TROUBLE AT VICTORY MILL VILLAGE
This article has been contributed by Betty Richardson     Posted June 08, 2003 by Myrtle Bridges

The following article is taken from the "The Fayetteville Observer-Times" Sunday Morning, December 5, 1982. 
It is the last installment of a series of articles on crime in Fayetteville, N.C. in the early 1900's written 
by Pat Reese, Sunday Staff Writer. Deputy sheriff W.G. Moore was the father of James Edwin Moore, the 
grandfather of Libby Walp, the great grandfather, and great great grandfather of scads of us on the Walp and 
Richardson sites.



Cars packed with armed men jammed the rain drenched streets between Fayetteville and Victory Mill Village on 
Friday night, May 21, 1920. 

Women and children peeked from behind window curtains along Camden Road as the roar of the cars and the yells 
of the angry gunmen were occasionally punctuated by rifle fire.

An orange glow in the sky added to the frightening scenario as members of the giant posse used torches to set 
fire to the home of a black mill worker named George Hobbs.

Sheriff N.H. McGeachy and his handful of deputies tried to bring some order to the confusion "but was unable 
to do very much on account of the unorganized crowd of excited villagers." The Fayetteville Observer reported 
on Saturday, May 22.

At Camp Bragg, the commanding officer ordered 500 soldiers into trucks and they were standing by to move into 
Victory Mill Village (known as Lakedale today), but the governor called off the Army, saying the trouble was 
not a race riot, "but an effort to get one Negro."

One Cumberland County deputy had been killed and another mortally wounded late Friday afternoon and the mob 
wanted vengeance.

"There was no race riot as stated in the papers of other cities," The Observer declared. "It was merely an 
effort on the part of the villagers to bring to justice the colored man who had taken the life of Deputy 
Sheriff Herman Butler."

Butler died when a bullet struck him in the neck as he and another deputy, W.G. "Billy" Moore, marched toward 
the barn where Hobbs had barricaded himself against the mob. Moore was shot in the back and died at 5 p.m. on 
Saturday at Pittman Hospital.  William Garrison Moore's death certificate states:, "Bullet wound in abdomen".

A coroner's report by Dr. Vance McGougan was to show the deputies were not shot with the same weapon.

It all started on Thursday when Hobbs' daughter and two white girls, Bessie Wrenn and an unidentified friend, 
met while walking along the "Cut"-a deep ravine between Camden Road and Southern Avenue where a trolley once 
ran between Fayetteville and Victory Mills.

Newspaper reports stated, "The trouble arose when the daughter of Hobbs brushed against two white girls, while 
on their way to the mill, and after knocking one of the white girls several feet she came back and handed the 
Hobbs woman a thrashing."

The Observer, in its May 22nd edition, states that on the following day, Friday, "the Hobbs woman used vile 
threats and fired a pistol several times in the air, using at the same time profane language of the worst kind. 
She was pursued down the railroad cut by several white men. She went to her home, reloading her pistol and 
came back and finding the same two white girls with whom she had had the previous trouble fired five times 
at them, none of the bullets hitting their mark."

There are some wide differences in the story told in newspapers in 1920 and the recollections today of a 
granddaughter of Deputy Moore - Mrs. Doc Jackson, who lives in Pearces Mill Township.

Mrs. Jackson remembers stories told by her grandmother, Mrs. Lizzie Newton Moore, and other older Massey Hill 
residents and those stories indicated the Wrenn girl went to Puritan Mill, where her brothers worked, and told 
them about the fight, that the brothers ran home and got their guns to go look for Hobbs' daughter.

The Observer continues its report of the trouble: "About 6 o'clock, a couple of white men (not identified by 
the newspaper but probably members of the Wrenn family) went to the home of Hobbs (which was located near 
Camden Road and Orlando Street, not far from the Massey Hill Recreation Center) and finding the Negro with 
his wife sitting on the porch, informed them the trouble must cease. Instantly, the two Negroes dashed into 
the house and in a moment one of them fired a shotgun through the window at the white men, one of them being 
peppered on the neck with bird shot. He then leveled his gun and fired into the house and the Negroes 
scattered, the women members of the family going off toward the top of the hill and Hobbs going into his barn.

Mrs. Jackson remembers her grandmother's oft-told story. Deputy Moore was at home, having just completed his 
regular duty tour. Butler came to the house and urged Moore to go with him, saying there was going to be 
serious trouble. Moore, who was 70, agreed, and the two officers drove to Hobbs' home.

Newspaper reports state Butler walked to a spot near the barn, carrying a lantern on his arm. A bullet was 
fired from the barn, the newspapers said, and Butler was hit. The bullet struck him in the neck and exited 
his body on his left side near the heart.

A huge crowd of villagers began to gather, most of them armed. "Hearing of the deputy's death, they became 
incensed and set fire to the dwelling house of Hobbs, also to the dwelling house of his sister," The Observer 
reported. (The newspaper erred in its report. The men actually burned the home of Hobbs's wife's sister, 
Rebecca Evans, according to recorded deeds.)

Moore apparently tried to reach the barn and was shot. The bullet entered his body near the end of his spine 
and came out through his stomach.

The crowd finally discovered that Hobbs had escaped from the barn during the confusion. Angrily, men set 
fire to the barn and chased Hobbs' stock off into the darkness.

Hobbs' 15-year-old son was captured by members of the posse and turned over to deputies. The youngster had 
been shot in the legs during the gunfire. McGeachy found Hobbs' wife, Alice, and took her to Fayetteville 
and placed her in the Cumberland County Jail.

