Stephen and Dempsey had a bad day. Both men lived in Madison county and were enslaved persons, so they honestly probably had a lot of bad days, but those were quotidian. Maybe they developed coping mechanisms to deal with the daily oppression of specific men, but this day tore through their lives with all the mercy of winter.

Stephen belonged to a man named Richard Holden and Dempsey to a man named Davis Battles, there’s no clear record of the relationship between Stephen and Dempsey, or even if Holden or Battles owned farms near each other. At worst any of these people might only rarely encounter each other about town – until July 19, 1823.

Williamson Land felt something that day. It was some other kind of fury. There’s a theory about white southern violence, that it grew from the brutal nature of slavery in our ancestors’ day to day life. It’s true. After all, “you can’t hold a man down without staying down with him,” and you certainly can’t hold half your population down without dragging something wrong out of the other half.* So, something wrong came out.

He saw two black men and he did “beat wound and ill treat,” them until they were almost dead. Had the men stolen from Land or attacked him then the court would not have gotten involved. Williamson Land woke up that day with something broken inside him. That’s all.

Fortunately the jurors found him at fault.** Unfortunately they only fined him, which meant that Richard Holden and Davis Battles received $50 and $20 respectively as a way to compensate them for the loss of profits caused by the suffering of Stephen and Dempsey.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Williamson Land, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 234-235 (1823).

The State of Alabama v. Williamson Land, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 235 (1823).

*Booker T. Washington quotes are pretty good quotes.

**literally the only bright spot in all of this is that a man named Nashville Malone served on the first jury, that’s the best bootlegger name that ever existed

Philip Hoffman possessed an entrepreneurial spirit that frightened almost everyone around him. Liquor always aroused the part of the human soul given over to mischief and chicanery, but these properties proved more frightening during the nineteenth century, a time and place when people did things like nearly kill a man with an ear of corn or periodically burn down the home of their enemies. What’s worse is that those activities probably occurred while sober, so just imagine what old-timey Alabamians got into while drunk.

Either way, the state of Alabama eventually retaliated when they found out how much bootleg Philip Hoffman sold out of a shop in Huntsville. His largest buyers consisted of three men; Richard Clemens, Henry Webb, and John Cox – who all purchased illegal whiskey and brandy several times throughout September and October of 1823. He faced two different trials for selling to these men at different times. Which means he got busted on September 2, 1823, accepted the fact that he probably needed to pay a fine or serve some time and then turned right back around and continued slinging that Tennessee Gold until the sheriff showed up again.

However, all of this pails in comparison to the amount of gumption it took to keep selling illegal liquor after his first arrest. For you see, on September 1, 1823, the local law wandered over to Philip Hoffman’s shop and found it packed with “many slaves and negroes of sundry of the good citizens of the county.”*

This is where things get interesting. Although his later arrests explicitly mentioned whiskey and brandy being sold, his first arrest describes the beverages as “spirituous liquors of various kinds and fermented liquor and drinks,” which implies that Hoffman might have known someone with a moonshine still or produced his alcohol at home. All I can imagine is the sheriff and inquisitor showing up, opening a cask, and just staring in horror at the bubbly rotgut in front of them.** His means of production probably got confiscated, but that just meant he’d have to fall back on his higher priced stash of actual liquors with real human names.

Although white people sold illegal liquor to each other all the time, Philip Hoffman made the beautiful mistake of allowing enslaved people to “assemble tipple drink carouse and commit many unlawful tumults,” at his home. This massive breach of the social contract meant that officials paid a lot of attention to his business dealings in the days and weeks ahead. Which got him caught multiple times and ending up costing him about seven dollars in fines between his three separate liquor cases. One can only wonder how he raised the money.

The next time you’re carousing and committing some unlawful tumults with your various compatriots; pause for a moment to look up at the shining moon, gently whisper his name, and then pour out a dram for this archetypal American hero.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Philip Hoffman, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 232-233 (1823).

The State of Alabama v. Philip Hoffman, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 233 (1823).

The State of Alabama v. Philip Hoffman, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 233-234 (1823).

