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Ducking
Is Better Than Legal Remedy
March 2, 1878 -
Not long since a man engaged in selling some patent humbug
around this place was taken in charge by some unknown persons
one cold night and ducked about a dozen times in the railroad
tank, for being on too intimate terms at a den of prostitution
near this place. Another man was served the same way on last
Wednesday night for the same thing. It beats a legal remedy
all hollow.
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City Hires First Scavenger
April 11, 1895-City Ordinance Be it ordained by the
City Council .... it is hereby authorized and empowered to
appoint said scavenger for a term of two years .... He shall
receive as a fee five cents for every private privy per week
and ten cents per week for every privy owned or controlled
by merchants and used by the public, and twenty-five cents
per week for every hotel. This fee shall be collected from
the owner or controller of such privy. Nothing in this ordinance
shall prevent the owner or controller from cleaning out their
own privy. Any one failing or refusing to pay said scavenger
for cleaning out their said privy as above named, or clean
the same themselves as above directed, shall be deemed guilty
of a misdemeanor and upon conviction, fined in any sum not
to exceed $2.50. A.W. Meredith, Mayor, W. B. Lybrand, secretary.
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Wills Point In 1897
August 5, 1897 - The following from the New York Mail
and Express suits Wills Pointers, as several of our fellow
citizens have the craze badly. "The whiskerless craze is still
sweeping over the country. It spares neither youth nor age,
ignores station and takes no note of previous condition. Whiskers
continue to fall on the highways and byways of the nation.
Lip and chin and cheek, long hidden in whole or in part by
hair of every hue and degree of beauty and ugliness, are laid
bare before a mocking or an admiring world, and the owner
meets his friends with an expression that can only be interpreted
as meaning: What do you think of me now? Am I not ten years
younger and several times handsomer? Why don't you ask me
what I have done to myself? This shaving mania constitutes
one of the most curious of the latter day concession to fashion
- if fashion it be. Men who have worn beards for forty years
are shedding them, regardless of the beauty or ugliness, the
strength or weakness of mouth and chin and jaw."
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Mad Dogs Cause Excitement Here
1903 - More or less excitement has prevailed in Wills
Point the past few days on account of dogs supposed to have
been afflicted with hydrophobia. A grey hound belonging to
Wilbur Brown bit a number of dogs while acting in an unusual
manner. The brute was confined for several days that its condition
might be noted and was finally killed, the conclusion being
that it was made. A dog belonging to Mrs. Freeze, near town,
while out of its normal condition bit Joe Pilley on the hand.
It was killed later. There is a general tying up and killing
of dogs and it will be wise to keep your eyes on the dogs
you meet.
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Mrs.
McGee Was Early-Day Women Libber
Mrs. Emily Wills McGee, a close relative of William Wills,
for whom Wills Point is named, died on the 29th of April,
1936, at the age of 90. "Aunt Emmy" was a rare personality.
Women's Lib had not been heard of in her days, but she never
felt the restraint that today's female dissenters echo in
their clamor for rights equal to that of their male counterparts.
Mrs. J. D. Adams, great-granddaughter of the 90-pound dynamo,
recalls advice that Aunt Emmy gave her when she was a little
girl. "Honey, there are three important things that every
girl should learn ... to ride a horse, shoot a gun and climb
a tree."
Mrs. McGee spent most of her 90 years on the 80 acre farm
that she and her first husband, James Jones, bought in the
Board Community for 50 cents an acre. When she and her husband
moved there, rumors of Indians having occupied the area not
long before them were heard often. There is still today a
large rock on the back side of the farm that is alleged to
have been used as a place for pounding grain by the Indians.
As a child, Mrs. Adams spent part of her vacation each summer
with her great-grandmother and recalls that she often picked
up arrows on the hillsides.
A small cemetery located near the farm holds the grave of
Mrs. McGee's first husband. Old timers related stories of
how the white people would bury their dead in the little cemetery
at night to avoid Indian raiding parties.
Mrs. McGee died in the house that she and her husband built
of logs made from the timber on the farm. Through the years,
rooms were added, and improvements were made, but original
log structure was still in the old house when it was finally
torn down several years ago.
After Mrs. McGee's death, her son, Green Evans and his wife,
Elsie, continued to live on the farm. Mr. Evans died several
years ago and Mrs. Evans later died as a resident of Crestwood
home.
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