Who was Arthur Glover?
Many people in Augusta were wondering in 1906.
Some knew him as a part-time political journalist and election operative.
Some knew him as a constable and private detective, handy with a gun.
Some knew him as a family man with a wife and children living at 1827 Ellis St.
A Richmond County jury, however, said he was a murderer.
It had a point.
Arthur Glover did not deny that he walked into the weaving room at the Sibley Mill on Oct. 19, 1906, to ask (choose the era’s newspaper term: “sweetheart,” “paramour,” “mistress”) Maude Dean Williamson why she was rejecting his company. When he did not receive a satisfactory answer, he pulled out a gun and shot her several times.
He left for a local bar, had a drink, then went home to his wife.
He admitted as much in court, even going so far as to taunt Judge Henry Hammond who responded by setting his hanging date.
As that day neared, however, Arthur Glover said he had lost his mind and was insane. He let his hair grow long. He quit shaving. A newspaper report said he looked like a wild-eyed John the Baptist.
Glover explained that he had been driven mad under the burden of political pressures that had plagued him in the service of one of the state’s best-known politicians – the preeminent Populist, Tom Watson, of nearby Thomson.
That’s why he had walked into a local cotton mill and shot and killed a woman, not his wife.
Was he insane?
That remains a mystery.
One could certainly question his unusual behavior before, during and after the slaying of Maude Williamson.
He also had a curious history.
In the fall of 1892 while working for Watson, Glover shot police officer Henry Head during a local political altercation, then fled to South Carolina to avoid the law.
Apparently, the law didn’t go looking for him, which allowed him to move back to Augusta, set up a home on Ellis Street, take a wife, start a family and find a girlfriend.
In May of 1899, The Atlanta Constitution’s Augusta correspondent reported criminal charges made against a masked man at Lake Olmstead who pulled a gun during an argument and began shooting at people. He didn’t hit anyone and quickly fled on a bicycle hidden in some bushes. The man was identified as Arthur Glover.
At a hearing in May 1907, Glover’s lawyers brought in witnesses who testified the now long-haired, fidgety man in the dock had been “unsound all of his life.”
Glover also asked his political boss Tom Watson for help and Watson came through.
A brilliant but sometimes manic Populist, Watson had no trouble believing his loyal foot soldier had gotten a raw deal. He, himself, had seen his own political efforts denied when opposing voters were brought in by the wagonload and paid to participate with dollars and drink.
Watson also had influence with Gov. Hoke Smith, who owed his comfy bed in the Governor’s Mansion to Watson’s previous support.
When Watson called (or telegrammed) Hoke heard him and intervened for Arthur Glover.
Sort of.
Instead of commuting the death sentence of a previously confessed killer, Smith set up a panel to review the case with its insanity issue. Unfortunately for Arthur Glover, the panel advised the execution go forth. It called Glover a “degenerate defective,” but said he was sane.
Watson vowed he’d get back at Smith, while Glover went to the gallows, officially executed in January 1908.
Watson kept his word and pulled his political support, causing Gov. Hoke Smith to lose re-election.
Smith, a lawyer, took a political break, made some money (his specialty was injury claims suits by railroad passengers) and successfully ran for governor the next term. He not only won but went on to gain a seat in the U.S. Senate, where he would serve until 1920 when he lost re-election.
The man that beat him?
The new senator named Tom Watson.
Bill Kirby has reported, photographed and commented on life in Augusta and Georgia for 45 years.
