Notes for: Isaac Noah James
News article, "Wheeling Intelligencer," Wednesday morning, March 22 1871, in its entirety:
THE DODDRIDGE COUNTY MURDER
We gave a brief account of a murder committed recently in Doddridge County, in Monday morning's paper. We find the following particulars of the affair in the Clarksburg "Telegraph" of yesterday:
We are informed that a most horrible and cold blooded murder was committed in the vicinity of Central Station, Doddridge County, on Wednesday evening last. the murderd man's name was Mr. --- Rogers, a well-to-do citizen of the county. The horrible deed was committed, report says, by a Mr. Owens. It seems that Owens has been indicted by the Grand Jury of Doddridge County, sometime ago, for arson, for which offense he was going to be tried at the approaching term of the Circuit Court of that county, and that Mr. Rogers was the principal witness against him. The body of Mr. Rogers, when found, was lying in one of the fields where he was murdered, and had two bullet holes through it -- one through the neck and the other through the abdomen.
We given the above as related to us, and await further developments.
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News article, "Indiana (Pa.) Weekly Messenger," Wednesday, July 5 1871, in its entirety:
A WEST VIRGINIA TRAGEDY
[From the Wheeling (West Va.) Register, July 4]
On last Friday afternoon there was enacted, near Central Station, Doddridge County, the last scene of a terrible tragedy, Noah James, Esq., member of the West Virginia Legislature in 1868, and a man of wealth and influence in his neighborhood, having committed suicide to escape the penalty of the law. The particulars of the crime are as follows:
Last March a man named Rogers, formerly living on the edge of Tyler County, was found lying dead in the woods near his own house. He had received a bullet wound in his abdomen, and another in the neck, neither of which would have proved fatal. -- By various circumstances suspicion was directed against Isaac Owens, a desperado in the neighborhood, who was then under indictment in Tyler County on the charge of having burned property of the murdered Rogers. Owens was arrested on the charge of murder. -- The evidence was mainly circumstantial, but was sufficiently conclusive as to his guilt. He was convicted on the 29th of April last, and a few days later sentenced to imprisonment in the Penitentiary for life. Soon after Owens' arrest, some suspicion of complicity in the murder of Rogers was directed against Noah James. -- There was a long standing and bitter feud between the men; they had had several lawsuits, and James had been heard to say that Rogers ought to be shot. Up to the time of his arrival at Penitentiary, Owens had preserved a stubborn silence with regard to the murder. A few days after his incarceration, however, he made a full and circumstantial confession of the crime.
He stated that on several occasions Noah James had said that Rogers ought to be shot; that on Friday, March 10, he was engaged, in company with his son, in grubbing a field for Mr. James, when the latter came to him in the field, took him a short distance apart from his work, had a long talk with him about Rogers, and offered to give him $25 if he would keep Rogers from appearing against him (James) in a case then pending in the Doddridge County court; that he objected to the proposition at first, but James then offered to give him $25 and lend him $50 more if he would kill Rogers. Furthermore, James agreed to get him some powder, lead and caps, and promised that if he was arrested he (James) would take care of his family, go his bail, get him lawyers, pay his witnesses, and swear him out of the scrape, and finally agreed that he would himself assist in the contemplated murder. Owens consented.
On Wednesday, March 15, Owens was returning from mill when he discovered Rogers coming along the road on his way home. Hastening home as rapidly as possible, Owens went over to Noah James and told him that Rogers was coming along the path toward his house, when they immediately hastened to the woods and placed themselves in ambush to await the arrival of Rogers. Noah James fired the first shot from his rifle, the ball taking effect in Rogers' body, who then turned screaming from the path and started to run. Owens then fired his pistol, the ball taking effect under Rogers' right jaw, when he immediately fell, and in a few moments died. After Owens' arrest and some surmises of James' complicity in the crime began to be circulated, the latter refused to have anything to do with Owens, to furnish him any money or give him any assistance whatever; on the contrary, furnished some evidence against him at the trial. But he failed to put to rest the suspicions that had been circulated concerning him in the neighborhood. -- Public opinion had been aroused, on circumstance after another came to light, all tending to weave a web of guilt about the unhappy man. At length it was thought that sufficient evidence had been found to authorize his arrest as an accessory to the murder of Rogers, and on last Saturday the warrant was to be served. On last Friday, Noah James, who lived about two miles from Central Station, ate very little dinner and complained of feeling unwell. Soon after dinner, he took his gun and proceeded up a little run that flows through a ravine near his house. He had only been absent a few minutes when his wife heard the report of the gun, and sent one of the children to see what had been shot. The child returned in terror, with the dreadful news that its father was dead. It was found that James had taken off the boot and sock from one foot, and placing the muzzle of the rifle to his eye, pulled the trigger with his toe, and sent the bullet through his brain.
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News article, "Cincinnati Daily Times," July 6 1871, in its entirety:
DODDRIDGE COUNTY, W.VA.
[Correspondence of the Times and Chronicle]
Cloverdale, W.Va., July 4
THE RODGERS MURDER
The Owens tragedy is still being more fully developed. As before stated, it will be remembered that Noah James was thought to have incited Owens to the killing of Joseph L. Rodgers [sic], of Doddridge County, West Virginia, and that suspicion had strongly attached to James as really being a party to the murder. At the last term of the Doddridge County Court, Owens was found guilty of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to the State's prison for life. A few days after this, Owens made a partial confession, in which he stated that James had shot Rodgers from behind the stump before referred to, and that he (Owens) was stationed a short distance from James, along the little path leading to Rodgers' house, and that when James fired upon Rodgers with his rifle, Rodgers ran a distance of about forty yards, while he pursued him and shot him the second time, with a revolver, through the head. This confession was made after Owens was convicted and sentenced, and therefore people did not attach as much importance to it as if the confession had been made before his conviction. This confession seemed to weigh heavily upon James. Had he been quiet and said nothing, people would have paid little attention to what Owens might have said, but from James's conduct, people were led to believe that he was in some way connected with the awful crime of putting an end to his neighbor's life.
SUICIDE OF JAMES
On Sunday, June 25th, James stated in class meeting (he was a class leader in the United Brethren Society) that he had prayed for God to take him out of the world. On the afternoon of the same day, he tried, it is said, to drown himself, but did not succeed because of the shallowness of the water.
On the following Friday, James sent his little son into the garden to work. His wife was in her room asleep at the time. His little daughter was also sent out of the room on some errand; and when they had all left the room, James took out his rifle and ran a distance of three hundred yard across the meadow, pulled off his right boot, cocked the gun, and placing the muzzle to his right eye, pulled the trigger with his toe, blowing out his brains. He fell backward, the gun falling across his legs, and died without a struggle. On the following day, he was buried. Hundreds of people collected to see the body of Noah James for the last time, but the coffin was kept closed, and the morbid curiosity of the multitude was not gratified.
HIS (illegible)
James was a man of good property, was a good neighbor and a clever man. He was, until his late connection with the Owens murder, quite a popular man, and held various offices in the county, and had at one time been a member of the West Virginia Legislature.
But he is gone, and as there is no positive proof of his guilt, we will hope at least that he was not guilty of the awful crime of participating in the murder of Joseph L. Rodgers.