Deputy Sheriff Joel Martin Wright Part 2

What I learned about the killing of Joel Martin Wright was from the website, Officer Down.  I got an email from cousin Lois today.  In it she wrote notes from a conversation she and her brother, Orville, and cousin Nadina Osborne had at the home of Henry & Nellie Slater Wright.  Dixie Wright dropped by and told the following about the death of her father, Joel Martin Wright.


"My daddy was Mart Wright. He was a brother to Henry's daddy, "Broad Sam" Wright. We had an uncle named George Wright and John Wright. He used to be a policeman over at Jenkins. My mother was a Killen, daughter of Morgan Killen. I was born 1907 and was eight years when my daddy was killed. My mother had it pretty tough. We lived at No.2 Bottom Mining Camp. Luther Wright, my first cousin worked in the mines and stayed with us and kept us going for awhile. I had one brother, Elmer, and two sisters, Golda and Maggie. I was the oldest girl and brother was two years older than me. All are dead now. My daddy Mart and the KKK and Devil John never liked each other.





"Charley Hazen, who had a store over at Neon. He's the one my father had a fight with, and my father hit him over the head with a 38 special with a pearl handle. It flew out of his hand and his daughter, Mary Hazen, got it and shot my daddy through the shoulder and it went down and cut his spine in two. He just lived about 17 days after that. They couldn't do anything for him. He was shot by Mary Hazen. The girl was underage, around 12 or 13. I used to play with her and dearly loved her. I didn't play with her after that."


Thank you again, Lois.