Out of everything that I have written about Peter McQueen I failed to ever write about the aftermath of his death, with the exception of a brief mention in a previous post (or two).
The other day my mom found an article about Peter McQueen at Chronicling America. She knew it was the correct McQueen because we already had some information about his death and one of the court case surrounding his will. From the Daily Union and American (Nashville, Tennessee), May 6, 1866:
“J. P. P.,” the correspondent of the Memphis Argus, gives an interesting account of the McQueen will case, recently decided at Holly Springs against the validity of the will, on the ground of unsoundness of mind. The testator bequeathed his estate to a niece and her four daughters, disinheriting his own daughters because they joined the Methodist church. It was testified that he declared he had heard, at his farm in Marshall county, the guns of Forts Moultrie, Sumter and Pensacola; that one of his negroes ran away before the war, and returning, was received into favor on the express condition that he should be hanged if ever he ran away again, and having run away again during the war, the madman, on recapturing, actually hanged him. The last act of his life was the killing of a peaceable man in Choctaw county, on a fancied provocation. The neighbors took arms, hunted him like a wild beast, and overtaking him in Calhoun county, shot him down in the road.
This makes me shake my head. What a jerk.
Anyway, a few things about the article: Peter’s niece Mary Ann actually had three daughters and a son. The “will case” referred to is actually the first court hearing regarding Peter’s will. I still need to see if I could get a copy of his will and/or this court case (I’m hopeful I can since the courthouse was burned down in 1864, a year before Peter died, and I haven’t found anything about any “new” courthouses being destroyed). Also, according to the Supreme Court transcripts Peter died in Choctaw County, Mississippi. Now we know it was Calhoun County, Mississippi. Now, if only we knew where he was buried!
What I do have is fifteen pages (291-328) from Mississippi Reports concerning the October Term, 1866 of the Mississippi Supreme Court where Peter’s niece apparently wasn’t pleased with the outcome of the lower county court, so she appealed to the state Supreme Court to overturn the decision. I am working on a post for these papers, because this is when it starts to get really interesting!
