Norfolk Virginian, June 30, 1889

PUNGOTEAGUE STIRRED UP.

African-Americans -- Racial violence

A Conflict Imminent Between the Whites and Blacks.

[Special Dispatch to The Virginian.]

ONANCOCK, Va., (via Tasley), June 29. The citizens of Pungoteague and vicinity are considerably stirred up over a row which occurred at that place several nights ago between a party of blacks and whites, and serious trouble may yet ensue.

On last Saturday night a gang of negro employes of the American Fish Guano Company, of Hoffman's Wharf, went to Pungoteague and got full of bad whiskey. During the course of the night Sam Bayly, a burly young negro, insulted a white man named Hancock, who was unarmed. Several of the gang returned Sunday heavily armed, and the citizens of the town upon learning it, armed themselves and started out to look for them, determined to make the negroes leave.

Upon learning of this move the negroes beat a hasty retreat, but returned again that night reinforced and camped on the outskirts of Pungoteague. They fired several times into the heart of the town. One ball came near hitting L. A. Ames, a prominent merchant. The entire white population are armed, as are the negroes, and bloodshed is imminent, should the negroes return.