The Manic Minister

 

In December of 1899, Methodist Circuit Preacher, Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway had come home to Pickens, S.C. for Christmas but by the 29^th had to bury Bowman, his 11-year-old son. A previous stint in the state mental hospital for both he and his wife did not adequality prepare them to cope with the loss of a child.  

In early January, he was in a frenzy at home. He decapitated the family dog with an ax, and then began to destroy the furniture. He grabbed his wife, Belle pulling the clothes around her neck with his teeth in an attempt to strangle her. Belle cried out for their daughter, Janie, who grabbed a knife. Belle screamed for her daughter to stab father before he kills me and “all of you”. Janie merely cut away the clothes, but the reverend was dead.

Belle testified that she had strangled her husband, but Coroner Jones of Pickens County, found that Rev. Attaway died of heart failure induced by “a violent attack of insanity”.

Belle was recommitted to the mental hospital for a short time before resuming a quiet life as a widow in Pickens. She died in 1955 from pneumonia and was buried next to her husband at Sunrise Cemetery.

 

Sources:

“Said She Choked Him to Death”, The Watchman and Southron, Sumter, South Carolina, 17 Jan 1900, newspapers.com, accessed: 19 August 2021

South Carolina, U.S. Death Records, 1821-1969, entry for Belle Harris Attaway, Ancestry.com

Find A Grave Index, entry for Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway, findagrave.com