VOORHIES CALLIGAN STABBED BY NEGROES

Crowley Signal October 1903

(note: the name is most likely Colligan)

Voorhies Calligan, a son of Jos. Calligan, one of the most prominent farmers of this section, was stabbed in the back and perhaps fatally wounded by Cyprien Harrison, a negro, at about midnight Saturday. Harrison and another negro named Enzet, alias jules Dardenaux, were arrested and brought to the parish jail in Crowley.

Calligan and another young white man named Frank Henry were on their way home, riding one horse through the streets of Church Point when they met the two negroes who were very drunk and staggering along the road. The horse became frightened at the antics of the negroes and shied, causing a quarrel between its riders and the intoxicated blacks. Harrison drew a long-bladed knife and stabbed young Calligan in the back, just below the fifth rib on the left side. Henry jumped off the horse and escaped unhurt, and the negroes fled.

The negroes were arrested shortly afterwards by Deputy Sheriff R.W. Davis and brought before Justice of the Peace H.D. McCormick at Church Point, who investigated the case and committed them to the district court for trial. They were taken to Crowley by Mr. Davis and Mayor J.D. Murrel of Church Point and lodged in the parish jail.

The young mans wound is very serious and painful and his recovery is problematical. It seems that none of the parties to the deplorable tragedy are of a turbulent nature; but that the negroes were only made vicious by the amount of liquor they had imbibed.