NET S. ANDREWS.

Outlaw.

Arkansas City Traveler, December 3, 1884.

As was mentioned in our columns some weeks ago, a new town by the name of Ashland was started in Clarke County by a stock company composed principally of Winfield men. Capt. Nipp was one of the incorporators. The principle of prohibition underlaid the whole foundation. No liquor could be sold or drank in the townsite on pain of forfeiture of property in which offense was committed. Ashland was just 2½ miles from Clay City, a new town started some months before Ashland. As soon as Ashland was incorporated, on account of its superior location, the majority of Clarke City’s inhabitants moved down. This created excessively hard feeling toward the leaders in the new town. Especially did the cowboys feel aggrieved as they could get no “bitters” there. This state of things has been growing for some time. It culminated last Saturday night in the cowboys taking the town; riding up and down the street, firing revolvers, shooting at everyone in sight, breaking windows, and raising Hades generally. During the melee one man had his ear shot off and a servant girl was seriously, if not fatally, wounded. The cowboys finally withdrew to Clarke City to load up with bad whiskey and hell’s fire. All was comparatively quiet next day. Just after dusk on Monday, Mr. Adams, a nephew of J. B. Nipp, and Mr. Boggs, a relative of Adams, were walking down the main street when suddenly two cowboys sprang from a ditch facing them and fired. Adams fell at the first shot, and before Boggs could move, he also was shot down in cold blood.

The citizens turned out en masse in pursuit and after an exciting chase one man, or fiend, whose name is unknown, was captured and preparations were made to string him up. Just before he was strung up he asked permission to confess. His confession amounted to this. He and Andrews were hired by Clarke City men to “clean out” Ashland and especially to kill Adams, Boggs, Bullene, and Hall. After his confession he died game, with a curse on his lips against the “damned Prohibitionists.”

By some means or other Major Bullene heard of the attempt to be made on their lives, and accompanied by Spencer Miner, he fled on foot east along the state road, never stopping until he had covered eighteen miles of prairie.

The other man, Andrews, succeeded in escaping, and a large reward is offered for his capture.

Winfield Courier, December 4, 1884.

Last Thursday Joseph Mitchell and Net S. Andrews, two cowboys, rode into the village of Ashland, in Ford County, about fifty miles from Dodge City, and in a drunken spree killed two men and wounded one woman. The sheriff of Dodge City left immediately for there and on his arrival captured Mitchell, the other getting away. A mob took the prisoner away from the sheriff and hung him.

Note: The above items are all that the newspapers in Cowley County covered relative to Net S. Andrews, outlaw, who apparently got away.