From the Kinston Free Press, newspaper of Kinston, NC
25 Nov 1898
Tuesday evening, about 6 o’clock, at Williamston, William F. Cherry was shot and killed from ambush. It was a horrible and brutal murder. The young man was a volunteer in the second regiment and had received his pay and discharge the day before.
Update: November 30, 2008
An death notice for him also appeared in the Novemer 26, 1898 issue of the Raleigh News & Observer.
“A special to the Raleigh News and Observer says that at Williamston, Martin county, Tuesday evening, Wm. F. Cherry was shot in the house of James Bonds, where he was stopping, and instantly killed, by some unknown person. His body was found lying across the bed and he is supposed to have been shot through an open door. Cherry had been a member of the Second North Carolina Regiment Capt. Cotten’s company, was paid off last week, when mustered out, and had been drinking hard ever since. The affair is clothed in mystery.”
Death notice courtesy of GenealogyBank.com.