*Philip Hoffman got busted and instead of packing it in he said “trappin’ ain’t dead” then got arrested for the same thing the next day.

**Literally says that the state sent an inquisitor to investigate this case. Nobody expected it.

Around March 1, 1842, Ann Devon left for Holmes county, Mississippi. For several decades she’d owned a home in Limestone county, Alabama and people around there knew her as an aging widow and the mother of several children. After the death of her first husband she took in boarders to make the ends meet.

Around 1832, one of those boarders happened to be a young man named Robert Brister. Based off the 1845 testimony of Henry Stanley, who claims to have known both of them for almost a decade by the time she left for Mississippi and that Ann Devon “partly raised the complainant,” it seems that young Brister may have been around fourteen or fifteen years old when he moved into her house.

On February 11, 1836, “taking advantage of her opportunities & of his frankness confidence & inexperience,” Ann Devon married her young boarder as soon as he turned eighteen. We don’t know how long their relationship lingered prior to the wedding but it would not be shocking to learn that the rechristened Ann Brister demanded various husbandly tasks from her former boarder when he was young.

Either way, it quickly fell apart. Ann Brister’s experience of running a boarding house, raising several children, and enjoying a previous level of subordinance from her new husband clashed with his youthful exuberance and expectations of married life. Several witnesses reported her using language “unbecoming of a wife towards her husband,” and Robert Brister himself complained that she exercised “tyrranous authority in every act of his life.”

She couldn’t convince the young Brister to leave and could no longer legally force him from their shared home; so she left for Mississippi. Apparently Robert attempted to communicate with her a few times through Henry Stanley. However, when presented with letters from him she apparently flew into a rage and claimed that she’d never live with him again, especially if it meant his death.

The court quickly issued a divorce.

citation:

Robert E. Brister v. Ann Brister, Book N, 370-375 (1845)

Somebody whispered poison into Martha Valliant’s ears. After thirty eight years of marriage, she decided that her husband planned to leave her. This case stuck out because it is one of the few where a departed husband responded with anything other than accusations of adultery on the part of the wife that brought suit.

When Martha Valliant showed up in court on March 2, 1832 and claimed that Robert Valliant stole her dower, sold all their land, moved to Tennessee, and married a new woman; it seemed plausible enough. People did that sort of thing. They’d raised nine children together and worked their way up from the brink of poverty to something resembling a comfortable nineteenth century retirement, yet now she found herself without a dower nor widow’s third nor maintenance. So she sued because that proved the last option between herself and a slow starving death.

She knew that a man named George Horton prepared to pay her husband a reasonable amount of money for several tracts of land, some of it originally from her dower, and the court recognized this fact in securing her a maintenance. So, although she believed her husband forever gone, Martha Valliant managed to secure eighty dollars a year from George Horton, to be redacted from the original selling price for the land. Martha worked the hell out of the system.

Except she didn’t need to levy a fine against George Horton. Robert J. Valliant quickly responded to his wife’s claims. He affirmed that they’d been married for almost forty years, he did not pause to question that they’d raised nine children, that when he’d married Martha “he had nothing himself but a horse saddle & bundle.” He claimed that all of their children, except one, had grown up and left their house, and he found it difficult to cultivate the land and that “they were lonesome in that situation.”*

So, desperate to care for his ailing wife and their remaining child, Robert hatched a plan. He claimed to have gotten Martha’s consent to sell her dower to George Horton. After that they divided up all their property among their nearby children, “reserving to themselves one bed & furniture & one horse.” Accordingly, they went to the house of their son, James Valliant, in Lawrence county, Alabama. Robert left Martha there and traveled north to “the western district of Tennessee in search of a suitable place.” Something happened after he left that caused Martha Valliant to leave her own son’s home and instead travel to live with her daughter and son-in-law; a man named Richard J. Brooks.

Robert J. Valliant spent a long time in Tennessee. So long it seems that his own daughter and her husband began to whisper things to Martha Valliant about rumors of his new wife. Rumors he squashed with the simple line “[I am] now about sixty two years of age, & could derive but little enjoyment in such illicit intercourse.”**

No, instead of trying to establish a second family in Tennessee, he’d been buying up land in Memphis to build a house and apparently took the horrifying step of purchasing a forty year old enslaved woman and a nine year old girl to help care for them in their old age.

