Old Newspapers

I love to look at old newspapers. This weekend, newspapers.com has its archives free to the public, and I've spent part of my day looking at old Virginia papers.

Seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. The papers I was looking at were in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

There is political news - back then, the areas that are now Republican were held by Democrats - and many editorials bat around various issues. The appointment of local judges seemed high on the radar. Also, there are stories about the price of things, businesses, agriculture, etc.

One amusing anecdotal story told about a judge in Lynchburg who always wanted order in his court. He looked to the sheriff, named only as "Bob S." in the story, to keep order. One day after a jury trial, the jury had to remain overnight. Sheriff Bob S. was looking after the 12 souls who finally reached a verdict, though they could not pronounce it until the next morning when court returned.

Good ol' Sheriff Bob S. took pity on the jurors who had to remain overnight, and he offered them some peach drink, which apparently was alcoholic, for when the jurors went back to court, they could not contain themselves and devolved into a raucous debauchery, telling jokes and laughing. The judge finally asked Sheriff Bob S. to bring about order, but as the sheriff had also partaken of the peach concoction, order was not restored because the Sheriff, in standing up to restore order, fell over, causing the jurors to laugh even more uproariously. The judge left the courtroom in a rage.

I didn't download a copy of that story, because it didn't pertain to my county, but it made me smile. We don't write stories like that anymore.

Here are some of the stories I have saved. They are all from the late 1800s, from about 1870-1890.