Mrs. Cathleen Turner was a teenager whose family lived next door to Deputy Moore. "I'll never forget that 
night," she says. "We had been to Tolar-Hart that afternoon and were coming home when we saw the glow of 
the flames from Hobbs' house in the sky. We heard the shooting and daddy told us not to leave the house 
when we got home.

"I remember it was raining that night and we could see the people passing by through our windows," she says.

Law enforcement in 1920 was still a long way from becoming a science. There were no ballistic tests, no 
fingerprint experts. Apparently, the crowd and the officers refused to accept the significance of the fact 
that Moore was shot in the back while walking toward the barn where Hobbs was believed to have been barricaded. 
The angle of the bullet striking Butler also failed to raise any doubt in the minds of the investigators.

The size of the mob continued to increase, and search parties scattered in all directions. Dozens of armed 
men remained throughout the night around the ashes of the fires that had destroyed two homes and a barn.

The search continued through the weekend. On Monday, May 24, The Observer reported Hobbs was still a fugitive 
roaming the swamps somewhere in lower Cumberland. "Armed men are continuing the hunt all along the country 
roads and woods where he is suspected of being," the newspaper stated.

Hobbs reportedly had gone to Butler's Store near Cumberland Mill on Saturday night, carrying a pistol wrapped 
in a handkerchief in his right hand and a rifle under his left arm.

There is an account from "a traveling man" (apparently a traveling salesman) who was quoted by The Observer 
saying he had been stopped by a black man as he drove toward Fayetteville from Hope Mills, that the man asked 
him if he was hunting him. The traveling man said he assured the man he was not, that he didn't even know what 
he was being hunted for.

Deputies and members of the posse stationed themselves in Ardlussa, the community where Hobbs' wife had been 
born and where she had a number of relatives living. But they couldn't find their quarry.

Moore, born in Pender County, had lived in Cumberland for 21 years. He had been a deputy for 16 years. He 
was buried in a graveyard next to his home on Camden Road. Approximately 2,000 persons crowded into his 
front yard and the cemetery near his house late Sunday afternoon for the final rites.

Butler's body was taken to his native Clinton in Sampson County for burial. He had lived in Fayetteville 
for about 20 years and owned an automobile delivery business here. 

Finally, on Wednesday, May 26, Charles Young, a friend of Hobbs, contacted Sheriff McGeachy and announced 
Hobbs was ready to surrender, but only to the sheriff or Deputy Al Pate, that he feared the other members 
of the department.

McGeachy and Pate drove to Snow Hill Church, just beyond Little Sandy River, about four miles from Fayetteville. 
At 8 p.m., Young arrived at the church and told McGeachy that Hobbs was hiding nearby. In a few minutes Hobbs 
walked out of the woods, unarmed and holding his hands above his head.

McGeachy drove to Fayetteville and switched cars. He and Pate slipped Hobbs to Raleigh for safekeeping.

Hobbs told McGeachy he had wanted to give himself up earlier but could not get word to the sheriff or Pate. 
McGeachy said Hobbs was worried about his family, and the officers assured him they were safe. Hobbs said he 
was tired and went to sleep after hearing the news about his family. He slept on the back seat most of the 
way to Raleigh.

Hobbs remained in state prison until Sept. 1 when Deputy A. O. Patrick brought him back to Fayetteville to 
stand trial. They arrived at about midnight, and the trial was scheduled to begin in superior court on Sept. 2.

Judge Owen H. Guoin of Craven County was presiding and Solicitor S. B. McLean was prosecutor.

But as the arraignment began, defense attorneys H. L. Cook, John H. Cook, John G. Shaw and Duncan Shaw 
announced they wanted a conference with their client. Judge Guoin granted the request.

The lawyers and Hobbs left the courtroom and shut themselves behind closed doors in an anteroom. They 
returned about two hours later. Hobbs was flanked by his wife, daughter and son.

Attorney H. L. Cook in a brief speech to the court announced that Hobbs was pleading guilty to second 
degree murder, saying he and the other lawyers had advised the defendant to plead guilty to second degree.

Cook said the defense counsel had searched the state's evidence and he did not believe state could find 
Hobbs guilty of first degree murder. He also said there would be much difficulty in even proving he fired 
the shots that killed Butler and Moore, that "in fairness and justice to all" he felt that "the ends of 
justice would be met by letting him serve a term in state prison."

Judge Guoin congratulated the attorneys for the defense, as well as the prosecutor. "The tremendous crowd 
that packed every inch of space listened intently at every word, spoken slow and deliberately by his honor," 
according to a reporter's account of the court proceedings published in The Observer on Sept.2.

It is obvious today, reading the accounts of the proceedings, that Solicitor McLean and the defense lawyers 
had been involved in some fancy plea bargaining before the day of the trial.

Judge Guoin told McLean that he had "served the state and county well." Guoin said, "I heartily concur in 

your course. You are doing the best that can be done that the ends of justice be served."

Later in the day, Guoin sentenced Hobbs to serve from two to 20 years in prison.

On the surface, it was an amazing sentence. A black man accused of murdering two white deputies in a mill 
village in 1920 would be eligible for parole in less than a year.

But the action of the attorneys spotlights the weakness of the state's case and prompts speculation that 
Moore and Butler probably were shot by members of the giant posse that had cornered Hobbs in his barn.