The New York Times
28 January 1856
Horrible Tragedy in Georgia
It was briefly mentioned, a few days ago, that Samuel Taylor and wife, an old and respectable couple, residing in Twiggs County, Ga., had been brutally murdered. The Macon Citizen says:
"Mr. Taylor was found dead in his bed, and his wife, Sarah, gasping in death alongside of him, each with one large wound on the head, inflicted by the cutting edge of an axe. Mrs. Taylor lived, in an insensible state, about two hours after Mr. Taylor's son, James, reached the house from his own residence, less than a mile distant. The fiend who committed the double murder afterward attempted to burn the house, having kindled a fire on the bed, between the murdered couple, and laid a pile of kindling wood under the same, more effectually to destroy all traces of the atrocious act. Owing to the bed clothing being chiefly of woolen material, the fire did not progress rapidly, but filled the house with smoke, which caused a child of Mrs. Taylor's granddaughter, sleeping with its mother in another part of the house, to awake and rouse its mother, who, though deaf and dumb, managed to rouse the negroes and give the alarm to the neighbors, after putting out the fire.
From an eye-witness of the scene we learn that, so offensive was the odor of burning human flesh and blood, and of woolen and cotton goods in the room where the dead bodies lay, the company assembled (about a dozen neighbors) were compelled to lay out the dead and remove the remains of the bedding before the Coroner, living twenty miles off, could be summoned to hold an inquest. This was done on Tuesday afternoon, and a verdict given according to the foregoing facts, and with suspicion that Lewis, a negro fellow of Mr. Taylor's about 28 years old, was the murderer."
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