Deputy City Marshal Samuel N. Combs

Samuel N. Combs

A hotel manager had been suffering thefts of linen for two weeks and was watching for suspects around midnight. He called Deputy City Marshal Ben Stokes to arrest two men. Stokes arrested one man and asked Deputy City Marshal Sam Combs to assist him in locating the second man. While searching a neighborhood, they saw a man escorting a woman to her house and walking away. Stokes was tying up his horse as Combs approached the man and asked his identity. The man pulled a large knife and slashed Combs across the throat nearly severing his head. Combs fell the pavement and died. The man fled but a posse later surrounded his house. As Stokes attempted to arrest the man, he allegedly made a movement as if to obtain a weapon and Stokes shot him in the neck. The man survived and denied his guilt, but officers found a large knife with blood on it in his overcoat. Jackson White was tried twice. The first trial ended in a mistrial and he was convicted and sentenced to death in the second trial. No record if White was ever executed.

Sam Combs was born about 1872 in Kentucky and had moved to Orange several years earlier. He was single and was survived by three sisters. He was a painter and worked part time for the police department. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery but no records exist today as to his gravesite.