Daily Constitutionalist, Augusta, Georgia Wednesday, 29 December 1869, page 3
Tragic Occurrence at Dearing
One Man Shot Dead In His Tracks
Another Man Shot and Has His Throat Cut
Two Other Men Wounded
The city, at an early hour yesterday morning, was excited over the report of a most tragic occurrence, on Monday afternoon, at Dearing, on the Georgia Railroad, in which Mr. A. N. Hodo, a former resident of Augusta, and Mr. Ellis Adams, residing about a mile from Dearing, lost their lives, and two others received ugly wounds. The statements of the affair, which have reached us, are numerous and conflicting. The most reliable account, which we have been able to gather, is that furnished us by a gentleman, who came to the city yesterday afternoon to procure a coffin for Mr. Hodo, which we give, as hurriedly detailed to us:
About half-past two o’clock Monday afternoon, at the store of Mr. A. N. Hodo, connected with which was his brother, Dyer Hodo, and J. B. Lambert, a difficulty, the cause of which was not stated, arose between Lambert and Ellis Adams. The latter drew his knife, which was followed by the former also drawing his knife and warning Adams not to approach him. At this juncture, Adams drew his pistol, when Lambert walked into the store and gathered a gun, one barrel of which was said to have been loaded with small shot. As Lambert was returning with the gun, he was intercepted by A. N. Hodo, who induced him to give up the gun. In the meantime, the report of a pistol was heard outside, and Dyer Hodo, a one-legged man, clerk in the store of his brother, exclaimed that he was shot. With this, A. N. Hodo stepped to the door with the gun, before which Ellis and Kinchen Adams was (sic) standing, when Ellis Adams fired upon him without effect. Hodo then fired his gun, with which effect not known, when another shot was fired by one or the other of the Adams brothers, the ball taking effect just above the left nipple of Hodo, when he fell and expired instantly.
Seeing his friend and business associate thus shot down, Lambert immediately left the store and proceeded to the house of Mr. James Harris, where he procured a gun and returned to the scene of conflict. As he advanced upon the brothers Adams, they were each firing, a shot by one of them wounding him in the lip (or so it appears). Lambert continued to advance, when the brothers becoming separated, he followed Ellis Adams, whom he fired upon, a few hundred yards from the store, and it is supposed shot him down, as a party went in the direction a few minutes after the discharge of his gun, found Adams wounded and stretched upon the ground in an apparently dying condition. In the excitement of the occasion, Adams was left in the condition in which he was found. A short time after, he was visited again, when it was found that some unknown person, to hasten the work of death, had plunged a dagger three several (sic) times into his throat, and that he was quite dead. His body was then taken up and sent to his residence, about a mile from Dearing, no inquest having been held.
The whereabouts of Kinchen Adams have not yet been developed, and it is presumed that he has left the neighborhood.
The young man, A. N. Hodo, who met such a tragic death, is represented as having been of excellent character, and most highly esteemed for his sobriety and kindred virtues, which had endeared him to a large circle of friends, both in Columbia County and this city.
No arrests are reported. The wound of Lambert is not reported serious.
Dyer Hodo was severely wounded in the side, and while his injuries are not regarded as necessarily fatal, he is lying in quite a critical condition.