Robert J. Valliant then summoned one of his many son-in-laws, John Grant, gave him a horse and sent him back to Lawrence county to collect Martha Valliant and inform her that he’d found a good spot of land in Tennessee for them to die on. John Grant returned with her demands for a divorce. Robert seethed at the news and made the perilous journey, for someone of his advanced age, out to the homestead of Richard Brooks. He accosted his own daughter and demanded that she return her mother, but apparently his son-in-law had “consealed her” but nobody knew where. In a desperate attempt to right this wrong, Robert went before the Madison county court and delivered a romantic speech; stating that “he never can nor will consent to be separated [from Martha Valliant]… after raising a large family of children from many other considerations this idea of separation is heart rending.”

She heard his words. Martha Valliant dismissed the suit in April 1836. They retired to Memphis and presumably died shortly thereafter.

citation:

Martha Valliant by her next friend Richard J. Brooks v. Robert J. Valliant, Book H, 9-18 (1832).

*Can I point out that a married couple in their sixties was raising a young child in nineteenth century Alabama? The Valliants were friggin’ passionate about each other well after some of their contemporaries would have given up and become bitter old white people.

**Learning new strokes can be a difficult process.

January 26, 1821, Samuel Hammer got his ass beat. Although the wounds proved vicious they did not kill him, nor did the assailant attack Hammer with any strange objects. No, fists and feet sufficed for this man. In fact, there’s nothing strange about this altercation except for its participants.

Samuel Hammer was beaten by Robert Fearn.

For those of you who did not gasp at this revelation; please allow me to explain. In north Alabama prior to the Civil War, the Fearns occupied a social space not dissimilar to minor nobles. Although they didn’t belong to the Broad River Faction* they certainly got invited to their parties.

Dr. Thomas Fearn opened one of the first medical practices in north Alabama specifically to fight the malaria so endemic to the region. Due to nineteenth century attitudes regarding the cooler temperatures and ‘healthier air’ at higher climates, he founded the first white settlement on Monte Sano mountain as a ‘healthy refuge’ from the horrendous diseases of the valley below. This American hill-station received the name Viduta, after the Spanish word ‘vida’ which means life. As it is widely rumored that the Fearn family named Monte Sano mountain, it appears that they were wild hispanophiles. This insinuation is only strengthened by the fact that Robert Fearn married a woman named Maria.

Although he lived much of his early life in his doctor brother’s shadow; Robert Fearn went on to help establish the first telegraph line in Alabama, one of its first railroads, and managed the Huntsville chapter of the American Colonization Society – an organization responsible for the present day nation of Liberia. In fact, by the time of his assault on Samuel Hammer, Robert already helped establish the Huntsville Library Company; the first library not only in the city but indeed the entire state.

So it’s somewhat surprising that the jury actually fined him fifty dollars.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Robert Fearn, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 46-47 (1821).

*a group of super wealthy, and often related, plantation owners and Revolutionary War veterans who migrated to the Broad River area in Georgia from Albemarle County, Virginia. From that base of operations they eventually spread out and found a home/fiefdom in territorial Alabama. The Broad River Faction produced governors of both Georgia and Alabama; as well as Senators, state legislators, and mayors in almost every city they settled. When they arrived in Huntsville, their local leader – Leroy Pope – pretty much bought everything and renamed it Twickenham, after the estate of English poet Alexander Pope. Fortunately enough Anglos from Tennessee and North Carolina showed up and thought that name was stupid, so it reverted back to Huntsville.

Organized mob violence began to foment in Madison county around 1821. Surprisingly, counterfeiters proved the first victims of these impromptu posses because men who made fake money pissed everyone off. Once caught, the counterfeiters suffered the wrath of the group. More than other contemporary assault victims – the early counterfeiters received a systematic and vengeful form of violence that often devolved into torture.

