184Notes for GEORGE WASHINGTON HEDRICK:
The Murder of George Washington Hedrick

On the 31st day of March 1865, John Middleton, a member of Snyder's Home Guard company, Wills Custer, of Reed Creek, a member of Bogg's company, and a man named Harvey Hilton, a Confederate deserter and member of Isaac Alt's company, came in the evening to the home of John Bible on Wyatt's Run, two to three miles west of Ruddle. They compelled Mr. Bible to accompany them to the home of Reuben Hedrick, only a few hundred yards away.
When about half of this distance had been covered, the three left Bible sitting on a fence beside the road and told him that if he did not remain there until they returned they would hunt him up and kill him. They then proceeded alone to the Hedrick home. The family on the night in question consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Hedrick, a daughter now Mrs. Mary C. Hedrick, the wife of David W. Hedrick, who was about 16 years of age at the time, and a son George Washington Hedrick, who was 14 years of age. Two older sons were in the Confederate service at the time. They were William Perry Hedrick, a member of Co. E of the 25th   Regiment, and James Hedrick, a member of the Pendleton Reserves, then probably stationed at McCoy's Mill.
The boy had just returned from hiding the horses, as was the necessary custom of that day and time, and was seated on a chair before the open fire. The marauding party seemed to be very much intoxicated. After knocking things about in the room for a time and behaving in a very rude and offensive manner, Middleton, without provocation whatever, drew his pistol and calling the boy a "d____d Rinktin" (Pizarinktum) (Pendleton Reserves), shot   him through the head. The boy fell dead off his chair onto the floor. The remainder of the family, in fear for their lives dared not say or do anything at all.
The party left immediately and very hurriedly, passing Mr. Bible where they had previously left him seated on the fence without giving him any notice.
The parents and sister were left alone with the dead boy. They did not know what to do. It was dark and they were afraid to go for assistance, not knowing what dangers might be lurking outside their home. Finally Mr. Hedrick ventured out and keeping to the woods, secured the presence and assistance of Lydia Pennington and George W. Thompson. The body was held without burial for 2 to 3 days in the hope that a message could be gotten to one of the absent brothers or that one of them might come home, but neither did. There were only three or four of the older men of the community available to assist, all able-bodied men being in the war.
After the war, civil government was restored; Middleton was arrested and indicted, charged with the murder of the Hedrick boy. The jail at Franklin had been burned during the war. Isaac P. Boggs, deputy for his father, John Boggs, who was sheriff of Pendleton County, assisted by James Hedrick, a brother of the murdered boy, took Middleton to Beverly, the county seat of Randolph County, for confinement until his trial. He was prosecuted by W.H.H.Flick (a former Union solder, then prosecuting attorney of the county). He was convicted of murder in the second degree, and he was given the maximum penalty of 18 years under the verdict of the presiding judge. It is said that the jury would have inflicted the death penalty despite the fact that the disability of Confederates and Confederate sympathizers had not yet been removed but for the fact that Marion V. Bennett, who had been a member to the same company to which Middleton had belonged, was a member of the jury and succeeded in having the verdict reduced.
The trial was conducted on Oct. 1, 1867. The members of the jury were Abraham Mallow, John Swadley, Henry Devier, William l. Smith, Ephraim Simmons, Martin V. Bennett, George Simmons, Solomon Simmons, Benjamin Kesner, Simon Shaver, Samuel Simmons and Daniel Varner.
On October 10, 1873, Middleton motioned the court, John Blair Hoge presiding, for a new trial of his case because of the act of the legislature, set forth in full elsewhere, designed to exempt membersof the Home Guard companies from punishment by the court. Middleton was sometime later pardoned.
Hilton disappeared and Custer went to the state of Ohio soon after the war. Those most interested in having them prosecuted were kept busy making a living and in recuperating from the losses of the war and the offenders were left unmolested and unprosecuted.
Mrs. Mary C. Hedrick, sister of the murdered boy from whom most of the information contained in this account was secured, says that no amount of scouring or scrubbing would ever remove the blood stains from the floor of their home.
No motive was ever assigned for the murder unless it be that the members of the party were disapointed in not getting horses, which is said to have been their purpose in coming and was so announced by them. The Hedrick's father and son, were quiet, inoffensive people and were not known to have an enemy anywhere.
Middleton spent the remainder of his life on the North Fork near Onego. Those who knew him best say that he was moody and morose, and seldom smiled during all his subsequent life.
This Account of the death of George Washington Hedrick is taken from the book, "Twixt North and South" by H.M. Calhoun, McCoy Publishing Co. Franklin, WVa. pages 158-162