Killed Over a Dog
An 1880 Kentucky Murder
For decades after the Civil War, national newspapers were filled with stories of murder and violence in Kentucky. Killings, feuds, vigilante justice, and other crimes sent the Bluegrass State’s reputation plummeting. Kentuckians’ reliance on concealed weapons, coupled with an individual touchiness and quickness to take affront, meant that residents were quick to reach for firearms in order to settle differences. As court dockets groaned under the weight of violent acts, one Kentucky judge wrote that, “human life in Kentucky is not worth the snapping of a man’s fingers.” In many instances, those accused of crimes were acquitted thanks to claims of self-defense.
Sadly, several events in Shelby County helped contribute to the state’s ill repute. In the 1870s, headlines like “A KuKlux Murder,” “The Shelby County Outrages,” and “A Brutal Murder” highlighted racially motivated violence that pervaded Kentucky and emphasized the state’s inability to protect its citizens. In 1880, however, one event near Peytona detailed the dangers of hot tempers and concealed weapons. That month, one man killed another over an argument about a dead dog.
On March 22, John W. Hancock, whom the Louisville Courier-Journal called “a well-known horse trainer and farmer, residing on the pike between Peytona and Harrisonville,” rode his horse past the home of Joseph Walker, an African American farm worker living near Peytona. A few days earlier, and for reasons now lost to history, Hancock had killed Walker’s dog. Upon seeing Hancock, Walker asked him why he had slain the animal.
“Hancock flew into a terrible rage,” the Cincinnati Enquirer reported, “cursing and abusing” Walker “and swearing he would kill him if he ever caught him on his (Hancock’s) premises.” The two men argued for several minutes before an angry Hancock spurred his horse and rode away. After traveling approximately fifty yards, Hancock wheeled his mount, pulled a pistol, and galloped back to Walker’s home. “I’ll shoot you anyhow!” Hancock yelled. When Hancock rode up to Walker, Walker yelled, “Shoot! Shoot! Why don’t you shoot?” Hancock obliged. He pressed his pistol close to Walker’s shoulder and fired. As Walker fell, Hancock rode away calmly.
Walker died within a few minutes. Locals mourned his loss, calling him “respectable and peaceable” and “industrious.” He had worked on the farm of W. L. Waddy, the man for whom the community of Waddy, Kentucky, is named, for more than ten years.
The day after the shooting, Hancock turned himself in to authorities in Shelbyville, who charged him with willful murder. “Mr. Hancock is very reticent concerning the affray,” the Courier-Journal noted, “but claims that Walker was advancing on him when he fired the shot.” This attitude irritated other correspondents. One newspaper wrote that, “The present aspect of the case is a very bad one for Hancock, who appears to treat the affair as a very ordinary one.” A reporter with the Cincinnati Enquirer agreed, writing that when Hancock turned himself in, he was “acting as he had committed no greater offense than that of shooting a dog.”
The murder, and Hancock’s approach to the killing, did not win the arrested man many supporters. The Stanford Interior-Journal, calling Hancock a “scoundrel,” wrote that the shooting “was one of the most cowardly and unprovoked murders that has occurred for months in the dark and bloody ground.” Another writer said that in Shelby County, “the killing is looked upon as a cold-blooded, premeditated murder.”Because authorities frequently dismissed shootings that involved claims of self-defense, the Shelby County marshal did not keep Hancock in prison. Instead, he placed Hancock under the nineteenth century equivalent of house arrest, where an appointed bailiff watched him. A few days after the shooting, however, Hancock “escaped from his guard.” As authorities sought public help to apprehend him, one newspaper described Hancock’s appearance. “He is tall,” they wrote, “straight, light complexioned, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds, thirty-five years old, mustache and thin chin whiskers, quick in movement, square-shouldered, walks erect, quick spoken, and is supposed to have on a new cassimere suit.” The authorities believed that he was going to cross the Ohio River and escape into Indiana.
It is unknown if Hancock returned to Shelby County on his own recognizance or if authorities captured him. Regardless, in September 1882, he was tried for the murder of Joseph Walker. With his attorneys making the claim of self-defense, the jury acquitted Hancock after only a “brief deliberation.” While juries from this period frequently exonerated killers over claims of self-defense, it is likely that the circumstances of the case — a white man shooting a black man during an argument in Kentucky in 1880 — contributed to the verdict.
Sadly, the shooting of Joseph Walker was not the only Kentucky murder caused by a dog. Three months after Walker’s death, a similar event played out among children in Lancaster, the county seat of Garrard County. In June 1880, an African American boy named Sid Mullins threw a rock at Lige Gallagher’s dog. The boys yelled at one another before throwing stones. After Mullins “called Gallagher a hard name,” Gallagher ran inside, grabbed a pistol, and fired several rounds at Mullins. The second bullet struck Mullins in the back, causing a fatal wound. The two boys were only fourteen and fifteen years old.
Three years after Hancock killed Walker over the dog, a violent act involving Walker’s widow also made headlines when she, too, shot a man and claimed self-defense.
The Reverend John Ford, a local African American Methodist minister, had been courting the widow, who still lived near Peytona. Ford, it was said, “had been paying Mrs. Walker devoted attention for some time past, and was anxious to marry her, but to this she persistently refused to give her consent.” With his entreaties for marriage rebuffed, Ford grew angry. He then “declined to take no for his answer, and threatened to shoot her unless she married him.”
On November 25, 1883, Ford showed up at Mrs. Walker’s house. The widow ordered him to leave, but the minister refused. Feeling threatened, Mrs. Walker grabbed a shotgun and “fired point blank at his face and breast tearing the eyes out of him, and making a horrible wound, death resulting in a short time.” Mrs. Walker turned herself in to the authorities. One newspaper called the shooting “The most tragic case of courtship on record.” It is likely that Mrs. Walker, like the killer of her husband, was acquitted by reason of self-defense.
The shooting of Joseph Walker illustrates why Kentucky earned a violent reputation during the late nineteenth century. Many murders in the state, which occurred when men armed with concealed weapons used violence to end arguments, went unpunished when the shooters claimed self-defense. All-white juries concurred, especially when the case involved a white man shooting an African American victim. The 1880 shooting of Walker, and the acquittal of his killer, confirms that sad pattern.
Stuart W. Sanders’s latest book is “Murder on the Ohio Belle,” published by the University Press of Kentucky.