Torturers use what they have available, so random farm items often worked their way into the collective punishment. The violence is interesting because it incorporated not only vigilantes but often included lawmen. John Cottrell proved an active and willing participant in almost every early persecution. His exuberance and presence may have provided a level of legitimacy to the proceedings as he served as a constable for Madison county. Eventually his ineptitude caught up with him and the courts fined him $35 for letting a prisoner escape.

That prisoner was Thomas Watson. On July 20, 1821, he fled from Cottrell and the Madison county jail.

Originally imprisoned for the aforementioned crime of counterfeiting, Watson spent three days fleeing through Madison county on foot before Cottrell caught up with him. He brought backup. Although the court tried two separate cases for this offense, the brutality of it combined with the fact that many of the perpetrators were related leads me to believe that the county produced multiple suits from a single instance. John Cottrell brought Thomas McGaha and John Richardson to torture the captured Watson. The second case stated that Anthony Metcalfe, Edward Morgan, Francis Morgan, Robert Jones, and John McGaha assaulted Thomas Watson in the same manner on the same day. The presence of John McGaha points not to a separate assault but to Madison county dragging the case out so as to net the largest number of convictions.

Once assembled, the eight men beat Thomas Watson until their hands grew tired. Then they beat him with “ropes and a cow hide skin.” Now, there are a few options here. Some people have used cowhide as a sort of proto-whip to inflict punishment upon their enemies, while there are rumors of people being tied up in a cowhide and left outside. As the sun hits the cowhide it starts to dehydrate and mercilessly squeezes the life from the victim until the bones break and the will shatters.

Now, the court documents say that Thomas Watson’s life “was greatly despaired of,” so either method might have happened.

Of course, this sophisticated group level of barbarism most likely developed over time. However, we have only one previous example of Cottrell and the other assailants working together, and that is a series of assaults on a man named Benjamin Camp. On July 19, 1821, a day before Thomas Watson escaped from Cottrell; John Morgan, John Ingram, Robert Jones, Thomas McGaha, Arthur Jones, and John Cottrell all assaulted Camp in the same manner as Watson. They beat him hands, ropes, and cowhides until he was nearly dead. The similarity of the attack and the overlapping of assailants indicates that Benjamin Camp may have been an accused counterfeiter or a known associate of Thomas Watson.

Either way, they beat that boy bad.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Thomas McGaha, John Cottrell, & John Richardson, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 77 (1821).

The State of Alabama v. Anthony Metcalfe, Edward Morgan, Francis Morgan, Robert Jones & John McGaha,  Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 79-80 (1821).

The State of Alabama v. John Morgan, John Ingram, & Robert Jones,  Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 81 (1821).

The State of Alabama v. Thomas McGaha, Arthur Jones, & John Cottrell,  Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 81-82 (1821).

The State of Alabama v. John A. Cottrell, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 94-95 (1822).

People in the early 19th century really enjoyed dueling. Something about locking eyes with an opponent as you fired pistols at each other’s heads made life less dull. Especially when you did it over minor things like breaches of etiquette or adultery. Early legislatures sought to limit the pastime by issuing decrees that participants had to duel in the next state over, could only wound each, or other buzzkill measures. Travel requirements limited the amount of men capable of dueling to the elite who could afford to leave their homes for days or weeks at a time to go shoot a guy in a neighboring county or state. However, this meant that people who could afford to duel were also the people that ruled. So in some areas with slightly more violent populaces, like Alabama, dueling seriously depleted the amount of landowning young men.

Which meant it had to be stopped.

One of the first laws passed by the Alabama state legislature was “An act to suppress Duelling.” Originally enacted on December 17, 1819, the act provided for a small grace period to get all the dueling out of the state’s system. Participants had until April 1, 1820, to shoot at each other over matters of honor. New legislators entering the statehouses had to proclaim that they’d foregone dueling as of January 1, 1820, and the law explicitly forbade the election of any man found guilty of dueling after that time.

So, when William H. Robertson sent “a certain John W. Looney a challenge to fight with him,” on July 23, 1820, he was only two months late. Although he came near to the expiration date for dueling, Madison county felt like flexing its big law muscles. Shortly after learning that Robertson demanded that he and Looney go at each other “with deadly weapons,” the sheriff took an interest. Apparently Looney turned down the original threat because Robertson spent a lot of his spare time time trying to provoke the man.

