franklin County Box #836 1894 In total, 55 pages were copied for me by the NC State Archives. Here are some of the highlights of these 55 pages.  ------------------------------------------------------ Bill of Indictment State of North Carolina, Franklin County Superior Court January Term 1894 The jurors for the State upon their oath Present: That Calvin and Thomas Coley late of the County of Franklin on the 1st day of July in the year of ou

I have been able to get my hands on the original trial transcripts. I will be reading through those the next few days and then I will continue the story of the trial and its aftermath.  July 16, 2024: I had to have surgery and recover from it, so in the next few days I will get around to telling the rest of the story. 

 In the last post we left off with Calvin and Pinkey in Norfolk, Virginia and Sheriff Kearney had sent word to the Norfolk police to have them arrested for the murder of Samuel Tucker. They were arrested on December 30, 1893. Sheriff Kearney went to Norfolk to bring them to Louisburg on Tuesday, January 2, 1894. They arrived in Louisburg on Wednesday January 3, 1894 and were promptly taken before Dr OL Ellis for their hearings.  As you remember this is the very jail where Lucy and Thomas are being held. According to trial transcripts, Pinkey was put on the second floor of the jail, while Lucy remained on the first floor of the jail.  They had not seen each other since September of 1892. (This will be important later.) As you may recall, Lucy was arrested on Christmas Eve of 1893. This was a Sunday and courts were closed for Christmas Day, which fell on a Monday that year. Lucy was brought before the Justice of the Peace; Mr. J B Denton on Monday January 1, 1894. She pled not guilty but

 So I have mentioned before how my paternal great great grandmother West Duck Lewis was murdered by Ben Collins around 1877 and how my great grandmother Sarah Jane Lewis was then sent to live with an uncle who then turned her over to Oxford Orphanage.  Now I find that I have two people who committed murder in my family. On my maternal line, I found two first cousins 4 generations removed who committed murder. One of them was also probably responsible for this twin brother's death as well. Their names were Calvin Coley and Thomas Coley. Thomas was the older of the two and he had a twin brother named James.  In 1890, James Coley was murdered. The house he was in was blown up using dynamite. No one was ever charged with this crime but it was believed by a great many people that his twin brother Thomas was the one who had killed him. Incidentally, the house belonged to their father Samuel who was not killed.  Then on June 30, 1892 Thomas and Calvin Coley killed a Jewish peddler named S

Found the marriage record of former slaves Mike and Mary Thigpen. They had been married since 1835. It was recorded in 1866 in Pitt County, North Carolina. 

  I had a new metal sign made for the cemetery. I also added my contact information to it as well. This cemetery is in the Cemetery Books of Nash county as the Thomas Franklin Nobles cemetery but it is actually the Wiley F Nobles and Sarah Elizabeth James cemetery.  The house that was diagonally across from the cemetery has been burned down to the ground. What a waste of history. The farm corporation that owned the property and house decided it wasn't worth saving the house so they let it be burned down by the local fire department. So at least some good came from its destruction since the local fire department got to use it for training purposes.