Weekly Graphic

The Mason-Forsythe Shooting Scrape at Milan.
A Detailed Account of the Affair by an Eye Witness.
(Special to the Graphic.)
About six o'clock Friday evening Ed. Forsythe entered Tom Turner's saloon, on the east side of the square: he walked up to the bar and called for drinks for three. Ed. Turner, bar tender, gave them to him. He then turned around to look for a book to settle some business with one of the parties that had drank. Forsythe again called for liquor. Buck Mason, one of the proprietors of the house, was writing at the head of the bar. Forsythe asked him if he had no bar-tender, telling him he had called for drinks and didn't get them. Mason said: "Ed. what will you have:" He replied. "I have called and didn't get it; if you don't want to give me anything you can go to h-l!" Mason said, "Ed. you can have anything you want; tell me what you want." Forsythe then said. "Buck, you can give me anything I haven't got: I can match anything you can show up," and put his hand on his hip pocket. Mason said. "Ed. you don't want to fight me: you are drinking, you are foolish. I have nothing against you." Forsythe replied. "Buck, I can whip you, you d-d son-of-a-b-h, you bastard." Mason said. "Ed. if you will lay down your revolver, your knife and coat I will whip you in a fair fight." Forsythe replied. "I will."

Mason pulled his coat and started to go from behind the bar, but just as he laid his hand on the gate to get from behind the bar, Forsythe struck a powerful blow, which he knocked off with left hand and struck Forsythe in the face with his right. Forsythe then clinched him and they fell behind the bar, Mason on top. Here Mason held him for some fifteen minutes, telling him as many as three times. "Ed. behave yourself: I don't want to hurt you." Forsythe kept saying. "I will get out of this, you can't keep me here." Finally Mason said to his bar tender who had stood and looked on and seen fair play all the time, to put him out, as he didn't want to hurt him. Forsythe grabbed the cloth on the back of the bar and jerked down about $5 worth of bar fixtures and ornaments which made a terrible crash on the floor. Forsythe and Mason then walked out into the middle of the house, and Forsythe again jumped on him. They clinched and fell with Mason on top. Forsythe got his finger into Mason's right eye, and his thumb on the same hand in his mouth, which seemed to be the main holds. They fought for some 10 minutes, when Squire Witter ordered Mason taken off. Everybody tried to quiet Forsythe, but he only charged around the house and got a chair. Mason went behind the bar and put a revolver in his pocket just as the marshal came in: seeing Forsythe charging around he ordered him to stop: he said he wouldn't be arrested. The marshal called assistance and took him out, when Granison Payne came up and said to let him go home, and he would see that it was all right. Mr. Payne let him go, not knowing that he had been fighting Mason. Forsythe then went to Hart's hardware store and called for a revolver: they did not want to let him have it, but he said. "I must have it: I am sober, and don't want to hurt anybody." took it and went outside, but went back and got a box of cartridges. He next came into the saloon again, came up to the bar with a laugh on his face and asked Mason from behind the bar, he came out and Forsythe then asked him to come outside and talk the thing over, telling other parties to stand back. Mason said. "Ed. come around in the morning and I will talk it over with you, but not now." Several parties said. "Don't go, Buck: he wants to hurt you." Tom Turner and several other parties tried to quiet him. He replied. "Tom Turner, what do you want? Go away: I will shoot you if you want any of this." Upon the approach of squire Witters, he said: "Keep back, Squire, for fear I might make a mistake and get you first." He then had his back to the wall and had the crowd and Mason covered with his cocked revolver. The marshal and sheriff, Nove Winters, told him to stop, and tried to get up to him, but he said. "keep back, stay away, Nove Winters, and I will make you a present of this revolver: don't put your hands in your pocket twice." Mason made a move to put his hand in his pocket, but Forsythe made him take it out; he then slapped him in the face with his left hand, and called him a son-of-a-b-h, keeping him covered with his revolver in his right hand. Somehow Mason managed to get back some 10 or 15 feet from him. Just then he saw the marshal at the back door, and said: "You can't come that on me," and made a dash on Mason, who had got his hand on his revolver. He brought his revolver down on Mason, who knocked it up as it went off, the ball striking him over the temple and eye, at the same time Mason and the marshal shot him in the ribs and arm. He made for the door and was shot three times more as he went. He fell dead on the side walk just outside the door. About 20 persons were in the house at the beginning of the fight, who saw it all. There must have been between 50 and 75 persons in the house at the time the shooting commenced, who ran helter skelter for life, and strange to say, the shooting was done so close that no one was hurt but the parties engaged.