Which leads me to my next question, why not just shoot the guy from behind a bush or something?

Either way, Robertson’s stubborn attempt to honor-kill the bejeesus out of John Looney resulted in his arrest and indictment for attempting to provoke a duel. He immediately threw himself upon the mercy of the county, which meant he had no money for a lawyer because he probably spent it all trying to get John Looney to duel him, and the court quickly found him not guilty. Although he suffered no punishment, William Robertson’s trial sent a message to the men of north Alabama – if you want to kill somebody you better be sneaky because Madison county don’t play that middle of the day stuff anymore.

The State of Alabama v. William H. Robertson, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 36 (1820).

An act to suppress Duelling.

Charles T. Collins did not care about the little things. Property law, the goodwill of his neighbors, and the bodily autonomy of enslaved peoples meant little to him. We know this much about the man from the events of August 24, 1820. Collins farmed in Madison county during the later territorial period and early statehood. During the summer of 1820, he looked at all this new wealth pouring into the Tennessee Valley and said ‘I’m gonna get me some of that.’

Nobody knows why he snapped. Maybe he got tired of looking at corn. Maybe his fields ran fallow more often than he cared to admit. Maybe he woke up on that hot August day without any intention of robbing multiple people. His motives are unclear but we know his actions.

Nicholas Sheffield owned a horse. It was a beautiful beast, “one bay gelding with forked ears of the value of one hundred dollars.” Due to its status as a gelding, an Old Norse for castration that survived into modern English, the animal made little noise while Collins stole it. Like most mammals that undergo genital mutilation prior to puberty, geldings were agreeable and gentle and often proved a perfect addition to any farm that required the heavy labor of equines without the frustration of a stallion, donkey, or mule.*

As such, Charles T. Collins hardly needed the gun he held, but he held it anyway. He may have felt embarrassed about going all out for such a quick theft. Which is why he kidnapped somebody. After securing the horse Collins looked around the farm of Nicholas Sheffield and spotted a thirty year old enslaved man named Tom. Tom stood nearby as his enslaver’s horse was stolen. He may have even found the situation humorous, right up to the point that Collins gestured with the gun and said something along the lines of ‘you’re coming with me.’**

Charles T. Collins then set off to the farm of the Brandon brothers because he had plans, big stealin’ plans, and was thus not content to rob Sheffield of his horse and Tom of his non-existent liberty. When Charles and Tom pulled up to the Brandon farm they found two other enslaved persons tending the fields. Edmund and Lewis watched as Charles T. Collins rampaged across the landscape with Tom in tow. He pointed the gun at them and demanded they come with him.

At this point, one of the three separate court cases against Collins insinuates that he planned to take the men to the woods outside of town and turn them over to an unspecified buyer. However, the random nature of the abductions and the terrible logistical planning involved makes it more likely that Collins planned to take them back to his own farm and hope that nobody noticed.

Unfortunately everyone noticed.

He appeared in court on September 1, 1820. A mere week after his thefts the court retaliated in spectacular fashion. First, Collins received a $300.00 fine to be paid from his lands and possessions. Second, the grand jurors decided that “on this day, between the hour of two and the hour of four he the said Charles T. Collins… on his bare back receive thirty nine stripes well laid on.” Third, not content to impoverish him and add interesting new horizontal patterns to his flesh via bull whip – Madison county decreed that a T be branded into the flesh of his right hand at some random point during the whipping. Fourth, he received six months in the county jail.

Charles T. Collins made poor life choices.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Charles T. Collins, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 24-25 (1820).

The State of Alabama v. Charles T. Collins, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 25-26 (1820).

The State of Alabama v. Charles T. Collins, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 26 (1820).

*Which is why empires throughout history employed eunuchs to guard harems, perform administrative functions, and collect taxes. You become far less aggressive when your ability to reproduce is removed from the equation. A further side effect is a high pitched voice capable of caressing notes unknown to male or female musicians with fully developed sexual organs. As such, castrated men often became singers of surreal and ethereal renown. Their music proved so sweet that the Italians waited until 1870 to outlaw the practice; while the Vatican itself waited until 1903. Southern Europeans friggin’ loved to saw off young boys’ testicles for musical purposes.

