From Days Gone By Oct 15, 1921

October 15, 1921.
    Stealing the Buick 5 passenger auto from their employer, Mr. Homer Moore, one Doke Kennedy, John Jackson and another colored boy drove it head long into a buggy in Cedar Swamp on the public road, tearing up the auto, breaking a bone in Doke Kennedy's thigh and bruising the occupant of the buggy pretty badly. All four wheels of the buggy were stripped from the body, leaving the latter on the ground flat. Doctors dressed the broken thigh and Doke is on the road to recovery with the likelihood of being on a real road before long, together with the other two culprits.
    Henry Bell, colored, age 17, died in jail here some time about midnight Friday night in a cell with Johnnie Jackson. Johnnie said Henry had been well during the day and was laughing and talking until late at night when he began struggling and whining and was soon a dead boy. From certain circumstances it was deemed best to hold an inquest, there being in jail one peg-legged John Thompson, who was claimed had so enimity against Henry because the peg didn't want the boy to go see his daughter.
    Coroner L. R. Clayton summoned an inquest jury of Dr. S. M. Johnson, W. T. Kitchens, J. Tom Davis, J. M. Johnson, Jr., O. A. Kennedy and C. D. Roundtree, who went into the case thoroughly but did not find any material clue upon which they could base any crime and after some deliberations decided upon the following verdict: Believed his death came from unknown causes.
    Henry Bell had been in jail only a day or so on a warrant sworn out by a Fitzgerald party charging him with the theft of a suit of clothes. He had come back home and was arrested and put in jail. He grew deathly sick and other occupants of the main cells gave an alarm which was heard by Sheriff Davis who came to the jail and found Henry dead. The county buried him.
    About 5 pm on Tuesday last week the pretty country home of Mr. Walter N. Powell, about six moles north of Kite, was completely destroyed by fire with all of the contents at an estimated loss of $8,500. At the time Mr. Powell was at Kite with some cotton, Mrs Powell was in Wrightsville and the children were away from home. The nearest person was a mile away and the fires origin was unknown. Mr. Powell with some friends headed to the burning home after receiving a phone call.
    A dark cloud had been hovering around and there was a lot of lightning and Powell believes it struck his house. The barn and buildings were saved. The home was built in 1918 and was considered one of the costliest and most beautiful in the county. He once had heavy insurance on it but had let part of it go though he still had some on the house. He plans to rebuild one just like the one that burned.
    Mr. Charlie Dent, a very successful farmer who studies his business as a business. On six acres of land in the fall of 1920 he had growing peanuts from which he fed and fattened 23 hogs, which netted him 5000 pounds of pork. From the same six acres he has made this year 200 bales or 14,000 pounds of peanut hay, estimated now in the ground 2800 pounds of peanuts for hogs, enough to fatten ten head more. He says he cleared $150 on these six acres and on his ten-horse farm he has lost a $1,000.