United States or Bermuda ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It having been decided that the prisoners were illegally detained in the workhouse, it was not necessary to go into a discussion of the cruelties committed upon the prisoners while there. The government's attorneys immediately announced that they would appeal from the decision of Judge Waddill. Pending such an appeal the women were at liberty to be paroled in the custody of counsel.
On that showing, unless there is some reason why they ought not to come, they should be here." Miss Burns and Mrs. Lewes were accordingly ordered brought to court. This preliminary skirmish over, the opening discussion revolved about a point of law as to whether the Virginia District Court had authority to act in this case. After hearing both sides on this point, Judge Waddill said:
We decided to take the only course open-to obtain a writ of habeas corpus. A hurried journey by counsel to United States District Judge Waddill of Norfolk, Virginia, brought the writ. It compelled the government to bring the prisoners into court and show cause why they should not be returned to the district jail.
After a brief recess, Judge Waddill rendered this decision: "The locking up of thirty human beings is an unusual sort of thing and judicial officers ought to be required to stop long enough to see whether some prisoners ought to go and some not; whether some might not be killed by going; or whether they should go dead or alive.
The trial occurred on November 23rd. No one present can ever forget the tragi-comic scene enacted in the little Virginia court room that cold, dark November morning. There was Judge Waddill -who had adjourned his sittings in Norfolk to hasten the relief of the prisoners-a mild mannered, sweet-voiced Southern gentleman.
A stockade fort was built, but the homes for months consisted of sheds or tents and even of the wagons. In 1884, on the newly-surveyed townsite of Graham, was built a meeting house, called the "factory house," with mesquite posts and dirt roof and with walls only of heavy unbleached muslin, which appears to have been called "factory." R. Waddill.
Word Of The Day