**I imagine him whispering something like “Way to go, Charles T. Collins, you steal that horse. Nicholas Sheffield is an asshole.” Followed almost immediately by “oh shit, you’re stealing me too? goddamn white people.”

Christmas day began easily enough for Thomas Evans. He lounged on the farm of Ezekiel Mackins and probably looked forward to the coming of 1818. Rumors circulated that Madison county planned to absorb the tiny Elk county. This barely impacted Thomas Evans’s daily life as he served as a farmhand and lacked much free time to worry about the maneuvers of local politicians.

All he knew was that Christmas arrived and he could enjoy this little bit of downtime before setting back to the breaking of earth and planting of seeds.

Then the McGaha brothers arrived.

John McGaha and Livingston McGaha came to the Mackins farm to whoop up on somebody and they did just that. When the McGaha boys found Thomas Evans they set upon him with a ferocity not seen since the days of John B. Haynes. People literally thought the man might die. They held Evans down and kicked him. They beat him with sticks and fists as they cussed him out for whatever slight he delivered to them. Then came the coup de grace. When the sticks broke and their fists grew tired they grabbed the nearest item they could to continue the walloping.

That item happened to be several “ears of corn.” The McGaha brothers tried to beat this man to death with corn.

The court case gives no concrete description of where the assault took place. However, some context clues give us room to speculate. We know that although Alabama winters are mild there sure ain’t no corn growing during the depths of winter. So they managed to get inside somehow. As Thomas Evans labored on Ezekiel Mackins’s property he probably lived in an outbuilding and not the main house. Other popular outbuildings on any given farm during the 19th century included an outhouse, a barn, and a corn crib.

There’s no mention of the McGahas stealing any corn or otherwise robbing Ezekiel Mackins, so it appears that they followed Thomas Evans to the corn crib and assaulted him there. No word on whether or not he developed a gluten allergy after surviving the assault.

Woody Martin, Daniel Murphy, James Badlem, and William Badlem appeared at the Madison county courthouse in October 1819. Although they committed the same crime the court deemed it so egregious that three separate trials commenced. One for Martin, one for Murphy, and one for the Badlem brothers.

They killed not man, nor stole horse. They burned nothing and rioted not. Yet their transgression proved so grave that the state of Alabama itself sued them. For you see, the conspirators committed a crime of passion.

They loved America too much.

In the year 1819, the Fourth of July fell on a Sunday. Instead of somber remembrance and quiet contemplation the men gathered together at the home of Daniel Murphy.* Once assembled, they looked to the heavens and knew what must be done. They stockpiled liquor while the “orderly citizens” of Huntsville gathered together at churches. Martin, Murphy, and the Badlems invited a wide array of Alabamians.

Instead of prudish merchants and bureaucrats the four egalitarians saw fit to “cause and procure divers persons of evil name and fame and dishonest conversation, to come together” for the sole purpose of celebrating the hell out of America’s birthday. They invited gamblers, “negro slaves,” prostitutes, and lowly day-laborers. They looked at the town of Huntsville and its quickening caste system and said ‘No. Not today. Today, we are Americans, and we’re going to celebrate that fact until we can’t see straight. Also, possibly get rich from selling all this liquor.’

None of the men possessed a liquor license and they more than willingly ignored the ban on selling liquor on the Sabbath. Instead they went wild and their party quickly devolved into beautiful patriotic anarchy. They made “a great noise and disturbance,” which upset nearly the entire city, and the court documents describe the scene at Daniel Murphy’s house as “common ill governed and disorderly.”

Remember them for the heroes they were.

citation:

The State of Alabama v. Woody Martin, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 2 (1819).

The State of Alabama v. Daniel Murphy, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 2-3 (1819).

The State of Alabama v. James Badlem & William Badlem, Madison County Alabama Circuit Court State Cases, 1819-1823. p. 4 (1819).

*most likely his home because he’s the only person that actually received a fine. It was for $200. Also, Daniel Murphy was a “Grocer,” so he owned a store. The liquor probably came from his illegal larder.