Click here for a list of my other Pulaski/Rockcastle/Laurel County KY articles
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[April 6, 1882] -
Somerset Reporter: A little thirteen year-old daughter of Mary Eads (the woman who recently killed Smith Burton and is now a fugitive from justice) applied to Judge Cosson last Saturday for a home, and when the Judge proposed to get a home for her she concluded she didn't want a home, but wanted to be sent to Louisville. The young girl was rather pert, and as she was not furnished transportation she returned to her home in the country. [1]---
[May 25, 1882] -
ALLEGED MURDER.
Mary Eades Arrested on the Charge of Killing a Man near Somerset, Ky.
Policemen Reid and Broderick arrested a woman named Mary Eades, alias James, at Emma Hedges' bagnio, on North College street, yesterday afternoon, on the charge of the murder of a man named Samuel Burton, near Somerset, Kentucky, about three months ago.
An American reporter visited the prisoner at the work-house, and asked her how the killing was brought about. She said that there were about twenty-one in the party, and all of them had been drinking more or less. Burton, throughout the day, had been threatening to kill somebody, and had beat his nephew. Burton had gone into the house of a woman and was beating her, when Eades appealed to two men to know whether they would stand on the outside and hear the shrieks of the woman and not offer any aid. They told her that if she would break down the door they would see that she was not harmed, as Burton would kill one of them if they dared to do what they requested of her. Feeling a deep sympathy for the woman and having herself taken several drinks, Eades assented, broke down the door and prevented the further beating of the woman. Subsequent to that time, Burton brought in a single-tree and threatened to kill Mary Eades, but it was taken away from him by his nephew.
He then threatened to kill her with an ax. She asked him whether he would kill her, when he responded that he would, and drew back the ax to strike her. At that moment, someone gave her a knife, and under the excitement of the moment, she stuck it in his breast, and ran away, he following her, as she believed at the time. She said that the act was done purely in self-defense. Burton was considered a desperado, and had in his shoulder eight buckshot, which he had received in a fight. He did not believe that lead would kill him. Eades said she regretted the occurrence, but it was an act which could hardly have been avoided. Burton's nephew, after the affair was over, brought her down the river in a skiff, and put her on a steamboat for Nashville, where she had since remained. She had been separated from her child, and did not know who had the care of it. She believed she would be able to prove that the deed which had been forced upon her had been done in self-defense. She had preferred to have gone to Somerset and to have given herself up, but she had been persuaded to come to Nashville and remain until the excitement had died away. With even half justice she would be cleared.
Mrs. Eades is a small woman, was neatly attired in black, and it would seem strange that she had the courage to attack a man who is said to have been a stalwart blacksmith. She said that he had previously struck her three times and that the knot from a blow still remained on her head to testify his assault. [2]
