THE OLLIE BROWN PARDON FILE, located in the Kentucky State Archives, was a key source for Librarian Cheri Daniels’ research for this article. Pictured is one of hundreds of pages of petitions asking the governor to pardon Brown for the killing of Marshall George Freeman. (Photo by Cheri Daniels)
THE HEADSTONE of Town Marshal George Freeman in Versailles Cemetery. (Photo by Cheri Daniel)
By Cheri Daniels
Special to the Sun
On the evening of July 16, 1883, Versailles town marshal George Freeman was shot and killed while in the midst of a heated discussion with two local brothers, Ollie and Preston Brown.
According to newspaper accounts, Freeman had approached the brothers under suspicion of being drunk and disorderly. The discussion quickly turned physical, and as the fight escalated between all three men, the only two with guns – Freeman and Ollie Brown – emptied their chambers toward each other – with a fatal shot striking Freeman in the back.
This event was brought to the attention of the Woodford Library’s History Room when processing an original document for our archives – a legal brief sent to Gov. James Proctor Knott asking him to grant a pardon for the gunman, Ollie D. Brown, who had been convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 14 years in the State Penitentiary.
Spoiler alert – the petition was successful – but why would the governor pardon a man convicted of killing an esteemed law enforcement officer? The outcome is tied to a legal technicality after it took three trials to obtain a conviction.
In piecing together the details of the event, it should be noted that the actual court case could not be located at the Kentucky State Archives, nor here in town. This leaves us to draw conclusions through newspaper reports and some of the details outlined in the pardon documentation – which takes up four files of Gov. Knott’s Pardon Collection at the State Archives.
Witness accounts of the events are fairly scattered and not consistent since the altercation evolved over the evening, along various locations in town as Freeman encountered the brothers individually and together at various times. While most accounts agree that the shooting was part of a group brawl, and that Ollie Brown fired the fatal shot, there was much less agreement on why the fight started, and whether Brown should be convicted of murder – the original charge.
George Freeman was not native to Woodford County, having moved here from Madison County eight years prior and originally from Clay County. He had served as a policeman for Versailles over the previous four years. Despite a lack of deep Woodford County roots, the community put on a grand funeral for their fallen town marshal.
The Woodford Sun published “Resolutions of Respect,” drafted by the Versailles’ board of trustees to honor the memory of “this faithful public servant”.
The Brown brothers came from an Irish branch of the Brown family who settled in Woodford County as early as 1814. According to William E. Railey’s “History of Woodford County,” their paternal grandfather, Oliver, received 300 acres of land in Woodford County due to his work on the State Capitol building in Frankfort. This reward marked the family’s move to Versailles. The brothers’ parents were also first cousins, descending from two of the Brown brothers who immigrated to Kentucky in 1807 – resulting in a web of local prominent family connections.
While these men came from different backgrounds, there was a consensus that Freeman and the Brown brothers had a previous history that inflamed their interactions that evening. One newspaper even went so far as to call the event part of an ongoing feud, because the Brown brothers accused Freeman of killing their brother Sandy the prior year. With additional details of shouting, cursing, a stick, a knife and two guns, the event itself was chaotic – and observed by 50 witnesses – but still ended in the death of Freeman.
Preston and Ollie were immediately arrested, but since Preston was only armed with a stick or knife, he was not indicted on the more serious charge reserved for Ollie – murder. Over the next several months, Ollie was tried for this crime three times.
The first two trials ended in hung juries, and the third trial resulted in a conviction of manslaughter with a prison term of 14 years. The details of this last trial led to an outcry from Woodford’s local citizens.
In order to bypass the legal deadlock of the other two juries comprised of local peers, the third jury was made up of men from a neighboring county. It was soon discovered that even this jury had a hard time agreeing to a manslaughter conviction, and when it was time to cast a vote and recommend a sentence, they completed both of these tasks by casting lots – a process already deemed to be unconstitutional.
Within the next couple of years, appeals to Gov. Knott were filed periodically – often with pages of signatures attached from those in town who were also asking for the governor’s leniency – citing the illegality of the conviction and sentencing by lot plus the extreme length of prison time applied.
In their collective view, Ollie’s time served, at 2.5 years, should be enough of a punishment for killing Freeman.
Overall, the document submissions contained almost 500 names, including prominent local citizens and politicians like A.A. Bowmar (publisher and editor of The Woodford Sun), Oscar Pepper, William C.P. Breckenridge, Joseph C.S. Blackburn, G.G. Vest and John Berryman, among others. One of the letters, which included a handful of signatures, was from the final trial’s presiding judge and 10 of the jurors who had cast their lot to convict and sentence Brown – where they declared that Brown was justified in defending his brother from the “imminent danger” presented by Freeman.
Most of the letters extolled Ollie’s peaceful and responsible nature – insisting that he had never been in trouble prior to this incident. They also noted Brown’s well-respected family and expressed sympathy for Brown’s mother and sisters who were taking the brunt of the financial and emotional impact of defending Ollie throughout three court cases. A letter from James P. Amsden, whose bank building still stands on the corner of Main and Court streets, described the women as “bankrupt in happiness as well as fortune”.
By the early months of 1886, a new strategy emerged as the letters began to attack George Freeman’s reputation directly. J. O’Neal of Louisville stated that the “deceased was a violent and dangerous man and so regarded by those who knew him…and it is almost impossible to think a quiet man like Brown would have provoked a conflict with a man of such known dangerous character.”
Swift Darneal added in his letter, “I also know Freeman and his aggressive tyrannical disposition . . . .”
John T. Moore of Louisville summed up his opinion of the case: “From a careful investigation I learn that he [Brown] slew a brutal town-marshal who had already killed two men, and who was in the habit of asserting his importance by beating people whom he would arrest on their heads with his pistol. That the said marshal was an ignorant, illiterate, cruel town-bully and he had an old grudge against the young man’s brother. That the marshal and the brother were disputing, the marshal cursing the brother, when Ollie came up. That there was at once a heat of blood affray between them, the marshal leading the attack and firing the first shot, when a shot was fired, presumably by Ollie, which killed the marshal. The officer was not attempting an arrest nor any other official act when the fight occurred.”
Unless we can read the testimony given in the actual trial, this is the best picture we have of the events that transpired 143 years ago this month. While the Brown family and their friends painted Ollie and Preston’s acts as a street fight and/or self-defense, it should be noted that none of the bullets harmed the Brown brothers. George Freeman was shot three times, twice in the chest – one of those coming from behind – and once in the wrist.
In the end, the petitions and letters were successful: Gov. Knott issued a pardon for Ollie D. Brown on April 1, 1886.
Should you visit the Versailles Cemetery, George Freeman’s gravestone can still be found and reads: “He fell by the hand of violence while in the discharge of his duty as a Policeman of the Town of Versailles. This stone is erected by his friends as a token of the esteem in which he was held as a fearless, faithful, and efficient officer of the law.”
Cheri Daniels is the local historian at the Woodford County Library, and can be found in the History Room sharing her love of research, genealogy and history. Cheri writes a quarterly article for the Sun using her skills and experience to shine light on Woodford County’s history.